Bloomberg claims Disney abandoned their bid for Twitter due to “bullying and other uncivil forms of communication” on the social network, rather than the company’s overvaluation in light of declining users and revenue.
“Walt Disney Co. decided not to pursue a bid for Twitter Inc. partly out of concern that bullying and other uncivil forms of communication on the social media site might soil the company’s wholesome family image,” claimed Bloomberg, before admitting that there were also “other reasons.”
“There were other reasons for Disney not to pursue Twitter. The social media pioneer, creator of the 140-character tweet, is losing money and yet sports a market value of almost $12 billion,” explained Bloomberg. “That would be a big deal even for Disney, which has a market value 12 times that.”
“Some of Disney’s largest investors called the company over the past few weeks to express their displeasure with a Twitter purchase for those reasons, people close to the companies said,” the report continues.
Bloomberg concludes the report, however, by focusing on “criticism for [Twitter’s] hands-off approach to abuse and harassment on its service,” bemoaning the fact that users “don’t have to use their real names” and claiming “Disney’s discomfort with abuse on the site indicates that it’s a larger problem for Twitter’s business prospects than its executives imagined.”
Twitter’s stock crashed this month after all of the social network’s expected bidders, including Disney, pulled out of a potential purchase.
The social network’s stock value fell even lower after a “teen survey” also found no interest in the platform.
Despite Bloomberg’s claim that Disney pulled out of any potential deal due to concerns over “abuse and harassment,” Twitter has been heavily criticized over the past year for its increasing censorship, political bias, and attack on free speech, which has led to Breitbart Senior Editor Milo Yiannopoulos being permanently banned from the platform.
Meanwhile, Twitter has repeatedly failed to sanction Islamic extremists, violent Black Lives Matter activists, and sexual harassers, while even going as far as to block journalists who are critical of Turkish president Recep Erdogan at the country’s request.
Last week, a leaked memo showed that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who also sits on Disney’s board of directors, described the social network as the “people’s news network,” despite users hemorrhaging from the platform to more free speech friendly networks such as Gab. Dorsey is reported to have been “resistant to selling the company,” hoping that his “new live-video streaming strategy can help increase user growth” instead.
Breitbart News also reported today that Twitter’s Chinese Twitter clone Weibo had overtaken the social network in terms of market cap, coming in at $11.32 billion as opposed to Twitter’s $11.23 billion.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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