They just cut off our voice, fucking cut off theirs!
Here's the deal, every SINGLE person that opens a Twitter link get's counted as DAU (Daily Active User), and that's the metric Twitter uses to gauge their traffic and report to advertisers. KILL their DAU and we KILL their ADVERTISING metrics.
Does it count as DAU if you use an ad blocker?
Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: It depends. For reporting to their advertisers and shareholders it does to varying degrees that depend on how well they can identify you. For example, if you're logged in and they have your phone number and email address they can be pretty dang sure you're unique and they can sell that advert for a higher dollar. If you're just part of the random noise they still can, but it's not as valuable to them because they can't target you as well.
FWIW, Facebook is even worse here. They use MAU (monthly) so if you look at FB just ONCE in an entire month guess what? You're added to the pile. Twitter is terrible but it's nothing compared to the evil that is Facebook.
Do their advertisers and shareholders realize that the DAU/MAU includes users using ad blockers?
Of course they do. Advertisers know way too much about you.