#this is about the tweet that cost eli lilly billions

[spaceysoupy]

Now that we have verified proof that online activism can be praxis and can be good praxis, can we stop disparaging online activists, especially disabled activists and those who only have access to activism online? PLEASE?

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one of my favorite things about Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter is that he made it so that anyone who gave Twitter $8 could get the blue checkmark that indicates that the user is verified, so people on Twitter started paying for the verification check so they could impersonate tons of corporations on Twitter and tweet shit that cost some of the corporations billions of dollars in stock

(alternate text included under each picture!)

Alternate Text: A Tweet from an account with the Eli Lilly profile picture, handle (EliLillyandCo), and account name and a blue checkmark that says "We are excited to announce insulin is free now." (Eli Lilly is a pharmaceutical company notorious for jacking up prices/making drugs not affordable)

Alternate Text: a picture of the what Google shows when you search up "Eli Lilly stock," mainly a graph that starts out at nearly $370, steadily decreases to below $350 until a little before 12:00 pm, briefly climbs back up to just past $350 at just after 12:00 pm, and then continues climbing down. The graph is in red. Above the graph, the header says "352.30 USD: -16.08 (4.37%) down today"

Alternate Text: A Tweet from an account with the Lockheed Martin profile picture and account name, the handle LockheedMartini, and a verified checkmark that says "We will begin halting all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the United States until further investigation into their record of human rights abuses. #WeAreLM" There is a picture of a jet flying in a blue sky with wispy clouds attached to the Tweet.

Alternate Text: a picture of the what Google shows when you search up "Lockheed Martin stock," mainly a graph that starts out at nearly $480 and is rapidly decreasing to just above $460 by 4:00 pm. The graph is in red. Above the graph, the header says "463.86 USD: -26.91 (5.48%) down today"

Alternate Text: two pictures, three Tweets total. The Tweet in the picture on the left comes from an account with the Nestlé name and profile picture, the handle NestleDeathCult, and a blue checkmark. The Tweet says "We steal your water and sell it back to you lol"

There are two Tweets in the picture on the right that both come from an account that has the Chiquita account name, profile picture, and handle (Chiquita) as well as a verified checkmark. The Tweet on the top reads "We've just overthrown the government of Brazil." The Tweet on the bottom reads "We apologize to those who have been served a misleading message from a fake Chiquita account. We have not overthrown a government since 1954."

[mariacallous]

“The bird is freed,” tweeted Elon Musk on October 27, 2022, as a celebratory endnote to his acquisition of Twitter. However, this begs the question, free for which type of birds? By show of his previous political statements, current missteps, and future plans for the platform, this so-called freedom may simply galvanize extremists and further expose racial and religious minorities to hate speech and trauma. Twitter is now a major platform for proponents of hate speech.

Twitter saw a nearly 500% increase in use of the N-word in the 12-hour window immediately following the shift of ownership to Musk. Within the following week, tweets including the word “Jew” had increased fivefold since before the ownership transfer. Tweets with the most engagement were overly antisemitic. Likewise, there has also been an uptick in misogynistic and transphobic language. This surge in hateful language has been accredited to various trolling campaigns on sites like 4chan and the pro-Trump forum “The Donald.”

In response to these reports, Yoel Roth (former Head of Safety and Integrity at Twitter) posted a thread detailing that the majority of this derogatory language is coming from about 300 “inauthentic” accounts. Even if this hateful conduct is coming from a small number of troll accounts, this phenomenon speaks to how fringe, alt-right networks not only feel empowered by Musk’s takeover, but protected as well.

Shortly after the acquisition, Musk laid off almost 50% of Twitter employees. He also fired several longtime executives including: CEO Parag Argrawal, CFO Ned Segal, chairman Bret Taylor, the company’s General Counsel, Sean Edgett, and the head of legal policy, trust, and safety, Vijaya Gadde. Gadde is especially of note because she was instrumental in banning former President Donald Trump from Twitter. After a Twitter poll with over 15 million votes (with 52% voting yes to return Trump to Twitter), Musk restored Trump to the platform. As a result, the team that was previously in place to monitor and censure hate speech is no longer at Twitter.

As Musk is now the primary owner of the platform, he may follow through with loosening standards of harmful content and dissolving the so-called censorship he has criticized in the past. He plans to form a “Content Moderation Council,” and also changed how users are verified on the platform. He offered an $8/month verification process for the elusive blue Twitter check mark, in lieu of the traditional merit-based process that seemed to reward users based on number of followers and prominence in a particular field such as journalism, academia, or entertainment. This new verification process failed miserably and was pulled as users created fake accounts for companies and political leaders. One fake account actually led to Ely Lilly’s stock dropping over 4% and costing investors billions of dollars.

While the verification process has dissolved for now, we are worried about potential changes to Twitter’s moderation process. When acquisitions of social media platforms occur, there should be an obligation of the new owner(s) to ensure that hate speech is moderated. This is even more vital given the current political environment and spread of misinformation. Some policymakers agree. In a bipartisan effort, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis (D-WY) introduced the NUDGE Act (Nudging Users to Drive Good Experiences on Social Media) to provide funding for the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a study on interventions that will reduce social media addiction and harmful language. In 2021, Democrats reintroduced the Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act “to hold large social media platforms accountable for their algorithmic amplification of harmful, radicalizing content that leads to offline violence.”

Two research studies on Twitter speak to the importance of these potential policies. First, researchers analyzed political content on Twitter from Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Britain, and the United States. In six of the seven countries (Germany being the exception), right-wing political content received higher algorithmic amplification than left-wing content. Second, a report by The Brookings Institution examined over two million tweets and posts from Twitter and Reddit. Researchers found that users on Twitter, compared to Reddit users, were 2.5 times less likely to engage in bystander intervention to combat racist language. They attribute this difference to the divergent moderation policies on the two platforms. Reddit has a much more rigorous moderation policy to check and address hate speech on the platform. Conversely, Twitter is like the Wild Wild West and seems to be moving in a direction that may further marginalize people on the platform. Increasingly polarized politics and the prevalence of misinformation make this trend even more disconcerting.

Some may claim that internet censorship and the de-platforming of people has no effect, but this is simply not the case. As an example, following the banning of Trump from Twitter and other social media sites, online engagement around Trump decreased by 95%. The presence of online misinformation regarding election fraud plunged by 73% following Trump’s Twitter ban. The ban of Andrew Tate may follow a similar trend. His removal from TikTok, where the algorithm connected him to millions of impressionable young boys, has effectively siphoned his violent reach. It is of course naïve to believe that de-platforming will completely halt the efforts of those so committed to bigotry. They are oftentimes pushed to more hidden and niche parts of the internet to spread their message. From Timothy McVeigh to Dylann Roof, we have evidence of what far-right extremists who are pushed further to the fringe can do.

Collectively, recent changes to and at Twitter disrupt the ability for marginalized people to find community, produce useful discourse to share ways to foster equality, and protect themselves from hate speech and trauma. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and his potential plans to loosen moderation guidelines will continue to increase the use of hate speech and likely inhibit the ways that marginalized groups have organized and mobilized on the platform to resist harmful language and discrimination in their everyday lives. Censoring hate speech and users who use hateful rhetoric are primary ways to ensure that the bird is truly free.

[omcik-blog]

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/drug-coverage-plans-battle-in-state-capitals-over-price-secrets/

Drug Coverage Plans Battle in State Capitals Over Price Secrets

(Photo: Thinkstock)

California is the biggest state so far to seek to pull back the curtain on pharmacy-benefits managers, as the industry aggressively tries to thwart a wider push for transparency.

Lawmakers in the General Assembly advanced a bill that would require more disclosures of discounts negotiated between the companies and drugmakers, but the measure is on hold after Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration last week asked for changes. Benefits managers have stymied several attempts at the state and federal levels to pry open their workings.

(Related: CVS Health Is Sued Over `Clawbacks’ of Prescription Drug Co-Pays)   

“There’s been huge push-back,” said the legislation’s sponsor, Jim Wood, a Democratic assemblyman from Northern California and dentist. “It really makes me more suspicious that there’s simply things they don’t want us to know.”

Politicians, pharmacies and patients say they understand little about how the $280 billion industry uses its clout to influence costs. The three largest pharmacy-benefit managers — Express Scripts Holding Co., UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s OptumRx, and CVS Health Corp. — process roughly 70% of U.S. prescriptions.

The fight is just one battle in a nationwide struggle between lawmakers who want more light on drug plans’ practices and the companies, who say that increased regulation will disrupt their ability to seek lower drug costs. In addition to state efforts, the U.S. Congress is also considering legislation.

“Those bills aren’t going anywhere,” said Mark Merritt, chief executive officer of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, the industry’s lobbying arm. “Every industry has numerous bills introduced by this or that member of Congress, whether you’re selling shoelaces or health care, that they don’t like. That’s just a normal cost of doing business.”

Poor Visibility

A Nevada measure signed in June by Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval requires pharmacy-benefit managers to reveal rebates they receive from insulin makers, how much of those rebates are passed on to insurers, and what they keep for themselves.

Diabetes affects 12% of Nevada’s population; another 38% are estimated to be at risk of the disease. At the same time, the price of insulin, a century-old treatment, has surged. Eli Lilly & Co.’s Humalog cost $21 a vial when it hit the market in 1996. Today, it has a list price of $275. Annual insulin sales worldwide exceed $20 billion.

Pharmacy-benefit managers say such rules deprive them of bargaining power they need to contain costs. The PCMA has blocked state efforts to regulate reimbursements, curb their ownership of mail-order pharmacies, and make them disclose financial conflicts.

(Image: Thinkstock)

In a six-page letter to Sandoval, the industry said the law would raise drug costs and likely be struck down by the courts for violating federal laws. Sandoval, a former state attorney general and federal judge, said when he signed the bill that it was unlikely to lose in court.

On Sept. 1, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, two drug-industry lobbying groups, sued Nevada, hoping to keep the state from implementing the law, which they say violates patent rights and jeopardizes trade secrets.

Resistant to Regulation

Nevada isn’t alone. In July, Connecticut became the latest to ensure that pharmacists can tell patients the cheapest way to get their prescription drugs. Oklahoma has a law aimed at increasing clarity on pricing and giving pharmacists ways to dispute reimbursements.

But most states haven’t been able to make their efforts stick.

An Iowa PBM law was found by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to run afoul of federal law preventing states from regulating employer-sponsored health plans. An Arkansas law was partially set aside on similar grounds. Laws in Maine and Washington, D.C., tagged pharmacy-benefits managers with a fiduciary duty to clients, but Maine’s law was eventually repealed, while Washington’s was struck down by courts.

“I still believe there’s a lot to be gained by cracking the PBMs’ practices,” said Kate Gainer, executive director of the Iowa Pharmacy Association, which represents more than 1,000 pharmacists and technicians. “I just don’t know how to get there.”

The California bill is expected to be reintroduced early next year. The governor’s office declined to comment.

The Federal Front

Transparency with drug-price negotiations is a “double-edged sword,” as some research has found revealing details could result in higher costs, Stephen Ubl, the chief executive officer of PhRMA, said in an interview. “So much of the transparency discussion that we see primarily at the state level is little more than veiled attempts at price controls.”

U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican from Georgia, has a bill that would make companies that contract with the U.S. government detail how they reimburse pharmacies for drugs. A bill from Senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, would force disclosure of discounts.

Merritt, the PCMA chief, said that his industry works to educate lawmakers on how proposed regulations will increase health care and drug costs.

“We do it all the time, usually successfully,” he said. “The single most compelling thing we do, and do regularly, is show policy makers the real cost impact of the anti-PBM policies.”

Merritt said the better way to lower drug costs is for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to increase approvals of generic and branded treatments — a strategy that the agency’s new leadership has embraced. Merritt said that companies don’t have to hire pharmacy-benefit managers, but do because of the savings they receive for their employees.

— Read Pharmacy Benefit Managers Have Changed on ThinkAdvisor.

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I posted 336 times in 2022

76 posts created (23%)

260 posts reblogged (77%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@thebctman

@inthetags

@coffeeinthelibrary

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@amarakaran

I tagged 327 of my posts in 2022

Only 3% of my posts had no tags

#important psa - 47 posts

#abortion - 24 posts

#but i love queue more than words can say - 15 posts

#roe v wade - 14 posts

#literature - 13 posts

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#tumblr does its thing - 11 posts

#queen elizabeth ii - 11 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#this mainly directed at the one person who attacked me on twitter for saying that i preferred listening to beetlejuice music over hadestown

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The UK? More like r U oKay (airhorn noises)

62 notes - Posted October 24, 2022

#4

haven't watched a single episode of Stranger Things but I hope team bicycle or whatever becomes canon

106 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

#3

one of my favorite things about Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter is that he made it so that anyone who gave Twitter $8 could get the blue checkmark that indicates that the user is verified, so people on Twitter started paying for the verification check so they could impersonate tons of corporations on Twitter and tweet shit that cost some of the corporations billions of dollars in stock

(alternate text included under each picture!)

Alternate Text: A Tweet from an account with the Eli Lilly profile picture, handle (EliLillyandCo), and account name and a blue checkmark that says "We are excited to announce insulin is free now." (Eli Lilly is a pharmaceutical company notorious for jacking up prices/making drugs not affordable)

See the full post

241 notes - Posted November 11, 2022

#2

Everyone say thank you to Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe for inventing enemies-to-lovers

376 notes - Posted July 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Anne Shirley was right I am glad to live in a world with Octobers

453 notes - Posted October 8, 2022

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