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Twitter prank spurs unexpected scrutiny of insulin prices

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Attorneys for Twitter and Elon Musk formally asked a Delaware judge to dismiss litigation now that the takeover has been completed

Twitter: © AFP Hector RETAMAL

Anuj CHOPRA

A Twitter imposter cost a US pharmaceutical giant billions of dollars, but the viral prank triggered another unexpected crisis — a new wave of scrutiny of the high cost of its insulin.

Authentic-looking fake accounts proliferated last week after Twitter rolled out a paid verification service, the latest in a string of chaotic developments since Elon Musk’s blockbuster $44 billion buyout of the influential platform.

Among the victims was drugmaker Eli Lilly, whose stock price nosedived — erasing billions in market capitalization — after a parody account stamped with a verification tag purchased for $8 tweeted that insulin was being made available for free.

The company was forced to issue an apology for the “misleading message from a fake Lily account,” but the disinformation stirred fresh attention to a long-festering debate about high insulin prices.

“What you should *actually* apologize for is price gouging life-saving insulin,” tweeted Chicago-based human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid.

“People are dying because of your greed (and) cruelty. Apologize for that.”

Gaining traction alongside such comments was a cartoon meme with a half-elephant, half-human character riling up people to be more upset about the price of insulin than the price of gas.

“Fake Eli Lilly might be offering something closer to truth than real Eli Lilly,” Peter Maybarduk, from the nonprofit Public Citizen, told AFP.

“Parody is successful when it reveals embarrassing and widely understood truth.”

– ‘Abusive pricing’ –

In recent decades, insulin prices have soared in the United States, costing more than 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 living with diabetes reported rationing their insulin because of the financial strain.

On Monday, which marks World Diabetes Day, dozens of advocacy groups including Public Citizen sent a letter to Congress demanding a stop to what they called insulin price-gouging.

“There’s no defense for Eli Lilly’s abusive insulin pricing,” said Maybarduk.

“It’s long past time we provide access to insulin for all, and yes –- it should be free,” he added.

The backlash against Eli Lilly showcased the real-life potential of online disinformation to trigger chaos and financial loss. The company’s stock price has marginally recovered since last week’s drop.

But in this rare instance, it brought to the fore a much-ignored public health issue.

– ‘Panic’ –

“The disinformation is not without ramification — Eli Lilly’s stock price dropped dramatically,” Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, told AFP.

But exploiting Twitter’s chaotic rollout of its paid verification policy, the prank managed to make “the insulin drug price conversation relevant to a lot of people.”

On Friday, Twitter disabled sign-ups for the contentious feature known as Twitter Blue, with reports saying it had been temporarily disabled to help address impersonation issues — but not before several brands took a hit.

Shares of other firms such as aerospace defence company Lockheed Martin also took a hit after being targeted by impersonators.

The prank sparked panic inside Eli Lilly, with officials scrambling to contact Twitter representatives to take it down, but the platform did not react for hours, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

By Friday, Eli Lilly executives ordered a halt to all ad campaigns on Twitter, a move that could potentially cost the platform millions of dollars.

That would mark another blow to Twitter, which laid off nearly half its workforce after Musk’s takeover as it struggles to boost revenue.

Eli Lilly and Twitter did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.

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Musk regrets controversial post but won’t bow to advertiser ‘blackmail’

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Elon Musk's comments at the New York Times' Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence

Elon Musk’s comments at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Slaven Vlasic

Elon Musk apologized Wednesday for endorsing a social media post widely seen as anti-Semitic, but accused advertisers who are turning away from his social media platform X of “blackmail” and said anyone who does so can “go fuck yourself.”

The remark before corporate executives at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence.

Earlier, Musk had apologized for what he called “literally the worst and dumbest post that I’ve ever done.”

In a comment on X, formerly Twitter, Musk on November 15 called a post “the actual truth” that said Jewish communities advocated a “dialectical hatred against whites,” which was criticized as echoing longtime conspiracy theory among White supremacists.

The statement prompted a flood of departures from X of major advertisers, including Apple, Disney, Comcast and IBM who criticized Musk for anti-semitism.

“I’m sorry for that tweet or post,” Musk said Wednesday. “It was foolish of me.”

He told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin that his post had been misinterpreted and that he had sought to clarify the remark in subsequent posts to the thread.

But Musk also said he wouldn’t be beholden to pressure from advertisers.

“If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money?” Musk said. “Go fuck yourself.”

But the billionaire acknowledged that there were business implications to the advertiser actions.

“If the company fails… it will fail because of an advertiser boycott” Musk said. “And that will be what will bankrupt the company.”

Musk, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Israel earlier this week, insisted in the interview that he holds no discrimination against Jews, calling himself “philo-Semitic,” or an admirer of Judaism.

During the interview, Musk wore a necklace given to him by a parent of an Israeli hostage taken in the Hamas attack on October 7. The necklace reads, “Bring Them Home.”

Musk told Sorkin that the Israel trip had been planned earlier and was not an “apology tour” related to the controversial tweet.

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TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

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TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

With a need to expand its advertising business, TikTok is now fully focused on the output of long-form videos.

A new report by The Information shows the company’s recent efforts to convince
creators to put out longer videos in order to provide more room for ad placements.

According to the …



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X Adds Option To Embed Videos in Isolation From Posts

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X Adds Option To Embed Videos in Isolation From Posts

Next time you go to embed an X post, you may notice a new step:

Now, X will enable you to choose whether you want to embed the video element in isolation, or the whole post, as normal.

And if you do choose to embed just the video (or GIF), it’ll look like this:

Which could be a helpful way to present X-originated video on third-party websites, and add context to, say, your blog post, without the clutter of the full X framing.

But it could also reduce brand exposure for X, which is likely why Twitter didn’t enable this before, though it did once provide an “embedded video widget” which essentially served the same purpose.

X embeds

Twitter gradually seemed to phase that out as the platform evolved, and there’s no specific reason that I can find as to why it removed it as an option. But either way, now, it’s back, so you have more options for using X-originated content, and putting more focus on video elements specifically.

Though I don’t know why they didn’t also take the opportunity to remove the ‘Tweet’ reference. Since the re-brand to X, the platform seems to have gone to little effort to weed out all the tweet and bird terminology, but then again, with 80% fewer staff, that’s probably understandable as well.



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