Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) stock fell on Friday, closing down 1.61% at $51.38. On the same day, the company headed by CEO Jack Dorsey permanently suspended the Twitter account of the outgoing President Donald Trump. Also, many of Trumps’ supporters also had their accounts suspended whilst hundreds of conservative accounts have claimed massive follower drops overnight.
As well as President Donald Trump’s account, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell all disappeared off Twitter as part of a purge of QAnon accounts following the incident at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
Twitter, founded in 2006 with nearly 5000 employees worldwide said in an email statement Friday:
“Given the renewed potential for violence surrounding this type of behavior in the coming days, we will permanently suspend accounts that are solely dedicated to sharing QAnon content.”
Interestingly, whilst Trump was suspended with a matter of minutes. Twitter saw fit to leave this tweet praising interning people in concentration camps for a number of days despite international outcry.
The post was removed but the account, along with the Iranian leader, who has called for violence against Israel and the West numerous times, still stands on Twitter spewing its propaganda and dangerous misinformation.
Troubled Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR)
The latest drama from Twitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) follows a very disappointing third quarter.
In Q3, Twitter added only 1 million monetizable daily active users (mDAU) which missed estimates for a 9 million gain (187 million vs 195 million estimate).
Recently, Citi stated it expects mDAUs for Twitter to trend lower following the US election. It also stated that Twitter would easily miss estimates for a 7 million gain as in the last quarter.
Whether the latest act of ‘big tech’ taking control signals the end of Twitter remains to be seen. Many people feel disenfranchised by Twitter’s actions and already free speech app Parler had 10 million users and 4 million active users.
