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155

Rotten Tomatoes Under Fire After PR Firm's Scheme to Pay Critics for Positive Reviews Uncovered (www.ign.com)

submitted 2 years ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Rotten Tomatoes Under Fire After PR Firm's Scheme to Pay Critics for Positive Reviews Uncovered::A new report details how a PR firm paid off critics to post positive reviews of 2018 drama Ophelia on Rotten Tomatoes, prompting scrutiny over the reviews aggregator.

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[–] baruchin@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago

Title is misleading. Why Rotten Tomatoes? The bribes went to critics not to the site which is just a critics aggregator.

[–] Fantomas@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I mean this was so obvious. Pay for positive critic reviews and call any user reviews that weren't favourable names.

[–] Zrybew@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Bad Boys For Life on 90 score convinced me the site was a fraud. That Shit is unwatchable.

[–] brihuang95@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've been using IMDB for the past year or so. Anyone know if they pay for reviews too?

[+] V4ty6BybVXjr@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.one 4 points 2 years ago

I think if the site is popular enough it will be a target for shills.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How does something like, say, Wikipedia avoid this issue? Is it because Wikipedia focuses on factuality whereas critic reviews are inherently qualitative/subjective?

[–] Ascyron@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Honestly, Wikipedia doesn't avoid this. People constantly game the rules to remove or change content that doesn't suit them. I recall an instance where employees of a company were busted editing that company's page, they were caught because there were so many different editors all from the same corporate IP. And that's just the low hanging fruit that makes the news - I would wager there's 10 instances that never get noticed for each one that people spot.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I don't see why they can't add that to its page. Document the corporate ips as part of a section on attempts to self-editorialize their wiki articles.

Edit: add them to a Wikiverse-wide digital wall of shame to immortalize their deceptive efforts

[–] Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

The title makes it sound like Rotten Tomatoes deliberately did something shady. What actually seems to have happened is:

Rotten Tomatoes aggregates critic reviews. As far as I know, those critics aren't really affiliated with Rotten Tomatoes.
Some of the critics that make up that aggregated rating got bribed to increase their evaluation of the movie.
Consequently the score on sites that aggregate reviews like Rotten Tomatoes increased.

[–] alienanimals@lemmy.world -4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Rotten Tomatoes will also stop all new reviews if a movie is bombing. They definitely manipulate their ratings.

Edit Two Rotten Tomatoes employees downvoted this comment.