[legitster]

Is the fake accounts thing overblown?

Like, if I create a fake verified Eli Lilly account on Twitter with no followers, how would anyone even see it? It seems like it would only get picked up and shared by people in on the joke.

[skyyler]

Isn't the move to have an established account with a couple thousand followers, then change profile pic and name and then do the $8 verify? I don't use twitter so I'm just assuming how this works.

[gruez]

Wouldn't the username look off? eg. if you set up with an account with something like "@cutecatpics" as the username to get followers, wouldn't it look suspicious even if changed the name to "Eli Lilly"? It will look like

    Eli Lilly 
    @cutecatpics

You can try flipping this (legit looking username to start with), but it'll look suspicious when you're trying to rack up followers

    Cute cat pics
    @eli_lilly_official

[nemothekid]

Eli Lilly's official twitter handle was @LillyPad. The fake was @EliLillyandCo.

The part about followers doesn't matter because the number of followers someone has doesn't show up in the feed, nor is it emphasized that boldly. Someone can just make a fake account, write a fake tweet, and the retweet that tweet onto their actual account.

[iudqnolq]

It's also completely plausible for a real, situationally important authority to have very few followers.

[fragmede]

hilariously the font that Twitter uses has capital-i look the same as lowercase-L, so when @AppIeOfCA tweeted as a verified account, it was really hard to distinguish from the real @AppleOfCA account.

https://twitter.com/appleofca/status/1590898344242868227 till it gets taken down.

[drcongo]

You can change your handle on Twitter.

[ohgodplsno]

One of the perks of twitter blue is way, way increased visibility. Even fresh accounts with zero followers will be shown. Add in a few friends or hell 10 bucks to give your post an initial intake of likes and suddenly that just becomes 18 dollars that potentially cost Musk even more billions. I couldn't find a more enjoyable use of 20 bucks than putting this clown in more trouble

[tablespoon]

> Is the fake accounts thing overblown?

> Like, if I create a fake verified Eli Lilly account on Twitter with no followers, how would anyone even see it? It seems like it would only get picked up and shared by people in on the joke.

People would share it. Think: troll + random thing going viral. The troll gets the ball rolling, and not all trolls would succeed at that, but some would and after the initial push the ball would keep rolling on its own.

[jjulius]

>Is the fake accounts thing overblown?

From the article:

>By Friday morning, Lilly stock had dropped by more than 5% from the day before. The Twitter stunt pulled down the stock price of other diabetes drugmakers, including Novo Nordisk and Sanofi. Lilly’s stock has yet to recover and, on Monday morning, remained down more than 4% over the past five days.

I'm not normally one to defend drug makers, but when you're talking about the loss of ~$15 billion in market cap[1], and then you factor in the fact that the company themselves was so frustrated by this that they walked away from their ad deal with Twitter, it all makes it hard for me to see how this is "overblown".

[1]https://gizmodo.com/twitter-eli-lilly-elon-musk-insulin-1849...

[legitster]

> The Twitter stunt pulled down the stock price of other diabetes drugmakers, including Novo Nordisk and Sanofi.

It seems much, much more likely the stock loss was part of a larger market event than a specific Twitter stunt.

[jerojero]

I would guess it's not that simple.

People's reaction are varied, this tweet actually resonates with people's beliefs much more strongly than what you might expect. For a lot of people, medicine that you need to continue living should be free. So I would say when this went viral, people at the very least go: "hmm...".

Couple that with reactions from politicians and suddenly you find yourself in a situation where the price of insulin is once again being questioned.

So imo, it's not just a funny tweet but more like a conversation starter and so it absolutely makes sense to me why this would be reflected in the stock price of insulin makers as a whole.

[georgemcbay]

I have no idea if the tweet was actually directly related to the price drop and lean toward being skeptical of it, but I don't think those other companies also dropping is great proof of that.

Assuming the tweet was believed to be real (by enough of the right people to cause this sort of stock move), the expected outcome would be drops in those other companies as well, since Lilly giving insulin away (the tweet was: “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.”) would obviously cause a large impact on their ability to continue to sell it.

[oceanplexian]

This sounds like nonsense to me. Tweets didn't bring down the stock price of multiple drugmakers, market volatility did. Pharma market cap will go up or down by more than that on a daily basis for a thousand and one reasons.

[jjulius]

Sure. It's also why I cited other reasons beyond stock prices. :)

[antisthenes]

Drugmakers pulling advertising and doing less advertising in general is a good thing anyway.

So the negatives are definitely overblown.

[jjulius]

Depends on your perspective. A good thing, collectively, for society. A bad thing for the health and longevity of Twitter in it's current state, and I think that's how it's being framed in most of these discussions.

[fknorangesite]

> It seems like it would only get picked up and shared by people in on the joke.

If I have a significant following on my main/normal account, then I can create the fake one and then retweet it on main, thus showing it to all my regular followers. From there it just needs a little normal organic traction - and yes, that includes many people who immediately understand the joke and are RT'ing it because it's fake.

[paxys]

Users would see it the same way they see everything else, but now the Tweet would have Eli Lilly's name, logo and a big blue "verified" check mark next to it. Yes they could do 3 seconds of diligence and check if the account is real or not, but if people actually did that then fake news wouldn't be a thing in the first place.