Twitter’s stock took a beating on Monday after a report highlighted just how many accounts it has suspended to stave off bots and trolls.
The social media giant has purged more than 70 million accounts from its platform in May and June, according to the Washington Post.
Pressure has been mounting on the firm to address the spread of fake accounts, abuse and harassment of on its platform.
But the new data has raised concerns that its efforts to curtail bots and other malicious accounts may lead to a noticeable slump in user growth.
Twitter has purged more than 70 million accounts from its platform in May and June, as it works to stave off bots and trolls. But the data has raised concerns about slowing user growth
Shares of Twitter plummeted 5.4% to $44.14 on Monday, marking the stock’s worst one-day performance since March.
Among the data reported by the Post was that Twitter had shuttered more than 1 million accounts per day in recent months.
This likely worried investors who believed that the massive purge would lead to drop in the number of monthly average users on Twitter.
Ned Segal, Twitter’s chief financial officer, hit back on those claims on Monday, saying in a tweet: ‘Some clarifications: most accounts we remove are not included in our reported metrics as they have not been active on the platform for 30 days or more, or we catch them at sign up and they are never counted.’
‘If we removed 70M accounts from our reported metrics, you would hear directly from us’
‘This article reflects us getting better at improving the health of the service. Look forward to talking more on our earnings call July 27!,’ he added.
Twitter’s stock took a beating on Monday after the Washington Post published a report detailing the firm’s efforts to suspend accounts. Shares fell over 5% on Monday afternoon
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (pictured) and other top executives at the firm have pledged in recent months to crack down on fake accounts, as well as harassment and spam on the platform
Meanwhile, Twitter shares have enjoyed several well-performing months after the firm reported its second-straight profitable quarter in April, as well as better-than-expected growth of monthly active users.
It has taken wide-ranging steps to prevent bots, trolls and impersonators, such as deleting user accounts, introducing updates and actively monitoring content to help users avoid being a victim to fake content.
The moves are largely a response to the 2016 presidential election, during which propaganda and bots flooded the platform.
Twitter has been open but vague about its crackdown, an effort aimed at preventing the spread of fake news and making its service more welcoming for real people.
HOW DOES TWITTER TAKE ACTION AGAINST OFFENDING ACCOUNTS?
Twitter can go after offending accounts from the tweet-level, direct message-level and account-level, according to the company’s website.
The company said it will take action against accounts when their behavior violates ‘Twitter Rules’ or it may be in response to a ‘valid and properly scoped’ request from an ‘authorized entity in a given country’.
Twitter may instruct a user to delete a tweet that violates the site’s terms, hide a tweet as it ‘awaits its deletion’ or it may even make a tweet ‘less visible’ on the site by limiting how often it appears in search results, replies or timelines.
Twitter takes a variety of steps to prevent offending accounts from using the site. In the case of its latest purge, Twitter asked suspicious accounts to verify their phone number
The company can also stop users from direct messaging another user by removing the conversation from the user who reported the incidents’ inbox.
If a certain accounts violates Twitter’s policies, the company can make certain media unavailable, place an account in read-only mode, by removing their ability to post tweets, retweet, or like content ‘until calmer heads prevail’.
Twitter may also ask a user to verify account ownership, typically by requesting they verify an email or phone number linked to the account.
In extreme scenarios, Twitter may permanently suspend an account from global view, or the violator will not be allowed to create a new account.
But the Post report put numbers on the effort, noting that in May, Twitter identified and challenged more than 9.9 million ‘potentially spammy’ or automated accounts per week, compared with 6.4 million in December 2017.
Twitter has repeatedly warned investors that efforts to crackdown on malicious accounts might weigh on its user growth.
In its most recent earnings call, Segal told investors that ‘removing spammy and suspicious accounts from Twitter continues to be something that will impact [monthly active users].’