Fans want Twitter to turn into user-led cooperative

New York: Twitter shareholders want to turn the micro-blogging site into a user-led cooperative, following a petition by a group of company fans urging it to sell itself to its users.

According to a report in the Independent on Monday, Twitter shareholders will hold a meeting in May and vote on the issue.

“Wall Street thinks the company is a failure because it’s not raking in enough profit for shareholders. That means that Twitter is up for sale, and there is a real risk that the new owner may ruin our beloved platform with a narrow pursuit of profit or political gains,” the petition, which has so far gathered nearly 3,500 signatures, said.

The petition wants the company to share its future with users whose participation makes it so valuable.

According to the report, if the proposal goes through, it would require Twitter to “prepare a report on the nature and feasibility of selling the platform to its users via a cooperative or similar structure with broad-based ownership and accountability mechanisms.”

However, Twitter’s board opposed the idea of selling the site to its users, arguing that “changing its structure would not be in the best interests of shareholders”.

The Twitter board also argues that as a publicly traded company, users are already free to become its stockholders.

“We believe that preparing a report on the nature and feasibility of selling the ‘platform’ and doing so only to ‘its users’ would be a misallocation of resources and a distraction to our board of directors and management,” the report quoted the company as saying in a proxy filing submitted last week.