Twitter accelerates user growth amid pandemic, unrest
WASHINGTON, United States — Twitter showed strong gains in its user base with more people turning to the short-message social network during the pandemic and civil unrest, according to a quarterly update Thursday that offered positive signs despite a big drop in ad revenues.
The short-message social network reported a net loss of $1.2 billion in the quarter, most of that coming from setting aside funds for income taxes.
Revenue slumped 19 percent from a year ago to $683 million. Despite some modest rebound from the pandemic-induced economic slump, Twitter said that "many brands slowed or paused spend in reaction to US civil unrest" in May and June.
Twitter said ad revenue declined 15 percent over the last three weeks of June, but appeared to have rebounded since then.
A key metric for Twitter, the number of "monetizable" daily active users, hit 186 million in the second quarter for a jump of 34 percent from last year.
Chief executive Jack Dorsey said the user gains showed "the highest quarterly year-over-year growth rate we've delivered" using this measure.
"People continue to come to Twitter to learn about and participate in conversations focused on systemic racism, Black Lives Matters, COVID-19 and the reopening and reclosing of economies all around the world," Dorsey told analysts on a conference call.
Twitter shares rallied to gain four percent on Wall Street following the results.
Recovering from hack
The earnings report comes a week after Twitter suffered a hack that affected high-profile accounts and raised fears about security of the service which has become a key element of political conversation.
Dorsey apologized for the incident and added that Twitter "moved quickly to address what happened," and had taken additional steps "to improve resiliency."
Twitter acknowledged late Wednesday that in 36 of the 130 accounts that were compromised, hackers were able to access direct messages intended to be private, adding to the severity of the incident.
Those affected included one unidentified elected official in the Netherlands.
"We are actively working on communicating directly with the account-holders that were impacted," Twitter said on its security blog.
The bitcoin-scam hack affected high-profile users including Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barack Obama and others.
Dorsey said of the incident: "We understand our responsibilities and are committed to earning the trust of all of our stakeholders with our every action, including how we address this security issue."
Twitter, an important tool used by President Donald Trump, is seen by some analysts as an important element in news and political discussion, a key to its growth.
Helped by Facebook boycott?
Dorsey said the boycott of Facebook by brands concerned about "hateful" content could end up benefitting Twitter, which has long focused on what he calls the "health" of the platform, including efforts to curb misinformation and incendiary content.
"We are showing our commitment of service to the public conversation by our actions, and advertisers are definitely taking note," Dorsey told analysts.
"We are hearing this resonate and people are taking note of our difference ... We are going to continue to focus on taking the actions that we believe is important to maintain health, and we hope that others follow as well."
The research firm eMarketer said its estimate of Twitter's user base, using a different method than the company, shows the number of users will grow to some 305 million this year.
In the past quarter, "Twitter's user growth accelerated in Q2 as housebound consumers continued to use the platform to follow news about the coronavirus and other current events," said eMarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg.
Dorsey meanwhile confirmed reports that Twitter is looking at a subscription option but said that this would likely be "complementary" to the existing service.
He said Twitter was "in the very early phases of exploring" a new offering and that some tests are likely this year, while adding that "we have a really high bar for when we would ask consumers to pay for aspects of Twitter."
The latest news about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms.
Messaging app Telegram will launch pay-for services in 2021, its Russian-born founder Pavel Durov says Wednesday, as the growing company needed "at least a few hundred million dollars per year".
"Telegram will begin to generate revenue, starting next year," he says in a statement. "We will be able to launch countless new features and welcome billions of new users." — AFP
The Bureau of Immigration has issued a ban on employees posting content on TikTok of them dancing or performing social media challenges while in uniform.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente says in a press release that the prohibition "was imposed to strictly enforce the bureau's regulations on the wearing of the BI uniform, whose integrity must be upheld at all times because it represents the institution of the Philippine immigration service."
"Our policy on the wearing of the BI uniform is clear. As public servants and supposed model Filipinos, employees must proudly wear their uniform at all times, present a professional image to the public and observe proper decorum and good taste in all their actions while they are on duty," he also says.
A souce says shortform video app TikTok and the Trump administration had not come to terms over sale of the company's US operations late Friday as a deadline loomed.
The Committee on Foreign Investment had given TikTok parent ByteDance, based in China, until midnight to come up with an acceptable deal to put TikTok's American assets into US hands.
Talks between TikTok and government negotiators will continue even after the deadline passes, and people in the US will still be able to use the popular smartphone app for sharing video snippets, the source says. — AFP
Twitter on Tuesday rebuffs Australian calls to remove a Beijing official's incendiary tweet targeting Australian troops, as China doubled down on criticism in the face of mounting international condemnation.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian sparked outrage in Canberra on Monday when he posted a staged image of a man dressed as an Australian soldier holding a bloody knife to an Afghan child's throat.
The post came just days after Australian prosecutors launched an investigation into 19 members of the country's military over alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
Twitter says it had marked the tweet as "sensitive," but adds that comments on topical political issues or "foreign policy sabre-rattling" by official government accounts were generally not in violation of its rules. — AFP
Facebook and Google are fast becoming "human rights-free zones" in Vietnam, Amnesty International warns Tuesday, accusing the tech titans of helping censor peaceful dissent and political expression in the country.
Communist Vietnam has long jailed its critics but has come under fire in recent years for targeting users on Facebook, a popular forum for activists in the country where all independent media is banned.
The social network admitted earlier this year that it was blocking content deemed illegal by authorities, while its latest transparency report revealed a nearly 1,000-percent increase in the content it censors on government orders compared to the previous six months.
Amnesty said in a Tuesday report that it had interviewed 11 activists whose content had been restricted from view in Vietnam by Facebook this year. — AFP
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