Study finds bots and political trolls largely fueled the ‘Last Jedi’ backlash
Major franchise films like Marvel, DC Comics, and Star Wars are known for getting strong reactions from fans no matter how they felt about it, but there was a level of vitriol attached to the backlash against The Last Jedi, the kind you might see on the political field. As it turns out, that’s probably not a coincidence.
A new study from Morten Bay looked at the online backlash to The Last Jedi and found that “more than half” of the people who shared their distaste for the film directly with Last Jedidirector and screenwriter Rian Johnson on Twitter were bots, trolls, sock puppets, or political activists using tactics similar to those seen in the 2016 election. Of that group, some of the accounts sharing racist, sexist, and right-wing messages may have been Russian trolls. Those account...