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Hollywood Is Losing the Battle Against Online Trolls (hollywoodreporter.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Hollywood Reporter article: It had taken years -- and the passionate support of Kirk Kerkorian, who financed the film's $100 million budget without expecting to ever make a profit -- for The Promise, a historical romance set against the backdrop of the Armenian genocide and starring Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac, to reach the screen. Producers always knew it would be controversial: Descendants of the 1.5 million Armenians killed by the Ottoman Empire shortly after the onset of World War I have long pressed for the episode to be recognized as a genocide despite the Turkish government's insistence the deaths were not a premeditated extermination. Before the critics in attendance even had the chance to exit Roy Thompson Hall, let alone write their reviews, The Promise's IMDb page was flooded with tens of thousands of one-star ratings. "All I know is that we were in about a 900-seat house with a real ovation at the end, and then you see almost 100,000 people who claim the movie isn't any good," says Medavoy. Panicked calls were placed to IMDb, but there was nothing the site could do. "One thing that they can track is where the votes come from," says Eric Esrailian, who also produced the film, and "the vast majority of people voting were not from Canada. So I know they weren't in Toronto." The online campaign against The Promise appears to have originated on sites like Incisozluk, a Turkish version of 4chan, where there were calls for users to "downvote" the film's ratings on IMDb and YouTube. A rough translation of one post: "Guys, Hollywood is filming a big movie about the so-called Armenian genocide and the trailer has already been watched 700k times. We need to do something urgently." Soon afterward, the user gleefully noted The Promise's average IMDb rating had reached a dismaying 1.8 stars. "They know that the IMDb rating will stay with the film forever," says Esrailian. "It's a kind of censorship, really."
Alternative title: IMDB fails to prevent botting and vote brigading
Does Turkey even need to be discredited? They seem to have done it all by themselves.
Honestly, sometimes I think these idiots deserve Sultan Erdogan. What a pathetic display this was. Of course there are plenty of good, decent, progressive Turks out there, and it's very sad that their voices can rarely be heard over these idiot children. Very sad indeed. I can't imagine anyone taking an IMDB rating seriously, but the fact that they are refusing to do anything to combat this is equally disturbing. "Nothing they can do" is total bullshit.
Turkey lost any and all of the credibility it had earned over the years when they "elected" Erdogan and his disgusting Muslim buddies to ruin the country.
I've been a slashdot troll since the 90s. Trolling is high art - the modern day equivalent of the court jester - the practice of teaching everyone not to take themselves too seriously.
This crap that is happening now with 4-chan esque social justice warfare against women, minorities, the historical fact of the Armenian genocide is *not* trolling. These people are doing the exact opposite of trolling - they're propping up the global misinformation machine instead of trying to convey the sense of critical thought and skepticism that I and my brethren have been working fastidiously toward for the past 3 decades (or more).
STOP calling them trolls. This is not what trolling is!
Some e-commerce sites have tags on reviews for verified buyers- maybe the movie studios should implement a similar system for movie reviews. Get a code after watching a movie, maybe by dispensing them as viewers leave (not connecting to a specific ticket to avoid privacy concerns) or when you download or buy a DVD. Use the code when reviewing the movie. Allow people to see confirmed viewer and non-confirmed ratings. Of course this could be abused, but seems no worse than the current system and might offer some improvements.
What utter BS that IMDB cannot control their rating system. They will not maybe. But cannot is a lie. Do they not own their own site?
Erdogan did not run as a dictator. During his initial rise to power he was actually a very moderate politician. He called for EU membership for Turkey, and under his direction the country did enter negotiations with the aim of getting that membership. He pushed major labor reforms too, giving employees substantially greater protections than ever before in the country and introducing non-discrimination law. He changed later on, slowly, over the course of the 2000s at 2010s, depending increasingly upon tighter control of the media and repression of opposition to stay in power and growing steadily more conservative and Islamist in his social policies.
Denying historical atrocities helps no one.
FTFY.
I don't understand why the Turkish government doesn't just admit "yes it happened, yes it was horrible". As you said, it was 100 years ago. Who from that time period is still in the government today? Just because you admit that an atrocity occurred in the past that was perpetrated by the government that you presently lead, does not mean that you are saying that you yourself perpetrated those atrocities.
"I vow to never make the same mistakes as my predecessors" is a much better line than "all of my predecessors were perfect and never made mistakes".
What about people who only learn and repeat meaningless cliches?
He called for EU membership for Turkey
And he single-handedly took those aspirations behind the shed and shot them in the back of the head.
Digging up historical grievances helps no one.
And burying historical grievances only hurts the next group of victims when you can't show that you are on the path to the next atrocity.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
It has nothing to do with them being Muslims, you abject moron. It has everything to do with them being authoritarian dogmatic pseudo-religious autocrats.
If a Christian or Jewish cabal orchestrated a coup, it would have equally nothing to do with those religions either except as their rhetorical umbrella.
IMDB rating number these days is completely meaningless. Many complete trash films that deserve 2 or 3 stars at most end up with very high ratings because.... Disney owns the film.
Take Force Awakens, which has a very high 8.1 rating. However if you go into the User Review section, majority of reviews are very very scathing. And having watched the film, I agree that the movie was terrible. So why the disconnect between user review and user ratings?
My guess is that it's easier to game the user rating than it is to submit fake reviews, because writing a genuine-looking review is much harder than simply stuffing fake votes with a bot or (in Disney's case) simply paying for a higher number.
No, this is not against trolls, but something far worse. Erdogan is literally the closest thing in the industrialized world to Hitler we have. Don't believe me?
1. It's looking more and more like he staged a fake coup (remind you of the Reichstag burning?) to preemptively crush dissent.
2. He's adopted a view of immigration and migration that is close to the Nazi policy of lebensraum.
3. He has used a popular referendum to greatly empower himself and gut the authority of competing institutions.
4. He has taken a Turkish equivalent of the Nazi view about fellow Germans living in other countries. His government went nuts when European states clamped down on Turkish political organization in their borders.
5. FFS, he even channels Hitler with the moustache.
Odds are very good that if there is a mass civil war in Europe over race and religion, it will be directly the result of Erdogan's work combined with the idiocy of Merkel and a few others who let him get away with it. Anyone who considered Erdogan, who wants to resurrect Ottoman Turkey, would have wanted to keep those migrants out at bayonet point if necessary.
Turkey is a bit like North Korea. The dedication to the country is absolute and the country can do no wrong, not in history, not in the future. Turkey wants to be a member of the EU. Yay Turkey. Turkey thinks the EU is an evil institution against everything Turkey stands for. Yay Turkey. Turkey doesn't have a dark and evil past, anyone saying otherwise is just trying to re-write history. Turkey's current supreme leader is nothing like a dictator. Anyone saying otherwise is just a supporter of Fethullah Gulen who had the audacity to try and overthrow the Turkish government by coupe ... while not even in the country.
All over Europe, the only foreign flags I see waved at protests are for Turkey, the greatest country in the world. We don't want to live there, but don't you dare tell us they aren't the greatest. Yay Turkey.
Also genocide didn't happen.
IMDB can be doing more to fix this issue but since they are taking the easy out here, fighting fire with fire is the only suitable response.
I believe the best response would be for IMDB to limit what users can rate and how early in the release of the movie it can be rated. When someone attempts to put a rating on a movie that hasn't officially been released and their account is new or with very few reviews (which I assume is the case with most of the fake reviews), you hold their reviews back for moderation and flag as internet troll.
45.2% 10s, 53.4% 1s! More oddly 55K mens votes average 4.3 while 24K womens votes average 9.6!
Erdogan did not run as a dictator. During his initial rise to power he was actually a very moderate politician. He called for EU membership for Turkey, and under his direction the country did enter negotiations with the aim of getting that membership. He pushed major labor reforms too, giving employees substantially greater protections than ever before in the country and introducing non-discrimination law. He changed later on, slowly, over the course of the 2000s at 2010s, depending increasingly upon tighter control of the media and repression of opposition to stay in power and growing steadily more conservative and Islamist in his social policies.
Culminating in quite possibly orchestrating the coup last year and using that (and the very fortuitous rise of ISIS in Syria) to justify the sweeping grab for power that he just pulled off, effectively guaranteeing he will be in control in Turkey at least through the next decade. He used the coup to purge the military, leaving only loyalists who he can trust not to fulfill the Turkish military's customary role of maintaining secularism in government. You have to give him credit: for a politician he played the long game very well.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Peter Jackson had a percentage of the gross for LotR. And guess what? All the gross numbers from abroad were completely phony.
The game was: Peter and I both have a claim on the gross, while the film is owned by a company where I have controlling interest. Then I sell the full foreign rights to a company that I have 100% ownership of for, say, $10 million. Peter gets a piece of the $10 million in gross, I get to keep the $200 million in foreign sales.
This is how most of the Russian oil tycoons made their money, too, by selling low to a shell company that they completely owned. The Russian gov't gets a percentage of the low price sale for the oil lease. The tycoon gets 100% of the profit thereafter.
It has nothing to do with them being Muslims
Are you sure?
In 2011, Erdoan ordered the tearing-down of the Statue of Humanity, a Turkish-Armenian friendship monument in Kars, which was commissioned in 2006 and represented a metaphor of the rapprochement of the two countries after many years of dispute over the events of 1915. Erdoan justified the removal by stating that the monument was offensively close to the tomb of an 11th-century Islamic scholar,
I honestly don't know much about Turkey, but as for the Germans: They've owned up to what happened and they've passed laws to make the truth easier to get at. They've searched the world over to locate war criminals from that time and ensure they are prosecuted. They've repatriated stolen art, personal belongings, and family fortunes to those it was stolen from. In short, a generation of Germans who weren't even alive when this atrocity happened, have stepped up to make amends and heal the world. So even if Turkey was innocent of the accusations, they would be no better than the Germans. And by the way, Hollywood has flogged Germany over and over again for what happened... so in all respects you are mistaken.
Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
Clearly, women love genocide.
You are making the mistake of confusing his tactics with some coincidental attribute that he used to bind his followers to him. Erdogan is an authoritarian working to install a one-party dictatorship. He's something of a Fascist. Since he happens to be Muslim along with his people he's using that religious and cultural context to employ pretty universal tactics. The Nazi's and Fascists used some Christian symbols and traditions. Stalin even resorted to Tsarist and Orthodox symbols and traditions to build popular support during World War II. Religion and culture are used to create bonds between the leader and the followers. It's their source of tribal identity. Modi in India uses Hindu culture and traditions. In Myanmar it's Buddhism.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Yes, it was 100 years ago. If Turkey would own up to it, then maybe it would be forgotten history. But their failure to own up to it isn't history, it's happening right now. It's not a matter of paying for your ancestors crimes, it's a matter of lying day in and day out about historical fact. If you can't come clean about things a century ago that you aren't even responsible for, how can anyone trust you to be honest about the things you are responsible for right now?
You want votes from real people who've actually seen the movie.
Say you sat down every one of them and made them watch the movie. Would that change votes in any way? No.
Online voting will always reflect that hatred is more intense and brings more action than love.
Only Solution: Take online voting results with a boulder of salt. Or do not allow voting at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What makes you think that a majority of Christians agree on any specific social issue? First of all, "Christian" or "Christianity" is not a religion. It's an umbrella term claimed by many religions. Many denominations, churches and sects identify as "Christian", but not all of them agree on who is or is not. Mormans believe they are Christian. Most other "Christian" groups don't think they are. The KKK and Aryan Brotherhood types identify themselves as "Christian" though I'd think almost every other "Christian" group rejects them and their claim. Islam is similar in this respect. It's not even as simple as Sunni versus Shiite. I've read that most people who identify as Muslim reject ISIS. Is ISIS a Muslim group? Most of Erdogan's opponents in Turkey identify as Muslim. So while it is possible to look at a specifi group and make your argument, Christians and Muslims are not specific groups. T
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
In other news, people who did bad things in the past continue to deny having done bad things.
The Turks don't deny that bad things happened, nor do they deny that they were the ones that did it.
What they do deny is that it amounted to genocide. In 1915 the British Empire landed 250,000 troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and the Russians launched a major offensive in the Caucasus. The Turks were fighting for their survival as a nation. The Gallipoli landing failed, mostly due to astoundingly incompetent leadership on the allied side, but also due to the brilliant and decisive leadership of Mustafa Kemal on the Turkish side. But the Russian offensive was successful, partly due to support from Armenians who viewed the Russians as liberators. In "liberated" areas, thousands of Armenians volunteered to fight with the Russians.
In the face of this offensive, and clear evidence that the Armenians were a "fifth column", there were Turkish reprisals and massacres, but mostly the Turks tried to deal with the Armenians by deporting them to Northern Syria (which was then part of their empire). This was all done during the deprivations of a world war, and many, many Armenians died enroute to Syria and in the camps once they got there.
Did bad things happen to the Armenians?
Yes.
Did really REALLY bad things happen to the Armenians?
Yes.
Did millions of Armenians die as a result of Turkish actions?
Yes.
Did this amount to a centrally planned and coordinated effort to exterminate the Armenian people?
I don't think so.
Since Armenia is a landlocked country mostly surrounded by neighbors that hate them even more than the Turks do, and Turkey is their main route to the sea and one of their biggest trading partners, is it really in the best interest of the Armenian people to focus on "re-labelling" atrocities that happened over a century ago, rather than facing up to the many many problems that face Armenia today?
You decide.
"Did this amount to a centrally planned and coordinated effort to exterminate the Armenian people?
I don't think so."
You're wrong. Simply, clearly, and provably wrong. There's a whole wikipedia page full of high-level government witnesses - including Turks/Ottomans - that talk about the intentions, the systemic nature, and the results. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Basically, the Turks who want to continue to deny the genocide (and you, apparently) are claiming that they didn't _intend_ for 1.5 million to die, it 'just happened' that, after the massacres, everyone who wasn't killed right away somehow died during an organized and planned forced march through the Syrian desert with no food, water, shelter, or rest.
And the justification of some Armenian 'fifth column' is ridiculous. You don't kill all the women, children, and grandparents because a handful of Armenian men are helping the war against you. It was simply an excuse to take action against a hated group people who were already denigrated third-class citizens because they weren't the correct religion.