Washington: A Twitter Impostor costs US pharmaceutical giant billions of dollars, but viral prank sparks another unexpected crisis – a new wave of scrutiny over its high prices Insulin.
Official-looking fake accounts proliferated after Twitter launched a paid verification service last week, the latest in a series of chaotic developments since Elon Musk’s blockbuster $44 billion purchase of the influential platform.
Among the victims was a drugmaker Ellie LilyIts stock price plummeted — wiping billions off its market capitalization — after a parody account stamped with a verification tag bought for $8 tweeted that insulin was being made available for free.
The company was forced to apologize for a “misleading message from a fake Lilly account,” but the misinformation drew attention to a long-running debate about high. Insulin prices.
“What you *really* should be apologizing for is price gouging life-saving insulin,” tweeted Kasim Rashid, a human rights lawyer based in Chicago.
“People are dying because of your greed (and) cruelty. Apologize for that.”
Gaining traction with such comments was a cartoon meme with a half-elephant, half-human character that provoked people to be more upset about the price of insulin than the price of gas.
“Fake Eli Lilly may offer something closer to the truth than the real Eli Lilly,” Peter Mebarduk of the nonprofit Public Citizen told the media agency.
“Parody succeeds when it exposes an embarrassing and widely understood truth.”
Outrageous prices
In recent decades, insulin prices have risen in the United States, costing eight times more than in 32 comparable high-income countries, according to a 2020 Rand Corporation study.
A survey released in October by the nonprofit T1International showed that one in four respondents cohabited Diabetes reported rationing their insulin due to financial stress.
On Monday, which marks World Diabetes DayDozens of advocacy groups, including Public Citizen, sent a letter to Congress demanding a halt to insulin price hikes.
“There is no defense for Eli Lilly’s outrageous insulin prices,” Mebarduk said.
“It’s long overdue that we provide access to insulin for all, and yes — it should be free,” he added.
The backlash against Eli Lilly showed the real-life potential of online misinformation to trigger chaos and financial loss. The company’s share price recovered modestly after last week’s decline.
But in this rare instance, it brought up something much-overlooked A public health problem.
‘Panic
Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, told the media agency, “Misinformation is not without its spread — Eli Lilly’s share price has fallen dramatically.”
But using Twitter’s chaotic rollout of its paid verification policy, the prank managed to make “insulin drug price conversations relevant to many people.”
On Friday, Twitter disabled sign-ups for a controversial feature known as Twitter Blue, with reports that it was temporarily disabled to help address impersonation issues — but not before several brands took a hit.
Shares of other companies such as aerospace defense company Lockheed Martin were also hit after being targeted by impersonators.
The prank sparked panic inside Eli Lilly, with officials scrambling to contact Twitter representatives to remove it, but the platform did not respond for hours, the Washington Post reported Monday.
As of Friday, Eli Lilly executives ordered a halt to all ad campaigns on Twitter, a move that could potentially cost the platform millions of dollars.
It would mark another blow to Twitter, which has laid off about half its workforce since Musk’s takeover as it struggles to grow revenue.
Eli Lilly and Twitter did not respond to the media agency’s request for comment.
