Eli Lilly to Pull Advertising on Twitter After Fake Insulin Tweet Fallout

Only days after a tweet from a verified account masquerading as Eli Lilly tanked the pharma giant’s stock by 11%, the company is signaling it will substantially cut its ad spending on the platform. The tweet in question, coming from an account that was verified through Elon Musk’s controversial pay-for-verification program, stated that “insulin is free now”. The tweet took hours for Twitter staff to pull, in part due to massive staff cuts initiated by Musk.

According to Phil Taylor, “Along with an estimated 3,700 full-time staffers, that also includes thousands of outsourced jobs, including content moderators, reports the Independent – just the people who might have been able to spot a phony account. The Twitter Blue $8 verification service – Musk’s first major policy move for Twitter – was suspended on Friday after a surge of controversial tweets by blue tick accounts mimicking a host of big brands.”

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(Source: PharmaPhorum, November 15^th, 2022)