Poike/iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Social media company Twitter admitted on Thursday that their previously reported user figures have been inaccurate, and that the number of users is likely lower than previously known.

In its earnings report, the company explained that some “third-party applications used Digits, a software development kit of our now-divested Fabric platform, that allowed third party applications to send authentication messages via SMS through our systems.”

Those messages “did not relate to activity on the Twitter platform” the company now says.

Monthly active user figures were thusly revised down more than one million users for each of the last three quarters. The error could date as far back as 2014.

Twitter did say, however, that it could finally reach profitability in the fourth quarter. That comes after a renewal of user growth, layoffs, and the elimination of products including shortform video platform Vine.

The company says it added four million new users in the third quarter, and is now up to 330 million users around the world.

Also on Thursday, Twitter announced that it has decided to block advertising on its platforms from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik. That decision, effective immediately, “was based on the retrospective work we’ve been doing around the 2016 U.S. Election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government.

“We did not come to this decision lightly,” the company’s statement said, “and are taking this step now as part of our ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience on Twitter.”

Twitter also says it will take the $1.9 million in projected earnings from RT global advertising and donate it to “support external research into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections.”

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