#Twitter, #fakeaccounts, Eli Lilly and the #FTC. Let’s say a mainstream media outlet said something that has a huge impact on a company’s valuation, but turns out to be false. That media outlet would be liable and the FTC would likely investigate. The FTC has already put Twitter on notice. There has always been a legal risk in enforcing moderation—or in this case, account authenticity. If you fail to do so, your legal liability is higher. Since Twitter has stated loudly and clearly that accounts would be validated, it should take some responsibility for what has happened when many fake accounts have had a real impact on the stock prices of the companies involved. From Eli Lilly to Nintendo, Pepsi, Nestle, Tesla, every single one of them has been affected in some way by brand appropriation. I wonder if #marketing teams at those brands had considered this possibility in their numerous scenarios of social media crisis! When Musk says something (or any other celebrity like him), it can cause the stock to fall or soar. There have been cases where this turned out to be illegal trading (selling/buying stock before announcing something or making a claim that will affect its value). Now, let’s assume that Eli Lilly’s impostor somehow expected to impact the stock price. . . Repeat with many other similar scenarios and you get the real possibility of fraud. “Looking forward to the first time someone spoofs a brand account, tweets out some fake [information], and then causes a flash crash of the stock market,” wrote a journalist on Twitter. #stockmarket #fraud #trading #socialmedia #branding