Platform Cooperativism Resource Library

Summary

Twitter is struggling to make it as an independent business, unable to increase revenues or expand its audience as quickly as Wall Street would like. So, in recent weeks, it tried selling itself. But no one wanted to buy—not Google or Salesforce or Disney or Microsoft. These big corporate names, it seems, aren’t interested in the way Twitter promotes hate speech and harassment, or they don’t see a good way of realizing big profits from the company—or both.

At this point, the future looks pretty bleak for Twitter. But like millions of other hardcore Twitterers, Schneider—a scholar-in-residence at the University of Colorado Boulder who focuses on media—doesn’t want the service to die. And he doesn’t want it to change too much, either. So, he thinks that Twitter should sell itself to people like him. He thinks Twitter should be run by its fans—much like the Green Bay Packers.

Added January 29, 2021