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Twitter Just Got Worse In 2016; 30 Percent Drop In Stock Price

Twitter Just Got Worse In 2016; 30 Percent Drop In Stock Price

Ralphy Bonn Sim

2016 is not Twitter's year. The micro blogging service has acknowledged that it inadvertently overcharged some advertisers for video ads. To add to the injury, six of its top ten executives left and its stock price dropped to nearly 30 percent.

A bug in Twitter's Android version inflated some metrics by as much as 35 percent for video ad campaigns which was run from Nov. 7 to Dec. 12. The San Francisco-based company issued refunds to the affected advertisers, although the amount was not that substantial.

"The impact was limited given this happened only on Android clients over the course of a month. This was a technical error, not a policy or definition issue, so it has been resolved," said the San Francisco-based company in a statement.

Major advertisers don't rely solely on data from providers like Twitter to determine the effectiveness of their ads. Monthly active users have barely increased over the past three quarters, at a rate of three percent, and rival sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat which continue to gain ad revenue and users at Twitter's expense.

Twitter ended efforts to sell itself earlier this year after potential suitors such as Walt Disney, Google parent Alphabet and Salesforce.com decided to pass.

CEO Jack Dorsey's decision to retain his position as CEO of payments processor Square is another issue with Wall Street analysts. These analysts also argued that Twitter is too complicated to use. Other organizations are concerned with the social media site being used for abuse. There is notable pressure for the company to stop bullying and abuse that happens on the network.

"Twitter is not a safe place. There's harassment. There's sexism. There's actual porn on there. It's not a great place for a wholesome, family-friendly company like Disney," said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

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