Twitter shares fell by as much as 10% on Monday during premarket trading after banning US President Donald Trump from the platform on Friday evening. Since then, the shares have shown signs of recovery as the price rose by a fair amount and as of the time of writing this report, the fall has been reduced to 7.42%.
While the share prices show a declining trend over the past few months, the fall on Monday could not be missed. The fall was steep.
The downward slump, in fact, started on the 5th of January before the steep fall on Monday.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter had said.
Leaders across the world are condemning the manner in which Trump’s account was suspended by the platform. The spokesperson of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the leader considers the decision “problematic”.
The fundamental right to freedom of opinion, according to spokesperson Steffen Seibert, “can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms.” “Seen from this angle, the chancellor considers it problematic that the accounts of the U.S. president have now been permanently blocked.”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leans towards the Left himself, said, “How can you censor someone? Let’s see, I, as the judge of the Holy Inquisition, will punish you because I think what you’re saying is harmful? Where is the law, where is the regulation, what are the norms? This is an issue of government. This is not an issue for private companies.”
Elected representatives in India as well have condemned the censorship by Big Tech. BJP MP Tejasvi Surya has called for regulations in light of the incident. There is growing consensus across the board that censorship has gone way too far in light of recent events.