Facebook Takes Down 'Black Panther' Hate Group
Facebook recently took action against a social group that sought to sabotage "Black Panther" and its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Earlier this week, the social media giant removed the said group, which was also responsible for tanking the Rotten Tomatoes audience score of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" last December.
Called "Down with Disney's Treatment of Franchises," the group recently created a Facebook event called "Give Black Panther a Rotten Audience Score on Rotten Tomatoes" and was able to draw at least 4,000 Facebook users. Based on the event's description, the purpose of the event was to rig "Black Panther's" audience score as revenge for the negative perceptions against the DC Extended Universe due to the low audience score of their films.
Part of the event's description read, "Due to the corporate manipulations which created falsified bad press for the DCEU, I feel that it's time to strike back at all those under Disney and bring down the house of mouse's actions for paying off the critics that hurt DC Comics on film and for other parties affected by them." The description also indicated that the creator of the event also intended to make the same events for "Avengers: Infinity War" and some of Netflix's shows.
Amid reports about the thwarted "Black Panther" sabotage, "Black Panther" director Ryan Coogler said such plans did not bother him at all. In a statement, Rotten Tomatoes also reiterated its commitment to get rid of such hate groups by blocking reviews that include "hate speech."
"Black Panther" is arriving this month, and it is the last movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe before "Avengers: Infinity War" arrives in theaters in May. The film stars Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa/Black Panther and follows him as he returns to Wakanda to reign as its king.
"Black Panther" hits theaters on Feb. 16.