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Twitter, Facebook and other social-media stocks felt the heat as one analyst says the rules of online engagement are about to change.
Gabby Jones / Bloomberg
New investigations into social-media stocks on Monday for its role in last week’s deadly attack by supporters of President Donald Trump on the US Capitol as Congress was in the midst of authenticating Electoral College’s victory for President-elect Biden.
After months of years, pressure
Twitter
(Ticker: TWTR) on Friday finally suspended President Trump’s account, and removed all of his previous tweets citing concerns that incited violence.
Facebook
(FB) has suspended him from posting at the end of his term. During this,
Amazon.ComOf
(AMZN) Amazon Web Services or AWS on Sunday night suspended their relationship as the web host for the right-wing chat service Parler, which knocked on the Internet. Both
AlphabetOf
(GOOGL) Google and
Apple
(AAPL) had already removed the Parler app from the App Store. “This site cannot be accessed” error message when visiting parler.com.
Bernstein Internet analyst Mark Schmulik thinks that in 2021 Washington may have implications for companies.
“While the week will certainly be remembered for more shocking incidents, it is not up to us that we may be subjected to changes in the rules of the Internet in the long run,” a research paper on Monday reads.
Shamulik feels that potential regulatory activities are likely to pick up.
“We expect too much activity to focus on Section 230, although it misses in controversy,” he writes, citing a provision of federal law that allows online businesses to access content posted by users Prevents lawsuits.
But he notes that changing liability laws does not resolve what is material and is not allowed. “It’s telling that Facebook has been vocal about getting regulatory guidance here, going so far as to set up its own oversight board in the absence of formal regulation,” he says. “What we know is that Internet companies do not want to take this type of decision. Incremental moderation can be welcome but it is not cheap and can benefit Facebook which already employs a moderation army [that is about] 6 times larger than Twitter’s workforce. “
As to whether social-media companies have the right to block Trump or others from their platforms, their answer is that they certainly “can”.
“Private companies with clear terms and conditions can remove violators and suspend them, as they see fit,” he writes. “On the social-media front, detectors will point to free speech and moderation subjectivity – breaking these same terms and conditions is not difficult to find other social-media accounts — yet no other account has the rights (as That as President of the United States), nor the reach of Donald Trump (the 6 most followed accounts on Twitter).
As for the risks, he notes that there may be a slight user decline for Twitter, but adds that there may be other offsets on the advertising side. “A Trump ban could offer an incremental advertising revenue catalyst,” they write. “‘Trump’ is the second most blocked keyword by advertisers behind ‘Coronovirus’ …. Eliminate ‘Trump’ and have a more brand-safe list to go around.”
Evercore ISI analyst Benjamin Black reported in a research note on Monday that there are now new and more complex questions surrounding Internet regulation. For example, he asks if Jack Dorsey as CEO of Twitter should ban potentially dangerous groups, while Dorsey as CEO should provide paid services to the very same groups. “What we know for sure is that the answer is more about politics and philosophy than about economics,” Black writes.
Black poses more questions than answers – but the questions are interesting. For example, he asks whether social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet’s YouTube should be subject to different moderation responsibilities from infrastructure providers such as AWS, the App Store, and payment processors.
They also ask whether individual nation states are capable of operating social platforms, “abusing this right, giving the parties in power an incentive to pursue their political ambitions.” Black says that while the same issue has cropped up in other countries, “the spectacle of rioters in the US Capitol, as stated by a sitting US president, exposes the shortcomings of nation-led regulation.”
As for the ability to break tech giants, he notes those moves will have little to do with addressing the misuse of platforms. “For example, if Facebook and Instagram were separated, it would not reduce the rioters’ ability to organize,” he says. “Alternatively, if AWS and Amazon are separated, it will not reduce Amazon’s ability to prevent Parler from providing the infrastructure. In our view, this poses a significant challenge for regulators: the most frequently discussed solutions directly address key social issues. “
In Monday afternoon trading, Twitter bounced back from the previous drop of 10% to close at 6.4% to $ 48.18. Facebook fell 4% to $ 256.84, Alphabet stock was down 2.2% to $ 1,766.72 and Amazon stock fell 2.2% to $ 3,114.21.
Write Eric J. at [email protected] Savitz
.