29.05.2020 – Special Report. The short news service Twitter has let itself be hitched to the Democrats’ wagon. And tweeted two tweets from US President Donald Trump with the shameful title of an alleged fact-check. Now Twitter is losing immunity privileges and has to be treated like a publisher. We explain what that could mean for the stock market.
Social media versus the president
Epochal culture war in the USA: an elected president takes a stand against self-appointed leftist guardians of virtue. For the first time, the short news service Twitter subjected tweets of the president to an alleged fact check. The result: negative, of course.
Executive Order from Trump
And now the receipt followed: yesterday evening Trump signed an executive order to remove the so-called “liability shield” that social media platforms enjoy. Known as “Section 230” of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the order states that online services will not be held liable for content published by users, such as comments and videos. Trump complained that the social media companies have created a virtual monopoly and unlimited power to influence national conversation. This censorship is a threat to freedom.
One million phantom voters in California
Twitter, of all people, had asked the Democratic home and court media – CNN and the “Washington Post” – to do a fact check. It was clear that they were not interested in objective news. The only thing that is vulnerable, however, is the Twitter statement from Trump, the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, sending ballots to everyone. But this is a circumstantial supposition. Because the Election Integrity Project, California has warned that 13 counties in California have more registered voters than residents – in total there are about 1 million phantom voters. So California really does seem to be a paradise for voter fraud
In essence, Trump is right when he says that postal voting promotes electoral fraud. This is particularly well documented by the story of a woman who had a ballot paper sent to her on a trial basis under the name of the long-dead German philosopher Hannah Arendt.
Postal voting encourages electoral fraud
In addition, a non-partisan commission under former President Jimmy Carter (Democrat) and former Secretary of State James Baker III. (Republican) has found that “Mail in Voting” does indeed increase the risk of fraud. Even the left-wing “New York Times” (NYT) stated in 2012 that mail-in voting would lead to electoral fraud.
The NYT also stated in April 2020 that the postal vote had indeed tipped the scales in favour of the Democrats in the election for a seat on the Supreme Court in the state of Wisconsin.
Impending target price zero for Twitter
Classification for the stock exchange: As a private company, Twitter has every right to censor opinions on its platform or to have them commented on by one-sided editors. But then the company must submit to the rules of publishers. Ultimately, the Twitter service is now responsible for hate and racism on its channels. This could result in immense personnel costs, a flood of lawsuits and, in the worst case, closure by the US authorities. We are curious whether Twitter will survive the opening of the Pandora’s box.
Bullish factor for Wall Street
With its label, Twitter has also confirmed the Republicans’ mantra that Silicon Valley and the media are pathologically anti-conservative. After this whole affair, many investors ask themselves why the Dems want as much mail voting as possible – is this a scam? The opinion moguls have thus further lost credibility. What Trump strengthens. The stock market is pleased about this, because the office-holder stands for low taxes and protects the American economy from Chinese dumping – and wants corona loosening as quickly as possible. Even though opinion polls across the country are currently pro Joe Biden, battle-hardened political observers know what to make of it – Hillary Clinton was 12 percentage points ahead of Trump two weeks before the election.
Fight against the oligarchs from Silicon Valley
Another stock market factor: corporations that have so far closely aligned themselves with the Democrats – Microsoft and Amazon, for example, are threatened with disintegration due to monopoly power. The top stocks of the past weeks were exactly these crisis winners FAANG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google (= alphabet). They were the pillars on which the S&P 500 rests.
And now the big restriction: If the whole case disappears into thin air, if Twitter and co. behave well in the future or if Trump’s executive order degenerates into an endless lawsuit, then nothing will happen on the stock exchange.
The Bernstein Bank wishes successful trades and good investments!
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