CYBER WARS

Russian Trolls Behind Some Negative ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ Tweets: Study

Some of the tweets were “deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments,” the study found.

A new study found that some of the negative reaction tweets about the Star Wars: The Last Jedi movie were created by Russian trolls, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Researcher Morten Bay of the University of Southern California found that 21.9 percent of all the tweets analyzed about the film had a negative view, with 50.9 percent of the negative tweets showing indications they were “likely politically motivated or not even human.” Bay added that a “number” of those users appeared “to be Russian trolls.” Bay concluded that the tweets were part of “deliberate, organized political influence measures disguised as fan arguments” that aimed to propagate “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,” Bay wrote. He also wrote that the movie’s political undertones were “consistent” with older Star Wars films, leading him to believe that the political divisiveness of the Trump era “primed these fans with a particular type of political messaging that is in direct conflict with the values presented in The Last Jedi.”