Goals included support of “extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality.”
Just like the 2016 presidential election, 2017’s release of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” was marred by a massive campaign designed to further undermine American society – a campaign that included Russian trolls, according to new research from the University of Southern California. The study shows that the majority of negative tweets sent to the film’s director were “politically motivated,” or “not even human” – in other words, Russian bots.
A research paper by Morten Bay, “Weaponizing the haters: The Last Jedi and the strategic politicization of pop culture through social media manipulation,” reveals the goal: “further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society,” as The Hill reported.
Included in that goal was the support of “extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality.”
When the film was released in December of 2017, news outlets quickly seized on what seemed to be obvious friction and supposed outrage.
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi – the most divisive film ever?” asked BBC News.
“How ‘The Last Jedi’ became the most divisive Star Wars movie yet,” The Washington Post reported.
Calling the film “unexpectedly polarizing,” Vox ran a story titled, “The ‘backlash’ against Star Wars: The Last Jedi, explained.”
“What the hell is going on here?” the article asked. It did not answer with “Russian bots.”
The abstract of Bay’s paper reveals “evidence of deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments,” and Russia’s disturbing intentions, including an alignment with the “alt-right.”
“The study finds evidence of deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments. The likely objective of these measures is increasing media coverage of the fandom conflict, thereby adding to and further propagating a narrative of widespread discord and dysfunction in American society. Persuading voters of this narrative remains a strategic goal for the U.S. alt-right movement, as well as the Russian Federation.”
“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.”
Image by Dick Thomas Johnson via Flickr and a CC license