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Twitter really wants you to know that everything will be fine after banning former President Donald Trump from the platform in January.
In its earnings report on Tuesday, the company provided a single disclosure about user growth in the current quarter, saying it saw above-average growth throughout the month despite “unusual circumstances”.
While Twitter did not explicitly state what these “unusual circumstances” were, it is not difficult to understand them. Twitter permanently banned Trump on Jan.8 after continuing to post messages encouraging and defending the riot on the U.S. Capitol on Jan.6. The company also permanently banned thousands of accounts linked to the Qanon movement at around the same time.
Twitter shares rose 13% on Wednesday morning.
The bans on Trump and Qanon on Twitter have raised concerns that the fate of the company is tied to Trump and his supporters and that the bans are hurting future growth. But the company took extra effort on Tuesday to show that Trump was not the only significant power user of the platform.
“We’re a platform that’s obviously much bigger than any topic or account,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said on Tuesday during the company’s earnings call.
He also pointed out the dozens of accounts that have millions of subscribers and that 80% of all users are outside of the United States.
“We have a global service. We don’t just depend on the news and politics that drive Twitter,” Dorsey said.
As for Trump’s return to Twitter one day, the company’s chief financial officer, Ned Segal, made it clear on Wednesday that this was not an option. Segal told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday that Trump would never be allowed to return to the site, even if he decided to run again.
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