Big Tech, so long the natural bedfellow of Planet Woke may just be starting to see the impact of its commitment "to the cause" through a, let's be generous, "correction" in their stock market capitalisation (numbers of shares in issue x cost per share).
The mighty Apple, the nerve centre of Silicon Valley wokeism became the first company in history to achieve a $3Trn market capitalisation in late 2021. It is currently down just under 12% at $2.65Trn. Still a very fat goose and definitely not a turkey.
Microsoft has seen a similar fall, just over 11% in the last month, to stand at a $2.22Trn market capitalisation. Anything to do with the latest iteration of "Word" (or should that be "Woke") which nudges the writer if it feels their use of language may not be appropriate for 2022, even in Gatesland.
Netflix's share price collapsed on Friday 21st January 2022, enduring a single day fall of just under 22% as it disappointed the market by adding subscribers at below forecast expectations.
The current market capitalisation of just over $176Bn is off a whopping 43% against its 12 month high and the share price has fallen by 35% in the past month.
As a subscriber, I have seen a marked uptick in overt woke nudges in Netflix content, not least around documentaries where the same members of the leftist establishment are behind the camera. Might there be a link to a drop off in new subscribers or is it really just a "return to normal" as pandemic turns endemic? Time will tell.
The long term collapse in Twitter's market capitalisation has been exacerbated by the departure of founder, Jack Dorsey. The share price has fallen by 49.95% in the last 6 months giving a market capitalisation of just $27.84Bn. At this level, new CEO, Parag Agarwal should expect a hostile takeover bid to hit his desk at any time.
Twitter faces an existential crisis. Users are predominantly left leaning and the platform, once the bastion of free speech, has not only cancelled a number of high profile users but almost delighted in doing so. Their crime? Non-compliance with an increasingly narrow, leftist world view.
Twitter's stance on users' defiance of COVID-19 "orthodoxy" and any mention of the National Institute of Virology in Wuhan being the source of the pandemic is draconian. It is descending into a leftist echo chamber that demands compliance through digital authoritarianism without appeal.
With viable alternatives springing up that those who do not wish to subscribe to Twitter's groupthink world view may join without fear of cancellation or censorship, this bird's tail spin, largely of it's own making, may prove impossible to pull out of without it being absorbed into a much larger nest. Watch this space.
