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Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

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Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#191
post #7

It's super funny that identity verification of authors of things published was basically more than half of the value twitter provided to its users, both readers and writers and the first thing Elon did was to destroy it. Just to replace it with what he calls "payment verified", which basically means you have 8$ and means to send it to twitter. Which apparently is worth less than nothing. It kind of reminds me how a w…

Unverified accounts provide most of the good content on Twitter, so I think you're wrong there. What should have happened is you do have an $8 (I think $8 is too much, but alas) verification, but you simply make the badge different. Some people say that defeats the purpose, but it doesn't. You then know you are talking to someone with a vested interest, and since credit cards are now linked to the account you can do…

No post body was provided.

Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#193
post #7

It's super funny that identity verification of authors of things published was basically more than half of the value twitter provided to its users, both readers and writers and the first thing Elon did was to destroy it. Just to replace it with what he calls "payment verified", which basically means you have 8$ and means to send it to twitter. Which apparently is worth less than nothing. It kind of reminds me how a w…

Twitter itself pre-Musk started killing the meaning of bluechecks back in 2017, where they officially changed their rules from "this person is who he says he is" to "this person is who he says he is, and is politically correct". It was a controversy at the time: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/twitt...

I'm amazed that people have already forgotten this.

Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#194
post #87

I actually liked the ~idea~ behind this but not the execution, which I can't believe was so bungled In my ideal world, Twitter Blue would act as "identity verification as a service". Pay $X/month and provide some proof of identity linked to your display name on Twitter. If the two correlate, you get the check. I think identity could be fairly flexible- could be "I am John Smith", but also could be "I am CorpA" or "I…

From tweets Elon made before becoming the CEO of twitter, it seemed this was the approach he was aiming for.

I can only speculate that he dropped the identity verification part to get this to market quicker as this is the part which would have required new investment/systems/vendors.

I speculate taking a payment would have been relatively low complexity for Twitter to implement and possibly could have leveraged existing internal systems.

I wouldn't be surprised if one day Elon suddenly announces everybody paying $8/mth now needs to submit identity docs to continue to use service.

Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#195
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest difference between Twitter and every one of Musk's successful companies is that his typical ventures absolutely depend on US federal largesse to survive. Unless Twitter can start selling carbon credits or secure some bloated federal contracts, there is no chance in hell that Twitter is going to be in the black any time soon.

This is just completely untrue for Tesla. Carbon credits make up less than 10 percent of Tesla's profit. They had 250 million in carbon credits last quarter and 3.3 billion profit.

The Federal government, and state governments, and various EU governments have given tax credits to buyers of Tesla cars since almost the beginning of Tesla.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/what-you-need-know-about-federal-...

https://www.tesla.com/support/incentives

Tesla claims they pay up to 7500 for every Tesla (depending on the time bought), up to 30% + 400$ for every powerwall for example.

Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And sell it to who? It's going to have to be seriously discounted because it will cost them years to rebuild what he has already broken.

I'm sure there's a SPAC out there that might want it. And thus the cycle will be complete.

I'm sure you could find a buyer, but the price would be on their terms.

Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for obvious parodies. And Mario giving the finger is an obvious parody.

Given a list of all twitter bans, there would surely be many that we would both agree are obvious parodies. So, obvious is relative, or, a grey area/high weasel potential area to do what you want. So it’s not obvious that anything has changed there either. That’s besides the point though that, while widely reported and repeated, Musk, as far as I’m aware, did not institute the rule about impersonation.

If you seriously think that Nintendo would tweet a picture of Mario "flipping the bird", you don't come across as a neutral arbiter, you come across as someone ridiculous.

Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#198
post #87

I actually liked the ~idea~ behind this but not the execution, which I can't believe was so bungled In my ideal world, Twitter Blue would act as "identity verification as a service". Pay $X/month and provide some proof of identity linked to your display name on Twitter. If the two correlate, you get the check. I think identity could be fairly flexible- could be "I am John Smith", but also could be "I am CorpA" or "I…

> I actually liked the ~idea~ behind this but not the execution, which I can't believe was so bungled How do you not bungle something you conceive, implement, and roll out to millions of users in 2 weeks (while in the middle of a massive wave of layoffs).

By not missing on the core feature? The MVP for this was not taking payments and putting a sign, it was having an actual verification, no matter how basic.

I also don't understand how it got to this bondoggle. I always imagined it was going to use the payment for verification: you can get a blue mark for John Smith only if you pay with a card belonging to John Smith. That can be automated in 2 weeks, no problem. And then add more complex verification procedures for companies, brands and non-name accounts.

I'm also reserving some probability mass for "we didn't get the whole story". Something like 25% that was an already verified account or something like that.

Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually liked the ~idea~ behind this but not the execution, which I can't believe was so bungled How do you not bungle something you conceive, implement, and roll out to millions of users in 2 weeks (while in the middle of a massive wave of layoffs).

He's moving fast and breaking things. Eventually I suspect things will get fixed and Twitter will probably benefit from the attention. Twitter hasn't been this interesting in years.

"May you live in interesting times" is a curse, not a blessing. People tune into disasters. Trolling aside, twitter has become hugely introspective over the last few weeks, which isn't particularly interesting.

Re: Eli Lilly pulls millions in Twitter advertising after fake account debacle

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the company is worth on the open market, say at this moment.

And sell it to who? It's going to have to be seriously discounted because it will cost them years to rebuild what he has already broken.

China, Russia, Saudi-Arabia would be first ports of call on my roadshow.
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