A social media platform can do what perhaps the greatest media publicity campaign cannot do. We can find not one but hundreds of examples when the digital community takes forward a cause successfully and make us say – Can't get better than this. What if fake AI bots are part of the campaign? Will the campaign hold its ground even if it lacks the element of originality even though the cause is worth fighting or otherwise? How far such campaigns can be accepted, in view that they might harm the long-term goals? When you see the Hollywood movie Justice League returning to screens after a long-drawn battle on Twitter it feels like justice is finally delivered. However, the ground facts tell a different story. Courtesy: The Rolling Stones report that deciphered AI bots' planned mischief.
Justice League, a 2017 movie, removed Zack Snyder from credits to replace it with Joss Whedon after Snyder had to step down due to a tiff with WB. The huge fan base of Snyder went on a rampage with #ReleaseSnyderCut on Twitter, because they believed the movie had more of Whedon, the new director's voice than that of Snyder's. When the SnyderCut was finally released in 2021, it was a huge success, as expected. A 2021 report by the production company, Warner Bros found that the 'Snyder Cut' movement was fuelled by phony bots. It was found that around 13% of the followers are fake, though not a significant number compared to the general trend or the huge original fan base Synder has, social media experts and digital marketers are left in awe. The report mentions, "One identified community was made up of real and fake authors that spread negative content about Warner Media for not restoring the SnyderVerse". Rolling Stones came down heavily on making up SnyderCut with fake bots and making it a huge success apart from removing the producer's names in the re-released version. It contended that the released version was re-made, for the most part with a fresh investment of around $60 billion. Rolling stones, citing the Cybersecurity reports mention that Snyder deliberately used bots as fake fans right from the beginning, to generate speculation around its existence and the release. From the very beginning of 2019, hashtags were trending on social media raking up hundreds and thousands of tweets to pursue WB to release the director's cut and the released cut garnered millions of views in a day only to drop to 40,000 views in subsequent days, a trend which is uncommon with organic traffic. Rolling Stones quotes Becky Wanta, the Chief Information Officer, Q5id, the research firm engaged by Rolling Stones, who says, "There are certain patterns that bots give off that we saw here. They arrive at almost the same time in huge numbers. And many times, the origin of thousands or even millions of messages can be traced to a single source or two. Sometimes, they can be traced to unusual servers in remote countries. And their content will be precisely similar."
The story doesn't end here. As per a report published by Wrap in May 2021, the bots might have ramped up support, leading to Snyder winning two awards in the fan-favorite category. Considering the fact that the released movie is a hit with the majority of fans who are not fake, the WB's act can be justified because it well serves the cinema's purpose. The only mistake on WB's part would be releasing it as a director's cut, that carries meaning in itself and legacy, a violation of which would definitely amount to sheer injustice to the cinema. Nevertheless, the way fake artificial intelligence bots are used, though in minority, to amp up support doesn't augur well for Just League's lineage, particularly when fans are left wanting for more of it.
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