Buy Twitter, or Bye Bye Twitter

Ed Mayo, Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, author of "Values" and an advisor to the We Own It campaign, explains the #BuyTwitter campaign, and why it isn't over.

The future of one of the world’s leading social networks has been the subject of speculation for over a year. Twitter’s viability as a business depends on finding new income streams from its users, yet its users look for a clean service with minimal advertising.

There has been a worldwide #BuyTwitter campaign leading to a formal resolution at the AGM to explore turning Twitter into a co-operative, owned by its users. The campaign was kicked off by an article by Nathan Schneider, advocate for a new generation of platform co-ops online, in the Guardian in an op-ed.

I signed up early on myself, and in the run up to the AGM, Co-operatives UK completed market research for the AGM which shows that two million active UK Twitter users would invest in Twitter if it became user owned. That translates into fourteen million potential user investors worldwide.

The proposal for the AGM – on https://www.buytwitter.org/proposal/ – was eminently reasonable. Developed by James McRitchie, expert in Corporate Governance at http://CorpGov.net  it asked the Board to explore the option, not to do it overnight – options are set out on the campaign website – buytwitter.org/thiscouldwork.

The vote in favour was 4%, including a swathe of the smaller individual shareholders, whereas the big guns voted against, on the advice of the Board.

That was the first statistic that mattered, because below 3% and the Board could block the resolution coming forward again. With 4%, that option is now open.

The second statistic that counts is the number of Twitter users that would consider investing in the service if it were run co-operatively – 14%.

The campaign has helped to educated thousands and thousands of Twitter users about the possibilities of co-operative models. Charles Gould, Director General of the International Co-operative Alliance, said the same to me – we should not let it go at this point, but build on this.

Twitter is one of a new generation of businesses which do something that goes beyond the market. What future do we want for it? Do we want to try to find ways monetise Twitter in order to provide a return for shareholders? Or do we want to find a way to preserve what its users love?

For now, the Board is holding on to Plan A for Twitter. But with confidence in digital advertising waning, if the share price dissolves as confidence dissolves, Plan A may not last for long.

4% and 14%. Can we hope? Yes.

Can we get to 50%? It is possible.

This is a campaign for our future.