"Yes, total user numbers are down, but we’ve known for a while now that Twitter has a fake-users problem and is trying to deal with it, so that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Higher operating expenses, on the other hand, are a bigger problem, as I anticipate Twitter’s margins and profits to shrink considerably in 2019."

-Clement Thibault, an analyst at global financial platform Investing.com, following Twitter’s fourth-quarter earnings announcement Thursday morning, as reported by Reuters. Twitter's active monthly users totaled 321 million in the fourth quarter, in line with analysts’ forecasts but it shows a drop-off from 330 million a year earlier and 326 million in the third quarter, according to the report.