File under: no sh*t? Earlier this year, we saw The Academy test out two new fan-driven awards models to engage viewers: the Cheer Moment and Fan-Favorite. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) took to the internet via Twitter polls to get results, leading to “Zack Snyder’s Justice League” and “Army of The Dead” winning those respective categories. Well, it looks like those results might have been severely inflated and rigged due to Snyder fans —already notorious for manipulating Twitter trending algorithms by overloading them with hashtags for the #Snydercut campaign—manipulating the polls with fake Twitter accounts.
The Wrap, citing two reports from Tweetbinder, claims that the poll results “appear to have been rigged by automated online bot accounts” on behalf of Snyder’s work. The hashtag analytics tool has seemingly revealed that “the most active contributors to both polls were autonomous web programs that cast thousands of fake votes” for “Army of The Dead” and “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.”
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So far, there haven’t been any comments on this potential revelation from The Academy or ABC.
If true, this certainly highlights how misguided it is to use a Twitter poll, which anyone who has an email account knew could be manipulated. The academy instated these strange new awards in an attempt to attract younger viewers to the broadcast as a hypothetical way to boost ratings.
This apparently isn’t the first instance of bots being used to create fake interest/support for Snyder’s films, as the outlet also mentions that “an Israeli company called Cyabra discovered that some 25,000 Twitter profiles agitating on the internet for the release of Snyder’s re-edited version of ‘Justice League‘ were, in fact, fake accounts.” The bot campaign was an effective one, pushing studio executives fooled by faux internet outcry to reportedly spend a hefty $70 million for Snyder to complete his cut of the film for HBO Max. Snyder’s version had underwhelming view counts compared to other films that dropped on the streaming service during the push for a hybrid day-and-date release model.
Think what you will about those films, that’s really not the issue here. If these polls can be easily skewed by nefarious/malicious bots (used by fans to cheat), what is the point of even having them? I guess that is a question for those behind the Academy Awards and we “can’t wait” for the next great bad idea to coax kids to watch the ceremony.
Snyder is currently directing his highly anticipated sci-fi fantastic epic “Rebel Moon,” based on a failed “Star Wars” pitch that was an homage to Akira Kurosawa‘s classic “The Seven Samurai,” and is attached to direct “Army of The Dead 2” for Netflix as well.