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Twitter posts record $1B revenue as it focuses on self-care

Snacks / Thursday, February 06, 2020

Back from the spa... Twitter is feeling refreshed after posting $1B in quarterly revenue for the first time. What it really wants you to know: it's "healthier" now ("health" was mentioned 8 times in its shareholder letter — more than "profit"). To Twitter, healthy means fewer trolls, less fake news, less trolling. Twitter's self-betterment moves:

  • Made it easier to report problematic/abusive content and introduced a feature to hide certain replies — Twitter calls this "proactively limiting the visibility of unhealthy content."
  • Invested in employees and AI to help remove deepfakes (photos/videos altered to trick you). On Tuesday, Twitter said it would apply warning labels to tweets with "false" or deceptive media.
  • Banned political ads. And labeled actual politicians who are actually running in 2020 elections.

The Keto-worthy mindfulness cleanse is working... Twitter's daily users grew to 152M from 145M last quarter. But more interestingly, there was a 27% drop in bystander reports on tweets that violate the terms of service.

Spa treatments are expensive... Twitter's quest to glow up came at a price. It posted lower profit than expected, making $119M vs $225M last year. And it's expecting costs to climb further — Twitter's adding 20% more staff this year. But its newly aggressive focus on "health" could set it apart from the rest of social media, and investors are excited for Tokyo 2020 and the US presidential election driving people to Twitter.

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