Twitter Shares Fall After Purging Millions Of Fake Accounts

Twitter has long prided itself on being an open forum for public discussion of hot-button issues. However, the social network has battled criticism that it does not do enough to battle abuse and the spread of misinformation by trolls and bot accounts. A new report suggested the company is taking a more active stand against fake accounts, but the stock market reacted negatively.

Twitter is suspending more than a million malicious or outright fake accounts per day, the Washington Post reported on Friday. Twitter, like other tech giants such as Facebook, has been forced to be more proactive about banning bad actors in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. President Donald Trump’s victory shone a light on the possibility that voters were deceived by toxic online discourse or fake news spread by accounts linked to Russia.

However, the widespread banning of users could be problematic for Twitter’s business model, or at least investors seem to think so. Twitter’s shares fell by more than eight percent on Monday after investors had a weekend to mull over the Post’s report, according to CNBC. It was the company’s worst day on the market since March 27, when shares fell 12 percent.

The problem is that Twitter, like any other online capitalist entity, inspires more investor confidence the more users it has. The more eyeballs looking at advertisements on Twitter timelines, the better, as far as Twitter and investors are concerned. But if the purging of fake accounts results in lessened user growth, Twitter’s market status might suffer, at least in the short term.

Twitter CFO Ned Segal took to his own company’s platform to dispute the notion that Twitter’s metrics would be affected by the new measures. The site had 336 million active users in the first quarter, according to the Post.

Whether it is with bot accounts that tweet incessantly around the clock or actively abusive users, Twitter has been seen as too complacent in dealing with this problem over the years. The site has gained something of a reputation for being a toxic place for women, people of color, and members of other marginalized communities.

Specifically, Twitter has come under fire recently for occasionally giving blue verification checkmarks to prominent white supremacists. Actor Seth Rogen came to the conclusion last week that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey simply “does not seem to give a [explective]” about outspoken racists on the platform.