Twitter stock plunges as conservatives purged

Twitter stock plunges as conservatives purged

Social-networking site accused of serious bias

Published: 21 hours ago

The social networking giant Twitter is facing serious problems as it is reporting disappointing earnings to stockholders even as it struggles to grow, or even maintain, its user base.

In the latest quarter, its cash flow estimate was cut by $80 million, leading to another plunge in the stock price.
The stock has lost almost half its value over the last year, with the price dipping so low there is open speculation it could be the target of a takeover.
Last week, the stock declined by more than 9 percent. It’s the continuation of a disastrous long-term trend, with the social-networking giant underperforming the S&P 500. Over 2016, the stock price has declined more than 25 percent.
The collapse comes as Twitter is more and more openly aligning with left-wing political views under the leadership of CEO Jack Dorsey.
Dorsey is linked to well-known Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson, as the two have a close personal and professional relationship.
McKesson was designated one of the 20 beta testers for the live-streaming service Periscope, now owned by Twitter. Twitter also donated to McKesson’s unsuccessful run for mayor of Baltimore. And Twitter has put its weight behind the Black Lives Matter movement by giving the movement’s hashtag an official emoji.
At the same time, Twitter has been accused by Breitbart and other conservative outlets of censoring conservatives and Donald Trump supporters without cause or explanation.
Well-known journalist and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who was recently banned by Twitter, told WND’s Jerome Corsi Twitter’s bias is now undeniable.
“With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives,” he said. “Like all acts of the totalitarian left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot.”
Phil Elmore, a WND columnist, argues Twitter is systematically discriminating against conservatives. Not surprisingly, Elmore believes conservatives are simply leaving the platform.
“It’s so bad that conservatives are leaving Twitter preemptively simply because they’re disgusted at the mistreatment they’ll face,” he told WND. “Take a look at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s feed sometime. It’s nothing but wall-to-wall hard-left ideology, as well as him fawning over Black Lives Matter and the thugs who lead it. When that’s the guy in charge, and the platform has a history of enforcing a double standard where liberals and conservatives are concerned, there’s little doubt in any rational person’s mind.”
In February, Twitter unveiled a “Trust & Safety Council” stacked with leftist activists to make sure “people feel safe expressing themselves on Twitter.”
Elmore said what has actually been created is a double standard that discriminates against conservatives.
“This isn’t a theory; it’s a proven fact,” he said. “Twitter bans conservatives for saying, verbatim, the same things liberals are allowed to say without consequences. The enforcement of its rules is completely subjective. On Twitter, ‘harassment’ and ‘abuse’ can be defined as expressing any opinion a liberal doesn’t like, up to and including simply winning an argument with someone on the political left.”
The ostensible cause for banning Yiannopoulos was a negative review of the feminist-friendly remake of Ghostbusters and an online confrontation with actress Leslie Jones.
Jones alleged she was the victim of abuse. However, Jones has a record of racially insensitive tweets and once directly urged her followers to spam a user with whom she was arguing. Far from being punished, she was urged by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to directly message following her interaction with Yiannopoulos.
However, this attempt to create a kind of “safe space” for liberals and celebrities could be backfiring on the company. Twitter is struggling to attract active users compared to competitors like Facebook and Instagram. Even Pokémon Go now has a greater number of active users.
As a result, some analysts are suggesting it is time to dump the stock, as Twitter is failing to draw the kinds of subscribers it needs to keep its model viable.
“Twitter is definitely sabotaging its business model by discriminating against half of its users,” said Elmore. “The only way that Twitter makes money is through advertising. If you exclude a huge portion of the people who might be paying to promote tweets, products, and services, and if you make it clear that a valuable Twitter account with thousands of followers can be suspended for almost no reason, then there’s no reason for any conservative or libertarian to invest the considerable time it takes to build a Twitter following.
“Twitter is working to cut its own financial throat because Jack Dorsey hates conservatives – and appointing a ‘Trust and Safety Council’ to hold way over who stays and who goes, a council made up exclusively of brittle, defensive liberals who hate free speech, was the last nail in the coffin of freedom of speech on Twitter.”
Elmore suggests the repression of conservatives on Twitter is a warning sign leftists intend to permanently drive the right wing of America out of the culture and cut off its access to mass media and social networking sites.
“Conservatives are already being pushed off social media,” he said. “The major social media platforms are run by liberals like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. A few years ago, there was an attempt to start a conservative-friendly social media platform, but liberals swarmed it and it simply didn’t take off.
“If the major social platforms on the Internet were run with an iron fist by conservatives, and any liberal who spoke his mind was summarily banned, there would be an endless string of articles decrying this unfairness – and this lack of equal public access to the marketplace. But because liberals hate freedom of speech, nobody cares when the liberals run off the conservatives. In popular culture, conservative thought is being relegated falsely to the realm of ‘hate’ and ‘harassment’ simply because liberals disagree. They’re marginalizing us and turning us into second-class citizens. Social media is a symptom of the larger problem in our culture. And it’s only going to get worse as long as Democrats dominate our government.”
http://www.wnd.com/2016/08/twitter-stock-plunges-as-conservatives-purged/
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