Alt-right group wages war on Black Panther movie through Rotten Tomatoes

An alt-right Facebook group is attempting to sabotage Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Walt Disney Co.’s upcoming superhero movie “Black Panther.”

A Facebook page called “Down With Disney’s Treatment of Franchises and its Fanboys” created an event called “Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes.”

Both the Facebook page and the event have since been removed.

The moderator of the page claimed credit for a concerted attack against Disney’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” when it was released back in December. The aim was the same: Give the film rotten ratings.

The moderator self-identified as a member of the alt-right when HuffPost reached out to him in December. He told HuffPost that he was upset that the producers introduced more female characters into the “Star Wars” universe.

Before the “Black Panther” Facebook event was taken down, thousands of users had said they were either going, or interested in the event.

Rotten Tomatoes said Thursday that it was aware of the plan and that it would block any users engaging in hate speech in the comments.

“We at Rotten Tomatoes are proud to have become a platform for passionate fans to debate and discuss entertainment and we take that responsibility seriously,” the review aggregator said in a statement. “While we respect our fans’ diverse opinions, we do not condone hate speech. Our team of security, network and social experts continue to closely monitor our platforms and any users who engage in such activities will be blocked from our site and their comments removed as quickly as possible.”


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/alt-right-group-wages-war-on-black-panther-and-disney-through-rotten-tomatoes-2018-02-01