There are millions of fake accounts tweeting, retweeting and liking many of the most high-profile accounts on Twitter. So what is the company going to do about it?

The issue's been bubbling under the surface at Twitter for years, but it was brought to the forefront in January by The New York Times. The newspaper uncovered companies that make their money by using bots -- automated computer programs sometimes posing as real people -- to inflate how many followers celebrities, business executives and, yes, even one of Twitter's own board members actually have. Twitter began purging millions of fake accounts in response.

The concerns about bots is just the latest black eye for Twitter, which struggles with everything from revenge porn and nonstop harassment among some users to concerns about how its service may have been used by Russian operatives in an attempt to influence the 2016 election.

Despite those issues, Twitter on Thursday posted its first-ever profit of $91.1 million on $731.6 million of revenue. The company's shares spiked as much as 23 percent to $33 a share in early market trading. 

During an earnings call with analysts, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey briefly said the company is improving its efforts with a new "information quality" strategy on how to detect and remove spam, malicious activity and fake accounts. He said the company will also help users "identify more authentic and credible accounts and tweets."

Still, it's hard to tell how many fake accounts are out there. A study released last year found that as much as 15 percent of active Twitter accounts were controlled by bots. Twitter says only about 5 percent of its accounts are run by bots.  

Meanwhile, Twitter's user growth is still stagnant. For the three months ended Dec. 31, the number of monthly active users remained at 330 million, continuing a trend of low, single-digit growth. The overall figure is also nowhere close to rival Facebook, which counts 2.13 billion users.

Twitter's chief financial officer, Ned Segal, said during Thursday's call that the monthly user total remained flat because of Apple making changes to its Safari web browser that lowered Twitter's user count by 2 million, and the company's recent removal of fake and dormant accounts.

Segal said Twitter's daily active users also rose 12 percent from a year ago, but the company doesn't actually disclose that figure to gauge its growth.

Also, Dorsey told analysts that increasing tweets to 280 characters has users spending more time on Twitter. He also said that while doubling the number of characters from its original 140 hasn't really changed the length of tweets users send, there's been an increase in retweets and mentions. 

"We do believe that it's minimizing some of the complexities and confusion around Twitter in general," he said, without getting into specifics.

James Cakmak, an analyst with Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., said Thursday that Twitter has done somewhat of an about face as major investments, including live video of news and sports-related content, appear to be paying off. Yet, he still wonders how long this momentum will last.  

"There's a multitude of positives including positive revenue growth, greater utility from daily users, and higher profits," he said. "But questions linger over sustainability given an increasingly saturated user base."

CNET's Roger Cheng contributed to this report.

Originally published Feb. 8, 4:13 a.m. PT.
Update, 7:30 a.m. PT: Adds comments from Twitter's executives and an analyst.

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