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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

#81
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 ta…

> 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.

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.

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

#82
post #60
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…

They should have done actual verification like many financial accounts do (you upload your ID and answer questions on your past). Musk is ex-payments professional and should have known that gaming payments to adversely attack verification was bound to happen. His assertion that lords and peasant system needs to be dismantled is absolutely correct, however. Twitter has largely turned into message distribution system f…

"Twitter has largely turned into message distribution system for 1% and that's limiting its growth. Blue checkmarks bestowed by some opaque priesthood at Twitter is not 21st century."

But at least the blue check system was mostly correct. Imagine how much a blue check would cost if it was opened to the public and the level of verification pre-elon was used .

Right now the $8 was just a code change and let's just call it 100% profit. With actual verification you'd need a bunch more people and one of those identity verification services and now that $8 isn't pure profit

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

#83
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. 1. Create a new Apple account 2. Buy a $10 iTunes gift card 3. Use that to pay for Twitter Blue Would I pay $10 and twenty minutes of my time to knock $20bn off of an insulin profiteer's stock price? Absolutely. Put me down for a recurring subscrip…

And if you shorted Lilly at the same time, you'll probably soon be getting a visit from men in dark suits.

How would they connect you to the anonymous estonian vpn gift card purchased verified blue check account

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

#84
> However, the real damage had already been done. By Friday morning, Lilly stock had dropped by more than 5% from the day before.

Bad reporting right here. If you look at their stock chart this is far from an unusual movement. In just the last six months they’ve had several drops of 5% and at least one 10% drop. This is more than just bending the meaning of “damage”, long term investors won’t even notice and day traders will see this as the opportunity it is.

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

#85
post #60
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…

They should have done actual verification like many financial accounts do (you upload your ID and answer questions on your past). Musk is ex-payments professional and should have known that gaming payments to adversely attack verification was bound to happen. His assertion that lords and peasant system needs to be dismantled is absolutely correct, however. Twitter has largely turned into message distribution system f…

They need an extra 1 billion per year. 1,000,000,000.00/($8X12 months) = 10.5 million verifications of pictures and IDs. Work force slashed in half. Questionable management decision making. Seems like the head winds are pretty strong for not being really successful or getting true verification implemented.

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

#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 am "

Verified accounts could then get priority display of tweets or replies. This cuts down on spam severely as now the barrier to getting high visibility tweets is $$$ AND verification.

What about profile name changes? That's why it's a monthly payment. Allow Y changes per month still subject to the same verification process

What is the cost of doing so? I feel (maybe naively), fairly small. I think verifying I am John Smith is super easy for non-notable people (no one is trying to impersonate you)- send a driver's license or recent bill and you are probably okay. For more notable people/corps, you will need to provide higher documentation but at the same time, that's a much smaller # of accounts (and currently done today)

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

#88
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…

> I think it just helps to be a user of the product and have a deep understanding for it before you make any changes. Elon used twitter a lot, but in pretty unusual fashion (because he's world famous billionaire) so he really didn't understand what's most valuable part and took it for granted. And it also doesn't take a genius to make changes a little slower and more conservatively. For instance, in this case they sh…

> And it also doesn't take a genius to make changes a little slower and more conservatively

This is what gets me. He's basically speedrunning a world-class demonstration of the lesson of Chesterton's fence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...

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

#89
post #60
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…

They should have done actual verification like many financial accounts do (you upload your ID and answer questions on your past). Musk is ex-payments professional and should have known that gaming payments to adversely attack verification was bound to happen. His assertion that lords and peasant system needs to be dismantled is absolutely correct, however. Twitter has largely turned into message distribution system f…

> His assertion that lords and peasant system needs to be dismantled is absolutely correct, however.

Not such a great system when a bunch of peasants convince themselves to believe in lies. "Everyone gets a voice to say damaging things" is the road to ruin.

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

#90
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it just helps to be a user of the product and have a deep understanding for it before you make any changes. Elon used twitter a lot, but in pretty unusual fashion (because he's world famous billionaire) so he really didn't understand what's most valuable part and took it for granted. And it also doesn't take a genius to make changes a little slower and more conservatively. For instance, in this case they sh…

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.

Charge the US government to censor posts like they are currently doing for free?
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