Johnny Depp’s libel trial against Amber Heard is coming to an end, the jury’s verdict is just missing. But the social media court has already decided. For six weeks now, photos of the trial have been dissected daily and most publications support the 58-year-old actor.
TikTok is the go-to social network for fans following the close trial, with billions of views on video montages of court footage. Amber Heard’s testimonials were cut and re-edited, with the addition of sound effects and music in an attempt to ridicule her. We laughed at the expressions on his face and his acting. On the other hand, we presented Johnny Depp’s humor during the trial.
This bias is also felt in the keywords used. #JusticepourJohnnyDepp garnered at least 17 billion views on the platform, more than the 53 million garnered for #Justiceforamberheard. The actress must also face the 658 million views collected for #Amberheardisguilty, with no doubt about her little credibility with this audience.
According to Callum Hood, head of research at the Center for Countering Digital Hate (New window), an NGO that fights online disinformation, however it is difficult to distinguish true from false in TikTok. On the platform, very short excerpts from the trial are retained and presented with great biashe explained in an interview with CNN (New window).
Content on TikTok, more than any other platform, he added, has no context. We tend to know less about the account behind the post, when it was posted, where the material came from, the person’s motivations […] It’s really hard, with the information you have in the app, to understand the context and assess whether it’s true or false.
Support for Depp favored algorithms?
The virality of testing is in fact powered by the platforms themselves, according to Simon Thibault, professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Montreal and specialist in disinformation and online manipulation. The algorithms will try to feed us more and more fascinating, even burning content, to keep our attention.he pointed out.
” There was satire, there were memes, videos and audio montages that made the artists laugh at the trial. There have also been many harsh, deceptive comments, especially about Amber Heard. These are protests that help shape the online debate surrounding this trial. “
According to Simon Thibault, we should not minimize the positions of very influential personalities on the subject of litigation, such as Joe Rogan, host of the podcast. The Joe Rogan Experience one of the most popular on Spotify.
He had a very hurtful word for Amber Heard, he explained. And this kind of intervention there, it will help to free the speech of some of its listeners who will allow themselves, by emulation, to make more violent comments on the network.
Fake accounts used
Can such support for Johnny Depp be explained by the use of automated accounts, also called bots, for coordinated campaigns in favor of the actor?
Amber Heard’s team referred to this in 2019, when the actress filed a lawsuit following Johnny Depp’s libel suit against the actress. In particular, it is stated in court documents: As part of his ongoing depreciation campaign, Mr. Depp and/or her agents acting on her behalf operated real and fake social media accounts, and/or bots controlled by non-humans, to target Ms. Heard on the Twitter account and tries to meddle with him [carrière].
But an Israeli firm (New window), which specializes in detecting misinformation and fake online accounts, partially deconstructs this argument. The Cyabra company screened the accounts involved participating in online exchanges as part of this lawsuit.
According to the data gathered (New window) at the end of April, 11% of the 2,300 Twitter accounts reviewed were false. However, most of these fake accounts will be in support of Amber Heard and not Johnny Depp, according to Cyabra CEO Dan Brahmy, in an interview given at Fox News Digital (New window)
To explain this, Professor Simon Thibault refers culture is stanshrinkage in between stalker (harasser) and fans .
These data show that there will be fake accounts associated with each camp, but this is more on the side of Amber Heard, she says. Perhaps it’s a description of Johnny Depp’s popularity that obviously there is a group of fans who are willing to work hard to show their support and do it online in a very ungraceful, albeit hateful way.
Source: Radio-Canada
