By Lauren Hammond

Opinion/Copy Editor

Many students at CSUSM probably have a Twitter account, but likely are unaware of the company’s questionable history.

Twitter was first formed in 2006. Since its debut and coining of the legendary “Tweet,” the social networking site has seen a rapidly growing user base. As of late 2013, the company has been estimated to be worth 31 billion dollars.

Since its opening, Twitter headquarters has been located in San Francisco, CA. In 2011, the company was threatening to move locations but was offered a six-year payroll tax break to maintain its California residency. More recently, the city agreed to stop taxing Twitter stock options.  Calculations suggest that since the initiation of the company’s tax breaks, Twitter has saved over 50 million dollars.

Twitter currently resides in San Francisco’s Mid-Market area. Alongside the “Twitter Tax Break,” the city has also included tax incentives to any other companies that moved to Mid-Market, a previously undeveloped area, and has seen tremendous corporate growth.

Much of the money Twitter has saved due to tax incentives could have gone towards improving the city’s public transportation, health, education and more. Aside from major losses in city revenue, Twitter has had absolutely no involvement in giving back to, or investing in, its community. Twitter, along with fifteen other companies residing in the Mid-Market area, has also been affecting neighboring residential communities.

The technical industries within the Mid-Market area have aided in an increase of property value. With the high request for office space, many residential property owners have also been forced to sell, causing a large number of home evictions.

Several activist groups including South of Market Community Action Network, Senior and Disability Action, Eviction Free San Francisco and the San Francisco Housing Rights Committee have joined forces with local workers and residents to fight back. A number of protests have taken place outside of the Twitter headquarters and throughout the Mid-Market area to express outrage for the companies’ mistreatment.

It is important that social networking users understand the implications associated to their Twitter memberships. Until Twitter realizes the injustice of their actions, users are unconsciously participating in the corporate conglomerate’s misconduct of the general public. This is not an uncommon practice for multi-billion dollar corporations to take advantage of lower-income demographics. Although this does not directly affect CSUSM students, it does harm communities similar to ours and that is something to consider.