Twitter Admits To Overstating Users

(RTTNews) - Twitter Inc. (TWTR), which has continued to struggle to attract new users, has admitted that it overstated its monthly active user numbers for years.

The company also said it has decided to ban advertising from Russia Today and Sputnik following allegations that the Russian media organizations tried to interfere with the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

The micro-blogging site said it discovered that since the fourth quarter of 2014, it has mistakenly included a segment of users from certain third-party applications as its own monthly active users or MAUs.

"These third-party applications used Digits, a software development kit of our now-divested Fabric platform, that allowed third-party applications to send authentication messages via SMS through our systems, which did not relate to activity on the Twitter platform," Twitter said Thursday, while reporting its third-quarter financial results.

As a result, Twitter has revised downwards the MAU figures for the previous three quarters by a total of five million.

However, Twitter also said it might report a profit in the upcoming fourth quarter.

Separately, Twitter said it has made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today or RT, and Sputnik, with immediate effect.

"This decision was based on the retrospective work we've been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government," the company said in a blog post.

In late September, Twitter said it proactively shared with committee staff a round-up of ads that three RT accounts - RT_com, RT_America, and ActualidadRT - targeted to the U.S. markets in 2016.

At that time, Twitter noted that RT spent $274,100 in U.S. ads in 2016 and promoted 1,823 Tweets that definitely or potentially targeted the U.S. market.

Twitter said it has decided to donate the $1.9 million that it projects to have earned from RT global advertising since 2011 to support external research into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections. This includes use of malicious automation and misinformation, with an initial focus on elections and automation.

"RT and Sputnik may remain organic users on our platform, in accordance with the Twitter Rules," the company said.