It seems that Twitter Inc. has suspended its recently announced $8 blue check subscription following a proliferation of fake accounts on its platform. However, the decision to suspend the service came too late for one pharmaceutical company due to how fast online accounts proliferated.
American pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly (LLY) lost billions of dollars after its stock plummeted on Friday due to a false tweet claiming "insulin is free now" sent on Thursday by a fake account, verified with a blue tick.
A fake account impersonating Eli Lilly on social media promised free insulin as part of its promotion on Friday, according to The Star newspaper. However, the stock of the company dropped 4.37 percent, wiping out over $15 billion in market capitalization.
In a tweet posted from its official Twitter account, Eli Lilly provided clarification regarding the matter.
A flood of fake Twitter accounts has sprung up since Elon Musk's revised subscription guidelines for Twitter Blue were announced. Eli Lilly is only one of the victims.
Twitter's Blue Saga
It was reported on Friday by AFP that Twitter took action on Friday to curb the proliferation of fake accounts. This has been seen since Elon Musk took over the company. There has been a suspension of new sign-ups for the newly introduced paid checkmark system on Twitter, and some accounts have been restored to their gray badges.
Before the new law, the coveted blue tick used to be available only to politicians, famed personalities, journalists, and other public figures. It was also available to government organizations and private organizations.
The official Twitter account @twittersupport tweeted on Friday about restoring the "official" label on accounts to stop the flood of fake accounts. The tweet stated "To combat impersonation, we have added an "official" label to some accounts."
There is evidence that Twitter has temporarily disabled the feature as documented by a memo sent internally to its employees, obtained by US media including The Washington Post, to address "impersonation issues."