A pharmaceutical giant selling insulin for hundreds of dollars a vial has apologised after an impostor Twitter account that purchased a blue-check "verified" label tweeted that the drug was free.
The incident was among a wave of impersonations that prompted Twitter to make its relaunched premium service — available to anyone for $US8 ($11.93) a month — unavailable.
A fake account posing as pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly & Co and registered under the Twitter Blue system tweeted: "We are excited to announce insulin is free now."
The tweet prompted Eli Lilly's stock to drop sharply by percentage points, according to Investor's Business Daily.
"We apologise to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Lilly account," the company said, reiterating the name of its Twitter handle.
Eli Lilly had previously faced scrutiny for its insulin prices, following reports that revealed some Americans were stockpiling the drug because they could not afford more.
The company's pricing website still lists a five-pack of its insulin "Kwikpens" as $US530.40 ($791.28) and its branded 10ml vial as $US274.70 ($409.81).
A pinned tweet on Eli Lilly's official Twitter account also still promotes its "insulin affordability options".
Flood of impostor accounts for major brands
The removal of Twitter Blue is the latest whiplash-inducing change to the service where uncertainty has become the norm since billionaire Elon Musk took control two weeks ago.
Prior to that, the blue check was granted to government entities, corporations, celebrities and journalists verified by the platform — precisely to prevent impersonation.
Now, anyone can get one as long as they have a phone and a credit card.
Nintendo, Lockheed Martin, Mr Musk's own companies Tesla and SpaceX were also impersonated, as well as the accounts of various professional sports and political figures.
For advertisers who have put their business with Twitter on hold, the fake accounts could be the last straw.
Mr Musk's rocky run atop the platform — laying off half its workforce and triggering high-profile departures — has raised questions about its survivability.
Impostors have created "overwhelming reputational risk for placing advertising investments on the platform", said Lou Paskalis, longtime marketing and media executive and former Bank of America head of global media.
Mr Paskalis added that with the fake "verified" brand accounts, "a picture emerges of a platform in disarray that no media professional would risk their career by continuing to make advertising investments on, and no governance apparatus or senior executive would condone if they did".
Adding to the confusion, Twitter now has two categories of "blue checks", and they look identical.
One includes the accounts verified before Musk took the helm.
It notes: "This account is verified because it's notable in government, news, entertainment, or another designated category."
The other notes that the account subscribes to Twitter Blue.
But as of midday on Friday, Twitter Blue was not available for subscription.
'No choice' but to remove Twitter Blue
On Thursday, Mr Musk tweeted that "too many corrupt legacy Blue 'verification' checkmarks exist, so no choice but to remove legacy Blue in coming months".
An email sent to Twitter's press address went unanswered.
The company's communications department was gutted in the layoffs and Twitter has not responded to queries from The Associated Press since October 27 when Mr Musk took the helm.
Twitter has also once again begun adding grey "official" labels to some prominent accounts.
It had rolled out the labels earlier this week, only to kill them a few hours later.
They returned on Thursday night, at least for some accounts — including Twitter's own, as well as big companies like Amazon, Nike and Coca-Cola, before many vanished again.
Celebrities also did not appear to be getting the "official" label.
About 90 per cent of Twitter's revenue came from advertisers.
"It has become chaos," said Richard Levick, chief executive of public relations firm Levick.
"Who buys into chaos?"
A bigger issue for Mr Musk might be the risk to his reputation as a model tech executive, since the rollout of different types of verifications and other changes have been botched, Mr Levick added.
"It's another example of something not very well thought out, and that's what happens when you rush," Mr Levick said.
"Musk has been known as a trusted visionary and magician — he can't lose that moniker and that's what's at risk right now."
Google, Amazon and Meta account for about 75 per cent of digital ads globally, with all other platforms combined making up the other 25 per cent.
Twitter accounts for about 0.9 per cent of global digital ad spending, according to Insider Intelligence.
"For most marketers on budgets, Twitter has always been that thing that is potentially too big to totally ignore but not quite big enough to care about," said Mark DiMassimo, creative chief of marketing agency DiGo.
"None of this is a forever moral or ethical stand on the point of advertisers.
"If Musk proves to be a civilising force in the long run, advertisers will come back — if Twitter is still there. It's a 'for now' decision — why be there now?"
AP/ABC
