Author: Tom McKay / Source: Gizmodo
For months before and after the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi—a widely critically acclaimed movie and box office titan—what appeared to have been a small number of fans made it known they were rabid haters of the movie’s twist on the franchise’s formula. They were mad about everything, from plot holes and director Rian Johnson’s supposed disdain for the fandom to its focus on inclusivity, and they tried their best to make it all about them and how angry they were. Well, just as you might have thought, it turns out one force driving that backlash forward may have been disingenuous manipulation of social media sites like Twitter to promote political propaganda.
In a new paper (which has not yet gone through peer review) by USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism professor Morten Bay, the researcher analyzed a selection of 967 tweets (each from a separate account) directed at director Rian Johnson over the period of December 13th, 2017, and July 20th, 2018. Using sentiment analysis to sort the tweets as positive, negative, or neutral, and then analyzing the accounts themselves, Bay found that “50.9% of those tweeting negatively [were] likely politically motivated or not even human.”
Bay wrote, “The results of the study show that among those who address The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson directly on Twitter to express their dissatisfaction, more than half are bots, trolls/sock puppets, or political activists using the debate to propagate political messages supporting extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality. A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls.”
However, it also found that a very small minority of the tweets were, in fact, expressing negative sentiments towards Johnson or The Last Jedi: just 21.9 percent of the tweets (206) were critical, including bots. That number boiled down to just 10.
5 percent when bot accounts are excluded. The Verge noted just 16 of the “bot/sock puppet/troll accounts” appeared to be linked to Russia, as defined by “comprehensive lists of criteria for detection of Russian trolls” identified from analysis of the alleged Russian operation to interfere in the 2016 elections:Forty-four of those accounts were identified as bots, sock puppets, or trolls, and 61 of those 206 accounts showed a “clear political agend[a]” — a definition that includes real humans who tweet heavily about politics. Of the 44 bot/sock puppet/troll accounts, 33 were identified as trolls or sock puppets. Bay identified only 16 of those 33 as appearing to be Russian trolls. The trolls and bots are actually a minority of the accounts tweeting negative opinions about The Last Jedi.
So, to recap, only a small minority of people tweeting at Johnson were “bots, sock puppets, or trolls,” though a large proportion of the ones mad about The Last Jedi were. Of those, a handful were allegedly tied to Russian interference operations….
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