No co-op for Twitter

A proposal meant to push Twitter to explore the possibility of becoming a user-operated cooperative was met with staunch resistance at the company’s annual shareholder meeting Monday. But supporters of the measure still considered it a victory — however small.

Preliminary counts of Twitter investors’ ballots indicate that the proposal, which asked investors to back a study on how Twitter might allow its users to buy the company, indicate the measure failed to gain a majority of votes. This was expected.

What supporters were less sure about was whether the proposal could hit 3 percent, the threshold at which the measure would be allowed to be resubmitted next year.

The aptly hashtagged #BuyTwitter initiative got 4 percent of shareholder votes, according to Jim McRitchie, the shareholder advocate who got the measure on the ballot.

McRitchie said after the meeting that he had spoken with CEO Jack Dorsey and members of Twitter’s investor relations team about how to move forward with the initiative. Despite ardent opposition from Twitter’s board of directors, Dorsey on Monday seemed “interested” in learning more, McRitchie said.