You said:

"both sides are bullshitting to get a better price"

Which implies that this number is related to Twitter trying to get a better price. However, if this is the number they have always said, regardless of the methodology, clearly they can't be trying to get a better price - as they started doing this long before there was a price to make better.

That is separate and independent from whether the number is accurate to begin with - if it's remained consistent and publicly available, there's no chicanery here, the risk around that stat has always been baked into the market price of the company.