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's $8-a-month blue check mark Twitter service has sown chaos, with companies like Eli Lilly and Lockheed Martin losing billions after tweets sent from fake accounts duped investors.
Fake accounts purporting to be big brands have popped up with the blue check marks since the new roll-out, including Musk's and , as well as Roblox, Nestle, Lockheed Martin and Eli Lilly.
The social media platform paused its recently announced service on Friday as the fake accounts mushroomed, 라카지노 주소 and new owner Musk brought back the 'official' badge for some users.
But the damage was already done for some companies whose stock prices dropped on Friday following tweets from the fake accounts.
Eli Lilly fell 4.5 percent Friday after a user tweeted from a verified account that looked like an official Lilly profile: 'We are excited to announce insulin is now free.'
The company's capitalization also decreased by more than $7 billion. Lilly posted an apology from its real account and executives later ordered a halt to all T
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The verification system has been exploited by fake accounts impersonating a range of different brands and people since Musk took over.
On Friday, Eli Lilly executives ordered a halt to all Twitter ad campaigns, the Washington Post reported.
They also paused their Twitter publishing plan for all corporate accounts around the world.
'For $8, they're potentially losing out on millions of dollars in ad revenue,' Amy O'Connor, a former senior communications official at Eli Lilly who now works at a trade association, told the Post.
'What's the benefit to a company … of staying on Twitter?
It's not worth the risk when patient trust and health are on the line.'
Eli Lilly declined to reveal how much money it has spent on advertising with Twitter.
But it's not the only billion-dollar company whose accounts have been copied.
An account claiming to be PepsiCo tweeted out: 'Coke is better.'
Nestle, which is Poland Springs parent company tweeted: 'We steal your water and sell it back to you.'
Musk's companies SpaceX and Tesla were not even safe from fake accounts.
The SpaceX account tweeted: 'It is with a heavy heart that we announce that we will be ceasing all missions.
We plan to funnel $240 million in overstanding government subsidies to groups dedicated to sustainable agriculture and ending World Hunger.'
From a 'verified' Tesla Twitter account, someone tweeted: 'honestly a 53% drop in stock price doesn't [faze] us.
If there's anyone who knows about crashing it's us.'
An account claiming to be PepsiCo tweeted out: 'Coke is better'
Nestle, which is Poland Springs parent company tweeted: 'We steal your water and sell it back to you'
Last week, an account claiming to be BP Global tweeted: 'Just cause we killed the planet doesn't mean we can't miss it'
The Federal Trade Commission has warned that it's following recent developments at Twitter 'with concern' and one of the company's lawyers wrote on an internal messaging board that the social network could face billions in fines over violations of its consent decree with the US agency.
Despite the chaos, Musk wrote on Twitter that the number of active users on his platform were at an 'all time high'.
'Quite the day!' he wrote, have said before: 'Usage of Twitter continues to rise. One thing is for sure: it isn't boring!'
In another Tweet, Musk had posted: 'Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months.
We will keep what works & change what doesn't.'
The SpaceX account tweeted: 'It is with a heavy heart that we announce that we will be ceasing all missions.
We plan to funnel $240 million in overstanding government subsidies to groups dedicated to sustainable agriculture and ending World Hunger'
The Tesla CEO has controversially said he wants the blue tick to be available to all paying customers.
He said opening the verification process up to more people will help democratize Twitter and cut down on the spam and bot accounts on the site.
But critics have said this opens the door to confusion, impersonation and the further spread of misinformation.
Musk tweeted late on Thursday that all parody accounts must have 'parody' in their username as an attempt to crack down on the confusion.
Several top security and privacy experts at the company have also resigned amid the controversial changes.
Meanwhile, Twitter has cut half of its workforce and Musk raised the possibility of the social media platform going bankrupt.
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox news" data-version="2" id="mol-5ad67030-6444-11ed-846e-c5836c9ddc3f" website Musk's $8-a-month blue tick sows chaos as fake accounts pop up
