ATLANTA — There's a lot of controversy around social media giant Twitter as owner and new CEO Elon Musk makes companywide changes.
His latest debacle surrounds the blue check mark on the platform that marked a verified account, meaning an organization or person is who they say they are. Under Musk's ownership, and in an attempt to create a new revenue stream, the platform also rolled out Twitter Blue - an $8 subscription service that also grants a user a blue verified checkmark.
This change has caused some confusion and made way for parody or copycat accounts, as is the case with the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly.
An account with a blue checkmark and Eli Lilly's logo recently tweeted it makes insulin for free now.
This is a large claim that would impact the lives of millions of people and decided to verify it.
THE QUESTION
Did Eli Lilly announce free insulin on Twitter?
SOURCES
THE ANSWER
No, the claim is not true - and now the company is dealing with the fake statement's fallout.
WHAT WE FOUND
In the past, a blue checkmark next to a Twitter name meant it was verified by the social media company. Clicking on the checkmark would signal to users that it was verified as a notable voice in government, news, entertainment or another category.
After looking at the tweet in question, pictured below, the checkmark revealed the account is verified because it subscribed to Twitter Blue.
When Musk took over the company - it briefly offered users the option to subscribe, but the service is now on pause, according to the company.
Ali Roc, an executive in public relations and Georgia's entertainment industry said with Twitter's subscription service making it difficult to sift through factual information, people will likely be willing to pay for credible sources to deliver it to them instead.
"I think that with this now happening and so much more than just information being out there, people are going to start returning back to The New York Times. They're going to start paying for the subscriptions to The Washington Post," she said. "They're going to start paying for subscriptions to credible news sources that they know that they can trust and that have been reliable, whether they were in paper form or online."
The real Eli Lilly account posted its statement on the platform last night, apologizing for the "misleading message from a fake Lilly account." This means that no, the pharmaceutical company has not made insulin free to customers. It also clarified that its official account handle is @LillyPad on the platform.
Reports show the company's stocks took a dip on Friday after the parody account posted its claim. As the tweet went live on Thursday afternoon it was retweeted hundreds of times and received thousands of likes. As of Friday morning, the account that posted the fake claim, @EliLillyandCo, is no longer verified and its tweets are now private, Twitter shows.
"You know, Twitter and Facebook and even Instagram, like all of these social media platforms, people definitely use them to get information and information spreads quickly, just the same way that misinformation goes," Roc said. "There's going to be a retreat. There already has been. People, for the most part, people want real, honest, true information. Like they don't want to be lied to, they don't want to be pandered to or have misinformation or spread misinformation."