Technology giant Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR) has come under investor scrutiny in recent weeks over the company’s censorship procedures. This comes after the company tagged one of U.S. President Trump’s tweets for glorifying violence, spurring another Twitter battle with the U.S. Commander in Chief. Other large technology players such as Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) have come under similar scrutiny in the past, with specific attention paid to how advertisers can, and have, affected the political process in the past.
With the upcoming U.S. election looming, I expect we could see additional volatility with Twitter and its social media peers as regulators continue to assess the political ramifications of these platforms as potentially affecting the outcome of the election. That said, as I have commented on in the past, Twitter has recently become the platform of choice for many politicians and media outlets covering politics in the U.S. and Canada, and I have viewed this relationship broadly as a positive for the sector accordingly.
That said, calculating how aforementioned risk factors will impact the long-term growth of these platforms is an entirely specific exercise I have yet to do in detail.
Twitter’s stock price is one I view as too likely to be extremely volatile in the coming months – so much so, I’ve avoided this stock and will continue to do so this year. I would encourage long-term investors to continue to allocate the majority of portfolio positions to companies with defensive and stable business models and thereby limit their exposure to higher volatility names like Twitter.
Invest wisely, my friends.
Tech Insider
