24m of Twitters 284m active users are bots with “no discernable user action involved”, the companys disclosures to the US Securities and Exchange Commission have revealed.

The figure is just the latest in a number of disappointing stats from Twitter which hurt its viability as a marketing platform.

Other stats have shown that 741m people have opened Twitter accounts only to abandon them, 44 per cent of users on Twitter have never sent a tweet and the majority of users tweet less than once a month.

Twitters user growth has also slowed, resulting in its stock price dropping from $55 (£36) a share in October to around $38 a share now.

The bot figures may be slightly distorted because of the number of users (11.5 per cent of all users, according to the company) who connect with the social network using third-party apps or software, which may be included in the figures, and often tend to be heavier users of Twitter than those who directly use the app.