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Wed 14 Dec 2016 5:26AM

#WeOwnTwitter: shareholder event Wednesday, and more

DS Danny Spitzberg Public Seen by 98

30sec version~~~

I wrote about the #BuyTwitter campaign, the turning point on Friday, and a path forward. Read the event description at https://www.facebook.com/events/126476194510597/ (it has a link to the article I wrote). I'll setup a remote participation. RSVP and invite your Bay Area friends to that event!

5min version~~~~~

Hi all,

Proposal in-the-making: organizing shareholders and rally at the next shareholder meeting.

Why?

To start, I am filled with so much joy this week! The #BuyTwitter campaign has become a real thing, now that dozens of people are referencing it whenever a popular person proposes some kind of action (e.g., "@xyz, you should check out #BuyTwitter!").

There's more, of course Apologies for taking a week to get this message together, but rather than jot down a plan, I took time to check in with organizers and campaigns I knew who have succeeded in similar efforts.

Now, here's a fact: our original goal was NOT to "buy Twitter" outright. It was to influence Twitter, Inc. so it would make real steps towards a user-owned co-op.

We made some progress, and we learned a lot.

I see two dovetailing efforts going forward:
1 - Organize Twitter shareholders
2 - Connect with Twitter staff

A benefit of these efforts is we can channel interest into a purchasing co-op, whatever its vision and purpose.

We can use this thread to discuss the vision and find alignment.

Want more?

Below are details on what I see for those efforts, plus stories:

1 - Organize Twitter shareholders

Tomorrow in Oakland, I’m hosting a gathering about buying Twitter shares and organizing shareholders.

Why do this? It's been an idea ever since the original Action Network petition ("[_] I'm a Twitter shareholder, and I'm willing to commit my voting rights to this effort"). We got some 323 people who check that box!

Then, this morning, I talked with Sonja Trauss, a long-time activist in SF who has been pushing for more and better housing. Sonja also owns Twitter stock because Hey, we need get a seat at the table. She has also gone to Twitter shareholder meetings, too! She says only ≈40 people attend, it's easy to get items on the agenda, and Jack Dorsey and Ev Williams and many Twitter employees are all there. The next meeting some time in Spring 2017.

BOTTOM LINE: Jack has seriously considered ideas brought to him by shareholders. If we buy shares (at $19 eaach), we can do direct shareholder advocacy around making Twitter a user-owned co-op.

NEXT STEP: Check out https://www.facebook.com/events/126476194510597/ and invite your Bay Area friends!

2 - Connect with Twitter staff

It's been slow going finding Twitter staff who have enough sway to help the petition get delivered. After finding 6 promising contacts, 0 have stepped up.

Yesterday, I talked via email with my pal Bhavik, a digital organizer with jhatkaa.org. He recently got Unilever to pay compensation to 500 mercury-poisoned factory workers in India.

Here's what Bhavik says about bringing our petition directly to Twitter people:

"When I was at ColorOfChange, we worked with The RainbowPush Coalition to force Twitter and other tech companies to release their diversity data (see petition at https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/twitter_diversity/?sp_ref=49804219.176.8517.f.31583.2&referring_akid=.461502.j_OqLb&source=fb_sp). It worked. A key to our success was to have a robust inside game. We had people inside the company that we were having conversations with while ramping up outside pressure through petition signatures, tweets, media, etc. Essentially, for #BuyTwitter to happen, you need to convince someone (or some people) with the profile and power within Twitter to make it happen. I don't recall Twitter's corporate structure, but this would probably be some combination of Twitter's C-suite and Board. If you don't have an in, a great place to start is cold calls or by scheduling a petition delivery."

BOTTOM LINE: we need to deliver our petition signatures to Twitter HQ, and find a better way for people to engage (e.g., becoming shareholders and/or joining a purchasing co-op : ).

NEXT STEP: Change #WeAreTwitter #BuyTwitter to simply, "#WeOwnTwitter"

MB

Manuela Bosch Mon 19 Dec 2016 7:26PM

Pretty cool proposal you finally made. It is down to earth and includes a lot potential to fundamentally move things at the same time. I want to celebrate your work.
Was trying to buy stock, but I would have to have a US adress, which I don't and I did not find equivivalents to robinhood etc. in germany, where I am based.
That brings me also to the question of creating an asset acquisition co-op. @dannyspitzberg you are writing in your post "having a target in mind feels like an absolute necessity to get real, mobilize allies, and show something for our efforts." what do you mean by that? a target from whom regarding what?

MC

Matthew Cropp Mon 19 Dec 2016 7:22PM

@whit537 Distribution of power. Right now, your shareholding power is based on a $1/1 vote basis. In a co-op, it's 1 person, 1 vote, regardless of capital investment. Additionally, profits in a co-op are distributed on the basis of patronage/use rather than capital investment (with a limited carve-out for non-voting preferred stock).

This is a good overview of the key elements of the co-op difference: http://ica.coop/en/whats-co-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles

CW

Chad Whitacre Mon 19 Dec 2016 9:01PM

Sure, those are the formal differences. But how does it play out in the real world? How much do voting rights matter given the presence of significant informal power structures? Danny just did an end-run around voting structures by simply showing up at the meeting, for example.

What does a big co-op like REI feel like to an individual member? You'd probably have to be an "activist member" to get anything done over there as well. No?

MC

Matthew Cropp Mon 19 Dec 2016 9:09PM

@whit537 that's quite the rabbit hole; it very much depends on the age and stage of the co-op, and if the leadership sees internalizing social capital generation (which is what allows for effective membership) as something that requires investment. I've been involved in fights in co-ops with severely degenerated governance, and I know plenty of others that are doing it right, and experimenting with cool approaches.

One such approach I've been warming up to of late for larger co-ops: http://www.coopwatercooler.com/discussions//4m79q1m88fwktufew30pyeg3k4i9zh?rq=sortition

CW

Chad Whitacre Mon 19 Dec 2016 11:56PM

Alright, so sortition is no longer 1-member-1-vote, I'll note. And what about the profit-sharing piece? Aren't "shared by patronage/use" systems equally gameable by the rich to become richer? If I have $1,000,000 to spend at the co-op, and you only have $10 to spend, how is that functionally different than my having that capital to invest?

CW

Chad Whitacre Mon 19 Dec 2016 9:28PM

Sortition! We've been exploring random elements for Gratipay's governance, and now I know the name for it! Thank you! :D

MC

Matthew Cropp Tue 20 Dec 2016 1:39AM

Sortition can functionally maintain one member one vote, in that everyone's odds are the same.

On the patronage piece, the core idea is that the service is being delivered at cost. In the context of a consumer co-op, in which a higher total volume of business drives down the unit costs, the marginal gains by those buying $10 can be understood to received a greater proportional subsidy than the person spending $1MM gets from an extra $10 being added to the total scale of the purchase.

At the core of the idea is that capital beyond member equity is hired, vs. capital doing the hiring. This Swedish documentary (w/ english subtitles and some english interviews) unpacks the nature of this inversion of roles pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfaFriFAz1k

CW

Chad Whitacre Thu 22 Dec 2016 2:58PM

Dredging the YouTube comments turned up this version narrated in English (by a robot, I'm almost positive). I spot-checked a couple parts and it appears to be a valid re-narration.