Nilay Patel
Twitter didn’t respond to Eli Lilly about the fake insulin tweet for hours.
The pharma giant has suspended all of its Twitter accounts in the aftermath of the scandal, which wiped billions from its market cap.
Inside the real Eli Lilly, the fake sparked a panic, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Company officials scrambled to contact Twitter representatives and demanded they kill the viral spoof, worried it could undermine their brand’s reputation or push false claims about people’s medicine. Twitter, its staffing cut in half, didn’t react for hours.
