To a casual observer, the fan campaign to pressure Warner Bros. to release the "Snyder Cut" – director Zach Snyder's version of the DC Films movie Justice League — could be seen as a success story of fans triumphing over studio might.
But new reports from Warner Media are throwing that into question.
Per two documents reviewed by Rolling Stone, the number of fake accounts that took part in conversations around the Snyder Cut — including the famous #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag — made up a total of 13 percent. Twitter estimates that around 5 percent of its users are bots, which would mean the Snyder Cut movement was made up of around two to three times more fake accounts than typically expected (a heavy caveat: people have also called Twitter's numbers into question, with some researchers estimating bots make up between nine and 15 percent of the platform's users).
“There are certain patterns that bots give off that we saw here."
As well as reviewing the Warner Media reports — which were reportedly commissioned following toxic fandom behaviour – Rolling Stone also commissioned three cybersecurity firms to analyse the fan campaign for bot activity.
"There are certain patterns that bots give off that we saw here," Q5id chief information officer and chief technology officer Becky Wanta told the publisher. "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.”
Zach Snyder's Justice League was finally released in 2021 after years of pressure from fans. Snyder pulled out of the movie in 2017 part way through filming following the death of his daughter, Autumn, and he was replaced by director Joss Whedon.
Whedon's version of the movie received a negative response from critics, and it wasn't long before the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut hashtag was born, growing in size and momentum until eventually even the movie's stars themselves were posting about it.
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Snyder's cut was eventually released last year, and received a much more positive response. But for Warner Media, it seems like the film's legacy is more complex than a simple fan-driven success story.
Topics DC Comics
