Detailed report on rolling stone published this week shows that the social media campaign around the premiere Justice League Zack Snyder could be based on fake accounts. For weeks, executives and prominent executives of the production company have been subjected to a massive rejection campaign on social media. As mentioned in the text, a detailed investigation by WarnerMedia is devoted to the tactics of using bots to implement the campaign around the film.
Especially since the possibility of its premiere on HBO Max has become a reality. The information also indicates that the mass campaign against top managers and prominent leaders of Warner was not an organic phenomenon. Much less reaction based on the dissatisfaction of the fans. In fact, it was a well-planned strategy for the director to achieve a public effect.
According to journalist Tatyana Siegel, it all started in the spring of 2020, when the director had his first direct clashes with the production company. By then the director’s cut in Justice League advertised as part of HBO Max content. And that caused some immediate conflicts. The first of these was due petition to remove the names of Geoff Johns and John Berg from the credits of the film. Zack Snyder telephoned his agent almost daily to check if the request had been met.
In the end, the persistence of the director and his wife Deborah Snyder, also a producer moviehas reached a critical point. always according rolling stoneZack Snyder confronted an executive about a contentious issue. In the middle of the discussion the director threatened that if the names of the producers were not removed from the credits list, “he would destroy them on social networks”. A phrase that now seems to take on new meaning after months of harassment of WarnerMedia executives.
Social networks as a battlefield
User movements in favor of Zack Snyder have been frequent since the film’s disastrous premiere. Justice League in 2017. FROM Joss Whedon the work of Snyder, the credited director, was mixed with a style quite different from his own. The result was an incorrect, incomplete and confused work that disappointed the public and outraged the critics. Next year, hashtags #ReleaseTheSnyderCut requires the Zack Snyder cut to be shown. As the director himself said in several interviews, hours of footage were recorded that were not included in the final cut. Which completely changed the result.
In the end, campaign was successful and, amid the uncertainty of the pandemic, the so-called. Snyder Cut It was released on the HBO Max platform. It was an interesting strategy that touched on two points at once. On the one hand, the persistent campaign in fan networks pleases. On the other hand, to support the recent appearance of HBO Max. The film was a hit and turned Zack Snyder into something of a pop culture hero.. Moreover, his version is a failure Justice Leaguewas far more complete and substantially consistent than the one shown in theaters.
But while Zack Snyder enjoyed his public success, at Warner Bros. and its leaders were hit by an avalanche of attacks. Social media was filled with threats against leaders – some of them so serious that they were considered dangerous – and calls for a boycott. Groups of thousands of alleged fans on social media have been harassing, insulting, and pointing out visible WarnerMedia executives.
The attack also involved Adam Wingard, director Godzilla vs. konga film that was released less than two weeks after Snyder Cut. Angry fans felt it was a Warner maneuver to draw attention to the superhero movie.
It was a mass phenomenon, so direct and punctual that many experts wondered if it was completely spontaneous. And, in fact, the report rolling stone He points out that the company ordered two different reports to look into what happened. The result was to make sure that at least 13% of accounts involved in media bullying were false. Q5id and Graphika were much bigger than the usual internet traffic lines with a common goal.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Alethea Group checked out some of the odd spots on the forsnydercut.com domain. Website takes responsibility for success hashtags #ReleaseTheSnyderCut in May 2018. rolling stone discovered that it belongs to a non-existent advertising agency. The one that also insists on the possibility of selling traffic “cheap and easy.”
Snyder Cut at the center of all problems
Report rolling stone it shows, on the other hand, that the magazine has done its own investigations. Even using the same cybersecurity companies as Q5id. Target? Analyze in detail the impact of the campaigns that benefited Zack Snyder and the so-called SnyderVerse. Eventually, they found signs that they weren’t “there is no doubt” that there was a deliberate use of bots (fake accounts).
In fact, the article quotes Q5id CIO Becky Vanta, who explains in detail how the group of fake accounts works. In particular, in the trends of this category. “There are certain patterns that are emitted by the bots that we have seen here. They arrive almost simultaneously in large numbers. And often thousands or even millions of messages can be traced back to one or two sources. Sometimes they can be traced back to unusual servers in distant countries. And its content will be exactly the same,” Vanta explained. rolling stone.
In fact, the use of public pressure continued after the launch Snyder Cut March 18, 2021. According to information from Wrapper, the use of bots could affect the results of this year’s Oscars awarded by the public. But even more dangerous is the fact that this is a campaign that includes selective attacks. According to Vanity Fair D voxthe fandom’s toxic behavior “has much more in common with offensive right-wing campaigns like Gamergate than with much of mainstream geek culture.”
For Becky Vanta, the danger is clear: “You can control the court of public opinion,” Vanta says for rolling stone. A trend that could pose a hidden threat to the web security of hundreds of public figures around the world.
