Twitter reported more than half a billion dollars in losses in the third quarter

Twitter on Tuesday reported a net loss of $ 537 million in the third quarter of this year, settling a lawsuit alleging that investors on the site were misled by the slowdown in user growth several years ago.

Despite a sharp increase in revenue due to the strength of advertising sales, the popular social networking site’s operating loss was $ 743 million, and the company was fined more than $ 800 million to settle the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed by investors in 2016, alleges that people like Dick Costolo, the site’s former chairman, did not publish the full picture of the company when they sold their personal shares on Twitter.

Investors said board members sold their shares at “artificially inflated” prices. The lawsuit was filed a year after Twitter’s shares plummeted, signaling a slowdown in the company’s growth.

Despite the cost of settling the lawsuit, Twitter reported $ 1.3 billion in third-quarter revenue, up 37 percent from the previous year.

The company reported $ 1.14 billion in advertising revenue, up 41 percent from the third quarter of 2020.