by Mike__O
Nobody knows for sure, but it really looks like there’s some serious house-cleaning going on at Twitter right now. Documents are hitting the shredder as fast as that thing can eat (or the digital equivalent thereof).
Lots of reports over the past few days of blue check lefties losing thousands, or tens of thousands of followers overnight, while people on the right like Don Jr are mysteriously gaining thousands. This has led to speculation that Twitter was internally running botnets to artificially inflate follower numbers on the left, while simultaneously shadow-banning figures on the right.
This is potentially a BIG DEAL, like “go to jail” kind of big deal. If Twitter was cooking the books and artificially inflating user numbers on the left that may mean that they were misrepresenting the potential reach of their platform to their real customers (advertisers). Furthermore, if they were shadow-banning attractive figures on the right who could have brought in more users that may be a breach of their fiduciary duty and get the SEC involved.
So how does this affect Facebook? Well, Facebook may be doing the exact same thing. If the lid blows off Twitter, shareholders at Facebook might start asking questions. Growth at Facebook has been relatively flat over the past few years, especially in the US. If shareholders catch wind that there may be fraud and shenanigans at play, they could come after Facebook.
I think things are going to get REALLY interesting over the next few months.