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47K Points
Another film falls victim to political "hate rating"
IMDb staff:
It appears that this film has been the victim of "hate rating," where politically motivated users downvote the film en masse without even watching it.
The campaign against this film is so strong that it is currently rated #74 on IMDb's Bottom Rated Movies.
Can you please look into whether the ratings on this video have been botted, manipulated, and/or hate-rated?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reference/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/ratings
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/movies/polands-divide-over-smolensk-film-on-2010-air-crash.html
On a foggy April morning in 2010, the Polish president’s planecrashedover Smolensk in western Russia, killing him and 95 other members of Poland’s political and military elite, traumatizing the nation and opening a bitter political divide over what caused the disaster. Now the fissures have spread to the cultural realm, as filmmakers, writers and artists fiercely debate how — or even whether — to portray this still-visceral history.
Some leading Polish actors have refused to participate in “Smolensk,” a feature film to be released next year, andAntoni Krauze, its patrician 73-year-old director, fears that his views challenging the official version of events, and suggesting a cover-up, could cost the movie millions of dollars in state financing.
Borys Lankosz, a filmmaker whose 2009 film, “Reverse,” depicted Polish life in the 1950s, said that conservative artists were adroitly tapping into deep-seated feelings of victimhood formed during centuries of occupation and subjugation. And he argues that supporters of the previous president are intent on mythologizing him.
“It’s a cultural sickness,” he said. “We are always taught that we are the messiah nation. This cult of martyrdom, reflected in films like ‘Smolensk,’ is dangerous because it is based on a lie.”
Others, including the Polish culture minister, Bogdan Zdrojewski, have warned that it is still too early to portray the events surrounding the plane crash. “It’s hard to get rid of an impression and fear that this will be a movie with a strong political message,” he told the Polish news channel TVN24.
But Mr. Krauze says he is undeterred, even if making the film costs him lifelong friends and requires him to make do with a modest $3.5 million budget. “I feel I need to make this film, even if it is me against everyone else,” he said. “I intend to show the truth.”
Giancarlo_Cairella
Employee
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500 Messages
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42.2K Points
2 years ago
This is not new -- the film has attracted negative sentiment since it was released back in 2016, likely because to its subject matter (ostensibly due to most people considering it to be propaganda and violently rejecting it).
The fact is that often there's a fine line separating the expression of actual strong sentiment and the desire to influence the rating as a reason to vote for a title.
Our voting system is focused and optimized to identify attempts to skew the rating via ballot stuffing, automated voting, fake accounts and several other tactics, but when a title receives an overwhelming number of organic votes (e.g. votes cast by real users) pointing only in one direction, we have to reflect what seems to be the predominant opinion towards it.
Or, as the saying goes, sometimes a duck is just a duck, and the rating activity does indicate universal contempt for a title rather the reflection of a hidden agenda.
I'm sure that there are folks out there who don't think this is such a terrible film; unfortunately they don't seem to have opted to share that opinion through our site.
This type of behavior is another reason why we publish the detailed vote breakdown on a title instead of simply showing the aggregate rating: people can and should look at both when considering whether a title is worth watching or not, because the rating by itself sometimes doesn't tell the whole story.
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
I would like to request that this post be unmarked as "solved."
@Giancarlo_Cairella has speculated as to what he believes "likely" may have happened, but there have been no assurances by staff that this title has ever been actually referred and investigated for possible ratings manipulation.
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CapStar362
107 Messages
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1.7K Points
2 years ago
nice research @keyword_expert - definitely worthy of praise into exposing wilful intent of manipulation.
@Giancarlo_Cairella clearly you refuse to accept the fact the evidence is there.
Sorry, but I agree with keyword here, I went over all the links he provided, and its definitely what he says it is.
I'd even recommend Keyword be made a IMDB Staff member for doing this kind of work to better help the system here on IMDB.
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
I found another social media thread where this mass ratings brigading campaign was organized. This Reddit thread was posted on 11 April 2021, shortly after the original "Weekly NO" Facebook post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Polska/comments/mop5vu/przyczy%C5%84my_si%C4%99_do_kolejnego_ju%C5%BC_sukcesu_polski_na/
As the brigading proceeded, the Redditors (both Polish and Russian) tracked the position of the film in the bottom 100 and debated whether they should try to get the film down to the #1 worst film or just the #2 worst film (the latter was advocated for because the #2 position would attract less attention). They also theorized that IMDb's ratings algorithm was counteracting their brigading by discounting the value of votes from newly created accounts.
And there are comments like this:
Given the massive number of votes involved (~30,000 1-star ratings over six days), it is very likely that bots and sock accounts were used over that one-week period in April 2021. I still call on IMDb staff to investigate this.
But let's assume that all 30,000 of those ratings came from unique individuals who were acting as part of a "hive mind" in responding to the call for action, and downvoted the film, most of them without watching it.
Is that allowed? Would it still count as "organic votes (e.g. votes cast by real users)?"
If the brigading of titles' ratings on IMDb for political purposes is allowed so long as each vote comes from a living human being (as if that part can even be proven), then that would really open the floodgates to similar campaigns and raises questions about which other films' ratings have been affected. I sure hope IMDb doesn't condone ratings brigading.
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
Could my recent response on this thread please be unmarked as "private?" It was auto-flagged as private because of the Reddit link included.
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
Other frequently recurring phrases in the April 2021 one-star "reviews" on this film:
- The word "distorted" was used in 2 of these reviews.
- The phrase "I've ever seen" (as in the worst movie I've ever seen) was used 12 times.
- A very prevalent theme is encouraging readers not to watch the movie. The phrase "don't watch" was used 9 times, "do not watch" was used 10 times, the phrase "to watch" (e.g. "do not even attempt to watch") was used 12 times, and similar phrases were used throughout.
- The phrase "complete disaster" was used 2 times, and the word "disaster" was used 21 times.
- The phrase "poor acting" was used 4 times.
All of this can't be a coincidence. Either users were copying each other's "reviews," or (more likely) a handful of people each wrote multiple reviews using sock accounts (which was easy enough to do back then, especially because IMDb was still accepting very short "reviews").
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
Toward the end of the ratings brigading on this film, two "users" said the quiet part out loud.
I will copy and paste the contents of their "reviews" because I am sure these will eventually be removed (along with the dozens of other fake reviews).
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jimmy_simard
10 Messages
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664 Points
2 years ago
Stop being the imdb's Karen... a film can be bad even if you disagree.
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
Update:
180 of the 256 one-star "reviews" written in April 2021 have now been removed.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6038600/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=asc&ratingFilter=1
However, ~76 of these April 2021 "reviews" remain. When I get a chance, I will go through them and do another round of flagging. [Edit: I realized that many of my flags of these "reviews" are still pending. It may take a day or two yet for all flags to be acted on.]
Most importantly, the rating has not been adjusted at all. There is now one more rating than yesterday (for a total of 39,737 ratings), and the film is still ranked #74 in the IMDb Bottom Rated Movies.
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Giancarlo_Cairella
Employee
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500 Messages
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42.2K Points
2 years ago
We do not 'adjust' ratings for films. The rating is based on calculations applied to the individual votes cast by users. When votes change, or the weight assigned to them, the rating will change.
Nobody is arguing against the theory that a lot of votes were cast as part of an organized campaign, but that's unfortunately something that happens from time to time, especially against films that deal with certain topics or which feature people who are the target of social media ire.
In this case, all the appropriate steps necessary to deal with this kind of phenomenon have been taken and will continue to be taken as circumstances require.
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jeorj_euler
10.7K Messages
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225.4K Points
2 years ago
An archive of the threads containing exchanges of words had by IMDb members about this movie and its IMDb title page can be found at https://moviechat.org/tt6038600/Smolensk.
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
Another update on the reviews on this title:
Only 29 reviews remain live, only 13 of which were part of the "review-bombing" campaign in April 2021. I have re-flagged about half of those 13, either because they were part of the review bombing and/or because they don't really comment on the actual content of the movie.
Thank you to IMDb for swiftly cleaning up all the fake "reviews" on this title.
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
@jeorj_euler
Do you know anything about aspect ratios for movies?
The discussion here seems to indicate some trolling against the aspect ratios listed on IMDb for Smolensk.
Translation of their discussion:
But with that said, there appears to be no difference at all in the aspect ratios listed on IMDb when you compare the 2016 version to their 2021 screenshot to the current 2023 data. So if there was trolling, it happened back in 2016 around the time the film was released.
Any idea what went on here? Were these aspect ratios sabotaged?
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CapStar362
107 Messages
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1.7K Points
2 years ago
Review bombers 0
IMDB Community 1
nice work keyword :)
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keyword_expert
2.7K Messages
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47K Points
2 years ago
I realize this thread is considered "solved" but I just came across one more piece of evidence that further corroborates that the ratings on Smolensk were brigaded and likely botted.
Smolensk is currently listed #73 in IMDb's Bottom 100 films. Here is a link that shows not just IMDb's Bottom 100 films, but its Bottom 250 films, sorted by "Popularity" with the least popular film first.
https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?groups=bottom_250&sort=moviemeter,desc&count=250
Interestingly, even though Smolensk is supposedly the 73rd worst film on IMDb according to user ratings, it is dead last in "popularity" among the bottom 250 films. In this context, "popularity" means how much attention users are giving the film through visits to its page. In IMDb's own words, a lower popularity ranking means the film has a relatively lower "level of public awareness and/or interest in the title."
The fact that Smolensk is the least "popular" of all the Bottom 250 shows that the public is not very interested in this movie. Yet a small number of people have used bots and sock accounts to sabotage the film's ratings at different points in time to try to make it look like there is a high level of public interest in the film. The tens of thousands of "1-star" ratings on the film are artificial and fraudulent.
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