Against warnings that Twitter is on the verge of collapse, the social media platform hadn't died Saturday – at least not yet. But things aren't necessarily going well for new owner Elon Musk's goal to re-engineer the company to his tastes and with it the larger, potentially quixotic, goal of re-setting standards of social discourse online.
But while reports of chaos at the company multiply, not all interactions have necessarily proved negative. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly said last week that a tweet by an imposter account over insulin pricing in the US that caused the company's stock to plunge "probably highlights" a need to bring down the cost of the drug.
In its first public comments since a tweet falsely attributed to the drugmaker – and after Twitter instituted an $8 verification fee – declared: "We are excited to announce insulin is free now." The tweet caused the company's share price to tumble and caused panic within the company as it tried to contact Twitter to have it removed.
Almost two weeks later, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks has defended his company's insulin pricing – and conceded that it could be lower. The episode, he said, "probably highlights that we have more work to do to bring down the cost of insulin for more people".
But he also took Twitter to task, saying Eli Lilly wanted the correction to come quickly. "It probably didn't happen quickly enough to our liking," Ricks said. "And it demonstrates some of the challenges on that platform."
www.theguardian.com
