San Francisco. - (AFP) - A number of “Netflix” shareholders filed a lawsuit against the streaming platform, which they accuse of deceiving them about the decline in the number of its subscribers, which is the news that caused the drop in its share price.

These investors noted in a statement published Tuesday that the California-based group made "false and/or misleading" statements and withheld certain information.

Investors criticized the platform in particular for not making it clear that “the slowdown in the growth of the number of subscribers is due, among other reasons, to the sharing of accounts between a number of customers, and to the increase in competition from other broadcasting platforms.”

And “Netflix” announced on April 19 that it lost 200,000 subscribers worldwide in the first quarter of the year compared to the end of 2021, which is a precedent for more than ten years.

The lawyers who filed the class-action lawsuit on behalf of the investors recalled that the share price fell "by more than 35 percent, to settle at $226.19 on April 20."

And the streaming giant, which expects to lose more subscribers in the spring, has planned to clamp down on the sharing of IDs and passwords, allowing many people not to pay for access to the platform.

Netflix, which expects to lose more subscribers in the spring, intends to adopt a strict policy regarding sharing accounts on its network, which allowed many to benefit from the service for free.

And “Netflix” announced in early March that it would conduct tests in South American countries to impose a financial allowance on its customers if they wanted to add additional profiles to their accounts.

But “Netflix” expected to gain 2.5 million additional subscribers in the first quarter, while analysts were expecting an even larger number, which caused the shock caused by the loss of some of them.

The reason for the loss was in part the suspension of service in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.

The group explained on April 19 that the suspension of its services in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine led to a net loss of 700,000 subscriptions. "Otherwise, we would have had 500,000 more subscriptions" compared to the previous quarter, she added.

The total number of subscriptions to the platform has reached 221.64 million.