Rotten Tomatoes has been trying to figure out how to combat trolls for a while now and it looks like they’ve finally got a solution.
According to Variety, the movie review aggregator has revamped its methodology for calculating a movie’s Audience Score by only allowing verified ticket buyers to leave reviews.
Replacing the old Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score meter will be a new Verified Audience Score and verified ticket buyers will get a nice little badge next to their reviews to prove that they’re legit.
Now it must be noted that users who haven’t verified their movie tickets can still leave reviews and ratings for films but these won’t go towards the new Verified Audience Score.
This is a fantastic movie that will go a long way in stopping trolls from review bombing the Audience Scores of films like Captain Marvel and The Last Jedi as it will filter out all the bad eggs. While it won’t completely strip trolls of their voice, their reviews won’t be verified and won’t affect Audience Scores. They will essentially be screaming into the internet void and no one will give a crap what they have to say.
Now this really won’t affect us in Australia as only those who buy tickets through Fandango (which is owned by Rotten Tomatoes) can verify their tickets, with AMC Theatres, Regal, and Cinemark Theatres soon to be added to the system.
But as a way to restore some integrity to online movie reviews while combating trolls who like to give their life some meaning by ruining things for others, Rotten Tomatoes have delivered a long overdue hammer blow right here.
The first films to use this new system will be Aladdin, Booksmart, and Brightburn so it’ll be interesting to see how it all works since films won’t have an excuse when it ends up with a low Audience Score now.