'Last Jedi' hate tweets were 'weaponized' by Russia, says study

The Brexit vote. The 2016 U.S. presidential election. And now ... the online reaction to The Last Jedi. 

What do all these expressions of opinion have in common? All have been credibly accused after the fact of being skewed by Russian trolls. 

The Last Jedi accusation comes in a new paper by Morton Bay, a Research Fellow at the University of Southern California (George Lucas' alma mater). Bay analyzed all tweets sent directly to Last Jedi director Rian Johnson over a seven month period after the movie's release. 

SEE ALSO: 'Last Jedi' director strikes back at Star Wars 'manbabies'

His conclusion? More than 50 percent of the negative tweets aimed at Johnson came from "bots, trolls/sock puppets or political activists using the debate to propagate messages supporting extreme right-wing causes and the discrimination of gender, race or sexuality," Bay writes. "A number of these users appear to be Russian trolls."  Read more...

More about Russia, Star Wars, Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi, and Internet Research Agency

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