Netflix using fake Twitter accounts to promote new movie

Netflix using fake Twitter accounts to promote new movie(twitter.com)

44 points by holic 7 years ago | 24 comments

Wow, not surprising to me.

I noticed an explosion of Birdbox memes on social media yesterday. I hadn't heard of the movie and did some research. Mediocre reviews and the plot seemed like ordinary horror/thriller. Still, these memes were popping up everywhere. No way this was organic.

mattdeboard 7 years ago | |

Yeah I'm just sitting here thinking, "Oh."

I had to block mentions of this show's title on Twitter. It was getting ridiculous.

baby 7 years ago | |

Well. This is marketing.

zerotolerance 7 years ago |

Almost zero data here. Zero investigation or reference material. Almost no editorial. Only an arbitrary clickbait accusation. But it says "Netflix" so HN FP here we come. This is Obama "invading" West Texas and declaring martial law to take over a Walmart all over again.

zerotolerance 7 years ago | |

... and now we're all talking about Bird Box. Thanks "hollywood babylon" for the meta-advertisement.

dvfjsdhgfv 7 years ago | |

This is a non story for me, too, but for a completely different reason: everyone is doing it.

cribbles 7 years ago |

Would such a thing be legal, per FTC guidelines on social media endorsement? (Let's set aside whether Netflix is "really doing this" for a moment.)

The FTC's Sponsorship Identification Rule requires influencers and marketers to "clearly and conspicuously disclose their relationship to brands when promoting or endorsing products through social media."[1] This is the reason you see hashtags like #ad on promoted posts from celebrities. Violations of this rule "can result in penalties far larger than any imposed to date by the FTC."[2]

I'd think that creating phony, low-follower accounts _en masse_ to promote a product would not circumvent the rule, simply because these accounts don't belong to "influencers." But I don't know. Can anyone with a better legal grasp on this chime in?

[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/04/ftc-s...

[2] https://www.allaboutadvertisinglaw.com/2018/01/fcc-revives-i...

paulpauper 7 years ago |

A $110 billion company cannot be bothered to buy realistic looking shill accounts.

pbhjpbhj 7 years ago | |

I'm pretty sure fake media that is really a company posting masquerading as an independent review, or is actually an unflagged advert (ie doesn't show unambiguously that it's an advert) are illegal in the EU.

So, perhaps the "fake looking accounts" is on purpose so as to (arguably) not be fraudulent; as buying well hidden accounts would be a very clear contravention of the law.

bengale 7 years ago |

So they've hired some social media marketing company?

leowoo91 7 years ago |

Are we at the point just reading a tweet and believing it immediately? What if those accounts are created intentionally to create such tweet?

davesque 7 years ago |

I guess they're thinking the ends justify the memes.

general8bitso 7 years ago | |

Oy.

dustinmoorenet 7 years ago |

I watched the movie last night and it was good for what it is. I wonder if Netflix wanted to jump start something they genuinely thought was good but was being buried by all the other things they are offering. Maybe they thought the ends justify the means if their costumers are entertained.

hannasanarion 7 years ago | |

The movie drives me crazy, because they had an amazing premise and set up a meaningful metaphor, and then totally just dumped it.

I think at the beginning the doctor literally says "ignoring your problems won't make them go away", it's extremely on-the-nose, and the bulk of the film is about trust and teamwork and that seems like it's going somewhere, and then you get to the end, and it like... nothing. Nothing is learned. Nothing changes.

The doctor even comes back at the end and you go "oh boy here comes the moral when we learn what this movie really was about" and she's all like "yay now we can be blind to our problems together" roll credits. There was so much opportunity in the premise and it's totally squandered.

hombre_fatal 7 years ago | | |

I was hooked at the start just for the Lovecraftian cosmic horror concept rather than some sort of moral metaphor (didn't notice) but it just goes nowhere after the cool introduction.

Though at first my reaction was "oh look, it's 'A Quiet Place' but with sight instead of sound."

Funny how we're here discussing it now on the front page of HN though. If this tweet gets picked up by HN and other large forums, then I'll have to give Netflix marketing a "well played."

Joe-Z 7 years ago | |

Netflix doesn‘t have anything they „think is good“. All they have is shows tailored to fit very specific audiences.

No heart behind it.

dx87 7 years ago |

"Suspiciously low tweet/follower count" seems like an awfully low bar to set for claiming that it's a bunch of bot accounts. Not everyone spends their life making posts on social media.

DanBC 7 years ago | |

It is weird that there are dozens of account with fewer than 20 followers making these posts. The video makes it a bit clearer: https://twitter.com/samiswine/status/1078419803465953280

darkerside 7 years ago | |

That's why they used a ratio instead of pure volume numbers. Why are so many people following these accounts that don't even tweet?

gammateam 7 years ago | | |

the point is that using ratios to determine engagement doesn't mean that an account is fake or a bot, or that the followers are fake or bought.

people mistakenly believe even influencers have bot or bought followers, just because their engagement is low

its just a poor metric to make a conclusion, and you'll have to accept that nobody knows anything

CM30 7 years ago |

Studios have been doing this sort of thing for years. Not too surprised Netflix would do the same.

Hopefully they'll never got as far as making up a fake critic to promote the movie like Sony did with David Manning.

kuhhk 7 years ago |

Counter-theory: a bot builder needs to test out his bot code, and used tweets about Bird Box movie as the test subject to shill for, hoping to drown amongst the other fans, rather than something that might get flagged.

Seems just as plausible, if not more..

SmellyGeekBoy 7 years ago | |

Indeed, or the bots are just scraping the most popular content from the big meme accounts, which all seem to be sharing these Bird Box memes at the moment.