In a thread on the app on Tuesday, a day after Frank was supposed to launch for people worldwide, a wave of users who were eager to make profiles on the new website were once again left confused and frustrated by a lack of key functionality.
Lindell claimed on a livestream hosted on FrankSpeech.com that the account creation would start rolling out for users on Tuesday but did not provide an explicit reason for multiple delays. Telegram followers were again left in the dark.
“I’m in but [I] don’t see any place to post anything just Home, News, Podcast, TV and a couple other titles. So am I missing something?” one user wrote. Another user replied: “Same for me. I’m guessing that they are still working on the chat side of things?”
Prior to launch, Lindell spent weeks hyping up the platform as an ultra-secure hybrid of YouTube and Twitter that will protect the speech of those who sign up.
He said people would be able to create profiles and comment on the site’s content but has since suggested that could be delayed until after the two-day stream, dubbed a Frankathon. Lindell said phone numbers were needed to stop bots and trolls and that users would be onloaded in order of signup. He denied there were any issues.
Newsweek attempted to make two separate accounts on Tuesday, with both tries met with an error page and a Cloudflare warning that registration was offline. Some users reported a lack of account access despite registration appearing successful.
A teased “VIP access” that asked for fans to submit their phone numbers to get access to a code was initially supposed to take place last Thursday but failed to materialize. On Monday, Lindell blamed a “massive attack” as the platform suffered crashes.
On Telegram on Tuesday, some followers of Lindell’s verified channel urged others to be patient. For others, it seemed like that patience was beginning to wear thin.
“VIP access was a fail, site ‘go live’ was a fail,” one user, named Wade Nolen, said on Tuesday, adding: “May I suggest in the future not hyping things up so much. You said Frank would be secure, with private servers and be able to handle attacks and massive internet traffic. So far I have yet to see [Frank] work as it was hyped up to work.”
Another user, Elaine Forest, asserted the platform was “nothing like promised” as it was just filled with content from other news websites, videos and podcasts.
Forest continued in a Telegram thread on Tuesday: “There was no cyber attack, the site did not have the proper infrastructure to have the rollout it promised… the fact that Mike lied about the rollout makes me really question his veracity on the whole.”
Another Telegram user, Vicky Ann, wrote: “The site says Im logged in but I am not. Errors everywhere. Am I the only one?” A second user wrote: “Unable to register says invalid.” A third person had commented: “I signed up but redirects me to an error page.”
While some Lindell loyalists remained supportive of the platform, several of the Telegram users openly questioned the validity of the social media aspect of the project.
One user said: “I’ve been on Frank this morning and it does not seem to be interactive at all. It’s a collection of videos, podcasts, and interviews with no place to comment. Am I missing something? Another app user added: “I’m in. Looks like just a news site.”
