Its stock battered, Twitter goes and censors another one

Does Twitter have any common sense?  With its stock tanking, you’d think it’d be on its best behavior.

Unfortunately, it’s quite the opposite.  Breitbart reports that the huge social media platform went and randomly banned another Republican, apparently for nothing more than being Republican:

Twitter banned the account of a pro-Trump grassroots campaign with 15 state field directors along with another prominent Trump supporter, failing to reinstate the accounts on the same day that the company came under fire from the president himself for discrimination against conservatives.

Eight days ago, Twitter banned the account of a pro-Trump grassroots organization called New Right US (@newrightus.)  Co-founded by political activist Mike Tokes, the account represented an organization that mobilizes Trump supporters around the country.

“We have over 15 state directors and a team of social media influencers throughout the country” said Tokes.  ”It wasn’t just some website with no action.  We were really expanding.”

The Republican group says it hasn’t been in trouble for violating rules and doesn’t know why this happened.  Breitbart tried to find out and came up empty.  What’s more, it seems to be a permanent ban.  So there it stands: a Republican with 10,000 followers has been shut down.

As if this doesn’t cost Twitter money, too, not to mention stock value.

Even as Wall Street analysts tut-tut growth and privacy concerns as its reasons for the Twitter stock meltdown – it lost about 20% on Friday – quite a few of us think arbitrary censorship has to be at least contributing to the company’s loss of investor confidence.  The persistent failure of the analytical community to bring this up rather reminds me of how the analysts refused to bring up the kneeling football player problem in its assessment of the falling financial fortunes of the NFL.  Nobody would ever say it, but as NFL executives eventually admitted, millionaire football players disrespecting the flag led to a lot of consumers tuning out of the football franchises.

Now we see that Twitter apparently hasn’t learned a thing and is carrying on as usual, banning conservatives from its platform for no apparent reason.  Normally, when a company is under fire, it’s on its toes, desperate to disabuse its investors of any notion that it might be doing something counterproductive.  Not Twitter.  That rather signals a leadership problem.

Are these guys going to learn?  Or is it going to take an even bigger stock drop?

Does Twitter have any common sense?  With its stock tanking, you’d think it’d be on its best behavior.

Unfortunately, it’s quite the opposite.  Breitbart reports that the huge social media platform went and randomly banned another Republican, apparently for nothing more than being Republican:

Twitter banned the account of a pro-Trump grassroots campaign with 15 state field directors along with another prominent Trump supporter, failing to reinstate the accounts on the same day that the company came under fire from the president himself for discrimination against conservatives.

Eight days ago, Twitter banned the account of a pro-Trump grassroots organization called New Right US (@newrightus.)  Co-founded by political activist Mike Tokes, the account represented an organization that mobilizes Trump supporters around the country.

“We have over 15 state directors and a team of social media influencers throughout the country” said Tokes.  ”It wasn’t just some website with no action.  We were really expanding.”

The Republican group says it hasn’t been in trouble for violating rules and doesn’t know why this happened.  Breitbart tried to find out and came up empty.  What’s more, it seems to be a permanent ban.  So there it stands: a Republican with 10,000 followers has been shut down.

As if this doesn’t cost Twitter money, too, not to mention stock value.

Even as Wall Street analysts tut-tut growth and privacy concerns as its reasons for the Twitter stock meltdown – it lost about 20% on Friday – quite a few of us think arbitrary censorship has to be at least contributing to the company’s loss of investor confidence.  The persistent failure of the analytical community to bring this up rather reminds me of how the analysts refused to bring up the kneeling football player problem in its assessment of the falling financial fortunes of the NFL.  Nobody would ever say it, but as NFL executives eventually admitted, millionaire football players disrespecting the flag led to a lot of consumers tuning out of the football franchises.

Now we see that Twitter apparently hasn’t learned a thing and is carrying on as usual, banning conservatives from its platform for no apparent reason.  Normally, when a company is under fire, it’s on its toes, desperate to disabuse its investors of any notion that it might be doing something counterproductive.  Not Twitter.  That rather signals a leadership problem.

Are these guys going to learn?  Or is it going to take an even bigger stock drop?