Twitter suspended more than 70 million accounts last quarter – The Motley Fool

Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) is suspended more than 1 million forgeries and suspicious accounts in May and June – 70 million in total. This rate continued in July, according to data obtained by The Washington Post and it's double the rate at which Twitter closed its accounts in October.

Deleting accounts spreading misinformation and spamming the social network is something social media companies have to deal with. Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) removed 583 million fake profiles in the first quarter. Overall, such movements improve the ease of use of each platform by removing bad actors.

For Twitter, however, the sudden increase in the removal of fake accounts during the first half could result in a decline in its active users. when he reports the results of the second quarter at the end of the month. This could ultimately have an impact on the finances of the company.

Deleting accounts is not usually a big deal

The suspension and removal of fake, spam and potentially dangerous accounts on a social network a good thing. These bad actors do not add value to a social network like Twitter or Facebook. In fact, they can diminish the value of a social media platform by increasing the amount of misinformation and offensive content.

It is important to note that many of these accounts are created and executed by robots. publish content – they add no value to advertising. It's not the types of accounts that click on the ads.

So, when Facebook reports that it's rid itself of more than half a billion accounts three months earlier this year, this has a minimal impact on its business. The company has long been transparent that she estimates between 3% and 4% of the active accounts that she reports each quarter are fake profiles. This number has not changed.

Why this is a big problem for Twitter

Twitter maintains that its number of fake accounts is similar to that of Facebook and less than 5% of its active users. The recent ramp-up of closures calls into question this number

Twitter may have a vague definition of what constitutes a false account, by increasing its number of active users and decreasing its percentage of fake accounts. Twitter has become stricter on fake accounts this year, following accusations that Russians used fake Twitter accounts to influence the 2016 election.

This could lead to a decline in Twitter's reported active accounts. In itself, this should not be a big problem; as mentioned, these types of accounts are not displayed or by clicking on the ads. And since advertisers pay only when a user uses an ad, fake accounts do not generate any revenue for Twitter.

But much of Twitter's new talk to advertisers is a more and more engaged user base. Twitter has touted a daily active user base that has increased double digit percentage points for six consecutive quarters. Twitter is also discreet about the commitment of its users.

It should be noted that the majority of Twitter's advertising revenue still comes from its direct sales team. This means that these vanity settings, such as the daily growth of active users, are really important for Twitter. If increased suspensions and deletions slow down users' daily growth, this could impact Twitter's ability to sell advertisements to brand advertisers.

Monitor Twitter's results when it publishes its second-quarter financial results on July 27. If they arrive significantly below the first quarter, look if management has any other comments on these numbers.

Adam Levy owns shares of Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares and recommends Facebook and Twitter. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.