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[Rolling Stone] Fake Accounts Fueled the ‘Snyder Cut’ Online Army

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Precious Tritium

Precious Tritium

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A WarnerMedia report reveals that bots and other inauthentic users bolstered the fan-led campaign for director Zack Snyder's Justice League do-over
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View: https://twitter.com/rollingstone/status/1549199006663843841?s=21&t=1hcB1jTk47Yi6mqsxM1Jgw


View: https://twitter.com/rollingstone/status/1549203144328056832?s=21&t=Tw6Gr4ZYkTtwidZHSacpfA

Just reported by Rolling Stone. Seems not unsurprising that a lot of online movements are often partially fuelled by bots. Apparently, Snyder wanted two producers to not be credited on the directors cut, going so far to threaten to use his online fandom against them if their credits weren't removed, "I will destroy them on social media." All while SnyderCut fandom was going off the deep end attacking anyone they saw as being in the way of the release going so far to make death threats to executives and writers.


Alethea Group, found that the forsnydercut.com domain — which claims to have made the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag go viral in May of 2018, and became the landing hub for efforts to bring Snyder back to the helm of the DC universe — was, at least at one point, registered to a person who also ran a now-defunct ad agency which promoted its ability to bring "cheap, instant Avatar traffic to your website."
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In mid-January 2021, three months before the Snyder Cut of Justice Leaguewas finally released, an Instagram account with the handle @daniras_ilust posted a gruesome image depicting the decapitated heads of Johns, DC Films president Walter Hamada, and former Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich. The image rapidly circulated among the fandom, with SnyderVerse devotees even tagging social media accounts of some of the children of the trio. It was alarming posts like these that prompted WarnerMedia, concerned about the safety of its employees, to take the unusual step of quietly commissioning a series of reports from a third-party cybersecurity firm to analyze the trolling.

The reports had taken on a mythic status within Warner Bros. Some doubted they even existed. But a small group at the parent company did have access to them. The main report, dated April 2021 and titled "SnyderCut
Social Media Presence," offers a chilling glimpse inside the powerful movement.
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Pretty crazy stuff a lot more in the article itself, recommend giving it a read if interested.
 
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Strings

Strings

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shocker-shocked.gif


Next you'll tell me the Oscar fan vote was manipulated. Oh wait, you already did:
www.thewrap.com

Did Zack Snyder Stans Rig the Oscar 'Fan Favorite' Vote With Online Bots? (Exclusive) - TheWrap

The most active voters in the Academy Awards' "Fan Favorite" and "Cheer Moment" Twitter polls were autonomous web programs, TheWrap has learned
www.thewrap.com www.thewrap.com
 
shacklesmcgee

shacklesmcgee

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Oct 25, 2017
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"the director was working to manipulate the ongoing campaign"

Well, it really, really worked then. He got a lot of cred and jobs so....good for him? Lol
 
DMczaf

DMczaf

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Oct 25, 2017
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Eh, sounds like both sides are saying the exact same thing so... still nothing burger.

But I'm sure this thread will back one side over the other.
 
MisterHero

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Oct 25, 2017
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what if i told you most, if not all hate/love campaigns on the internet are perpetuated by people doing it because it's funny and only because they rope people into taking them seriously
 
Mancha

Mancha

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While this is not surprising, some of the details of this is just… wow.
 
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Precious Tritium

Precious Tritium

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boontobias

boontobias

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Apr 14, 2018
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Thank Zod that toxic saga is finally over, and DC can move on to bigger brighter things

Oh no go back, go back!
 
More context from the article.
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    • Zebesian-X

    Zebesian-X

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    There's a LOT in here
    Whatever role he may or may not have played in the Snyder Cut publicity blitz, at the close of 2019, Snyder sent his disciples into overdrive when he posted a picture of a set of film canisters labeled "JL Director's Cut Running Time 214 [minutes]." Running over the picture were the words: "Is it real? Does it exist? Of course it does." One insider scoffed at the post: "He refused to return the hard drives, which were studio property. This was just more orchestrated bullshit from Zack."
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    What the studio didn't know at the time was that Snyder had already shot footage in his backyard at the height of the pandemic. Sources say the rogue shoot flouted Covid protocols and union guidelines. (Snyder acknowledges two shoots were done in his backyard during the pandemic, insisting that both adhered to Covid protocols, and noting that one shoot was authorized by Warner Bros.) Furthermore, they say Snyder wanted an additional $13 million to cover additional production costs. Sarnoff pushed back, as extra footage wasn't part of the deal.
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    That same month, a battle was also brewing between Snyder and DC Films president Walter Hamada over a Snyder Cut arc involving the character Martian Manhunter. Sources say the character never appeared in the script, leaving the studio blindsided. Hamada demanded the footage not be used; DC had other plans for Martian Manhunter and didn't want him wasted in two random scenes. But sources say Snyder threatened to delete other footage if he didn't get his way. (Snyder denies this and adds that he had no ability to do so.) At the same time, Fisher turned up the dial on Twitter, taking direct aim at Hamada, calling him "the most dangerous kind of enabler." (In Feb. 2021, Cravath's Forrest released a statement absolving Hamada of any wrongdoing. Warner Bros. also released a statement noting that Hamada was at a different Warner subsidiary when 2017's Justice League was released.) Fans posted such incendiary images as Hamada and Sarnoff, who had also been fighting for the removal of the unauthorized footage, photoshopped wearing Ku Klux Klan robes.

    In a move that dismayed studio insiders, Kilar overruled Sarnoff and allowed Martian Manhunter to appear in the Snyder Cut. The director was also given the $13 million he'd been demanding in production costs. That brought the studio's total expenditure on the film to $73 million, before marketing costs put it over the $100 million mark. "That's $73 million while people were losing their jobs at the studio for a director's cut of a film that already lost hundreds of millions," notes an insider. (Snyder says "The studio never would have released my version of Justice League unless it made financial/business sense for them.")
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    • ClivePwned

    ClivePwned

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    Well, i'm not remotely surprised.

    that said, Snyder Cut was much more watchable, perhaps even not crap compared to the 2017 version.

    warner spent $70 million because they got played by bots
     
    Zebesian-X

    Zebesian-X

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    digitalrelic said:
    Sounds like a director putting everything forth that he can to realize his vision of his film to me. Unless I'm missing something.
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    I think if the intention was to paint Snyder as culpable for his bot-fuelled cult's actions, they're missing that smoking gun placing him at the center of it.

    It IS Very Funny to me that WB capitulated to artificially-boosted fan engagement and burned all that money, and some of the online harassment these losers were hurling at journalists/WB employees is disgusting. But yeah, Snyder sorta just comes off like a guy that was desperate to get his cut made.
    But for those who thought the SnyderVerse mob would move on, they were mistaken. In early 2021, Fisher attacked Warner Bros.' then-global communications head, Johanna Fuentes, for some unspecified role in the Cravath investigation. Fans then began harassing Fuentes, a woman of color, on Twitter and calling for her ouster. A simple story written by this reporter about Kiersey Clemons being cast for a Flash stand-alone movie also incurred the wrath of the collective just days before the Snyder Cut release in March 2021. Snyder called to say he wanted several sentences from the story removed. "I'm just telling you what the fans are going to do. Trust me, they are pretty, pretty, pretty rough," he warned. The sentences stayed, and the SnyderVerse throng descended.
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    That said, he didn't do nearly enough to quell the mob. He could have taken a much more active role in keeping that contained, especially given his acknowledgment of their behaviour here behind the scenes^ He was happy to use them for leverage, warts and all.
     
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    El Bombastico

    El Bombastico

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    So we have Sony that re-released Morbius because they thought the stupid memes meant people would pay to see it.

    Then we have WB who gave Snyder millions more to recut a movie that was already an objective failure in every conceivable way, because twitter bots.

    How soon until Paramount, Universal, and Disney do something stupid because of online shit?
     
    Smokey_Run

    Smokey_Run

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    digitalrelic said:
    Sounds like a director putting everything forth that he can to realize his vision of his film to me. Unless I'm missing something.
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    The biggest thing is the accusation that Snyder and Fisher were working together. They're saying every time Snyder hit a wall behind the scenes, Fisher would make a new allegation on Twitter.
     
    Sarobi

    Sarobi

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    Great, we build robots and they turn out to be a bunch of Jabroni diehard Snyder fans. Some A.I. uprising.
     
    Dalek

    Dalek

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    Yeah we know.

    If the movie is so wonderful, so spectacular and so groundbreaking (as we were told) why would you even need to have bots pretend to love it?
     
    krazen

    krazen

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    This was obviously a smear piece set up by Chapek who is trying to destroy the Snyderverse because he knows that if it happens Marvel will die and the ensuing explosion rightfully kill WB which then would make Chapek lose his job because he doesn't know what he's doing and the Snyderverse would then be able to buy out Marvel and have the X-men.
     
    CommodoreKong

    CommodoreKong

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    El Bombastico said:
    So we have Sony that re-released Morbius because they thought the stupid memes meant people would pay to see it.

    Then we have WB who gave Snyder millions more to recut a movie that was already an objective failure in every conceivable way, because twitter bots.

    How soon until Paramount, Universal, and Disney do something stupid because of online shit?
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    Disney fired James Gunn because of stupid online shit only to rehire him later.
     
    El Bombastico

    El Bombastico

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    CommodoreKong said:
    Disney fired James Gunn because of stupid online shit only to rehire him later.
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    Right, almost forgot.

    Just leaves Paramount and Universal then.

    SkinnyIndonesian said:
    Sounds like some pissed-off people over at WB trying to paint this whole thing as something worse, tbh.
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    They gave a failed director tens of millions more to recut a film that was already a failure because of online bots.

    I'd be fucking pissed too.
     
    Kaah

    Kaah

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    This read more like a hit piece ordered by WB and targeting Snyder more than an actual investigation. The part about Fisher and Whedon are really bad, the author is so close to call Fisher a liar.
     
    Strings

    Strings

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    krazen said:
    This was obviously a smear piece set up by Chapek who is trying to destroy the Snyderverse because he knows that if it happens Marvel will die and the ensuing explosion rightfully kill WB which then would make Chapek lose his job because he doesn't know what he's doing and the Snyderverse would then be able to buy out Marvel and have the X-men.
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    100%
     
    OP
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    Precious Tritium

    Precious Tritium

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    El Bombastico said:
    So we have Sony that re-released Morbius because they thought the stupid memes meant people would pay to see it.

    Then we have WB who gave Snyder millions more to recut a movie that was already an objective failure in every conceivable way, because twitter bots.

    How soon until Paramount, Universal, and Disney do something stupid because of online shit?
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    Studios are already thinking of how to cook up the next "Gentle Minions".

    The trick is to make the meme about going to the theatre!
     
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