Eli Lilly posted an unusual message on Twitter yesterday. Eli Lilly apologized for a false tweet where a person pretending to be from the company’s spokesperson wrote “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.”
The company offers insulin and it’s not for free.
Eli Lilly (real handle @LillyPad) can be blamed for the changes to Twitter implemented in the wake of Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition for confusion. The pranksters were able easily create an authentic-looking Twitter account with an emerald checkmark on the fake username “EliLillyandCo”–by paying a monthly fee of $8 to subscribe Twitter Blue. The new service, which was introduced under the name of Musk has an old blue checkmark that indicated that accounts were legitimate.
After the fake post was posted Eli Lilly’s stock plummeted quickly. How much of the drop was due to the fake post isn’t completely evident. However, Lockheed Martin shares fell following a fake account, this time using Twitter Blue — claimed that the firm was halting sales of weapons in certain countries.
The gaming companies Nintendo along with Valve were as well targeted by pranksters using Twitter Blue, as were famous athletes, such as NBA LeBron James (pretending to make a request for an exchange) along with Major League Baseball pitcher Aroldis Chapman (claiming that he was a signer of a contract but he wasn’t).
Twitter Blue was not available Friday, following the surge of fake accounts.
Blue checks from Twitter under Musk
Before Musk assumed control over the company, checks in blue were used to identify legitimate accounts and were made available to anyone Twitter considered to be trustworthy and notable.
On November. 5 Twitter announced its Twitter Blue program, which stated in an update to the application on Apple iOS devices that users might see a blue checkmark on their name “just like the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.”
The incident opened the doors to people to play pranks. In the instance of the Eli Lilly trickery, played drug companies as well as Twitter.
Pharma companies have come under increasing increased pressure due to the cost of insulin as well as other drugs. That helped lead to the Inflation Reduction Act–President Joe Biden’s sweeping health care, climate, and tax legislation–including a provision capping the out-of-pocket cost for insulin at $35 dollars a month (for Medicare beneficiaries at least).
Eli Lilly didn’t mention insulin or prices in its explanation note on its official Twitter account. It wrote, “We apologize to those who received an incorrect message via an untrusted Lilly account. The official account on Twitter is called @LillyPad.”
Eli Lilly faced yet more fraud from a different false Twitter fake account. This time that was using “LillyPadCo,” Insider reported. It also claimed to be the real account, the fake account apologized for its first fake tweet, stating that Humalog which is a drug for diabetes manufactured from Eli Lilly, “is now at $400. It’s ours to do as we like and there’s nothing you can change it. Take it in.”
Lilly’s spokesperson said that the company stated to Fortune, “We are deeply committed to ensuring that patients and customers get exact information on our products. In recent weeks, fake or parody Twitter accounts associated with Lilly have shared false information. We’re trying to rectify this issue.”
