Twitter stocks soar on news of 20 million new users, despite massive hacking attack - but revenue slides 19%

Twitter’s share price skyrocketed after the company reported adding 20 million users in three months despite suffering the biggest hack in its history and a scandal over blacklisting users just over a week ago.

Jack Dorsey’s company saw its shares spike as much as 5.8 percent on Thursday following its announcement that it had accrued a record 20 million users in the second quarter of 2020.

Despite the impressive numbers, the social media giant’s earnings fell 19 percent, resulting in a net loss of $1.2 billion following a 23 percent tumble in advertising sales and higher business costs.

By contrast, just a year earlier, the company made $1.1 billion net income during the second quarter of 2019.

In the latest shareholders report, the influx of new users was attributed to a growing desire of people to join in the “global conversation” as well as “ongoing product improvements.”

“Continued shelter-in-place requirements for many people” amid the Covid-19 pandemic was also cited as a reason — given the fact that millions have been under some form of lockdown for months with little else to do and are becoming even more reliant on technology.

Last week's hacking scandal which saw 130 high-profile accounts breached in a major bitcoin scam was also addressed, with the company patting itself on the back, saying it had acted “quickly to address what happened.” The company said this week that 36 of the targeted accounts saw their direct messages breached during the hack.

The embarrassing hack also revealed that the social media giant had been blacklisting certain voices and hiding their content on the platform — something which it had denied for years. The shareholders’ report failed to address that particular revelation at all, however.

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