The problem with public reviews is that it is easy to skew the narrative if you can get enough people to do it. This was reportedly an issue with Star Wars: The Last Jedi in which it was suspected (but later disproved) that the movie was hit with low user ratings on Rotten Tomatoes due to review bombs.
It seems that Marvel’s upcoming Black Panther movie could have faced a similar situation, except that in this case Facebook and Rotten Tomatoes caught onto their plan before it could be executed. Ahead of the movie’s release, a Facebook user who is part of the group “Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys” created an event which invited others to leave mass negative reviews of the movie, but Facebook caught wind and shut them down.
In a report from Marvel Studio News, they shared a screenshot which showed that the page had been removed due to a violation of Facebook’s Community Standards. Rotten Tomatoes was also aware of the plan and in a statement they released, they claim that they have security, network, and social experts who are closely monitoring their platforms.
Ironically enough despite their plans to leave negative reviews, many critics who were given early previews to the movie have hailed it as one of the best superhero movies to date. The movie is currently scheduled for a release on the 16th of February.
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