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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

#91
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…

> 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. I keep seeing this everywhere, that the switch from being verified to "payment verified" made that possible. It was possible to do this attack before the change. It just made it easier but also traceable with the payment info.

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

#92
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 thought it would use a service similar to this from Canada Post [1]. Obviously would only work for Canada, but I'm sure many other countries have a similar service. People will balk at the in-person side of things, but it would create a safer service if your real identify was verified. For users, not wanting to use their real name, perhaps they could opt into a low tier service with a different badge.

I know there are many online services providing a similar service, not sure how secure they are, but obviously another option.

1 - https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/business/posta...

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

#94
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.

Could be like Palantir and provide a bunch of citizen tracking analytics to govt.

If you don't already know Elon's govt scheming, read about Mike Griffin and Elons missile defense contracts with the US DoD.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career

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

#95
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the key word: lost. Nothing's been lost - neither Eli Lilly nor their shareholders have lost any money (unless they sold their stock, at which point they aren't shareholders). The price of their stock dipped, and is rising back up. At worst, Eli Lilly would have had slightly higher interest rates on their next round of debt funding.

Stock prices don't move unless people are selling. So shareholders absolutely lost money.

The people selling based off of tweetstorms or breaking news are not mom and pop investors saving for retirement. They’re day traders trying to squeeze profit out of fluctuations.

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The SEC definitely targets sudden, surprising stock moves, and looks for people who profited off them. (This is why one of Matt Levine's tongue-in-cheek 'rules for insider trading- this is not legal advice!' is never do it in short dated, out-of-the-money options!) I'm sure there are relatively sophisticated ways to exploit the market that the SEC probably won't catch (that are also more sophisticated than I understand), but now you need to have a sophisticated understanding of the market, and of cybersecurity fraud (to beat Twitters payments verification), and naturally maintain flawless opsec on both throughout. Harder and harder to do.

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

#97
post #78

How much of this "fake tweet causes a billion dollar drop in market cap" is coincidental? Everyone talks about it like the tweet CAUSED it, but did it really? Especially when the market is already so choppy?

There must be an ETF focused on pharmaceuticals. How did it compare to Eli Lilly over the same time period?

https://etfdb.com/etfs/industry/pharmaceutical/

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

#98
post #88

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…

> 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_...

What we have here is a failure to communicate - Musk suffers from Tony Stark Syndrome which is caused by excessive exposure to Ayn Rand novels, Marvel Comics and Twinkie's.

https://watchfuleye.online/whisky70/2017/8/1/the-one-great-m...

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The FTC would look at people who recently bought short term call options against Eli Lily stock and ask them questions. Pretty much the same playbook anytime bad news causes a stock price to go down. Matt Levine notes this as a common way people get caught doing insider trading each time it comes up.

It's normally combined with recorded IM conversations along the lines of "bro, I bought some short term chickens for Lli Eily. Let's make them CLUCK with this tweet." You call them chickens, or something similar, to try and fool the FTC. This is also a surprisingly common occurrence during insider trading investigations.

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

#100
post #46
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patients don't have real choice. Options are either you die or spend hundreds* of dollars on a drug that everywhere else on the planet costs few bucks.

Why is there no black market for insulin? Like build capacity in Mexico/Canada and smuggle the product in the US? Seems like the multiplier would still be pretty good.

Why do you assume there isn't one already? The "War on Drugs" was never just about illegal drugs across borders, and US Customs will try to stop many legal ones too, especially at volume.
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