The Walt Disney Company is being accused of using bots to boost its public image and business success by getting certain topics to trend in order to falsely influence the wider public.
Mickey walks down Main Street USA at Disneyland. (Credit: Mortimer Productions)
X user MasteroftheTDS, who also hosts the YouTube channel Gothic Therapy, made the accusation after an examination of a Twitter thread promoting the increase of Disney stock made earlier this month.
MasteroftheTDS shared the post from MZoup98874 that reads, “Corporate profits are still the top concern of investors. Disney shares rose 11.5% after the company reported profits that exceeded analysts’ expectations and raised its upcoming revenue forecast. Shares of chip maker and designer Arm jumped 47.9% thanks to higher-than-expected profits and an optimistic business outlook. However, the 10-year US Treasury bond yield increased to 4.16% at the end of February 8. This development puts pressure on the stock market, despite a series of positive business results reports, showing that the US economy still maintains its strength.”
MZoup98874 on X
He then shared the numerous replies to the post that includes at least over 200 paid blue-check accounts that “are saying the same things in different variations of the wording.”
Next, he stated, “Why am I pointing this out? Let’s be fair here. The only thing that we’re seeing is bots. 1.5 million views with 380 likes is such a terrible ratio. But that alone doesn’t count for all these paid accounts responding.”
Ultron and his army in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Marvel Studios
MasteroftheTDS then asserts, “What’s happening here? To put it simply, these are all bots responding to this post to boost engagement and ads are being run on this post to drive income.”
He later adds, “These bots are trying to promote this tweet and get certain things to trend. Now, they’re not just doing Disney, they’re also doing ARM, which is a chip manufacturer and is well-known and has a pretty decent share as well. But as you can see, this is recent, where they are trying to make it look like their stock is as good as ARM. They’re putting them together and they’re trying to show, ‘Hey, look we’re doing okay.'”
Towards the end of his video, MasteroftheTDS also promised he has additional evidence, “There is more to come guys, you ready for it? I have them promoting their parks, promoting their shows, all their Disney+ shows, promoting their comics. And I even have some stuff from DC as well.”
Ultron’s army in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Marvel Studios
This accusation comes shortly after The Walt Disney Company was accused of rigging the People’s Choice Awards with bot accounts to ensure that Rachel Zegler won the Best Action Movie Star of the Year award.
Analyst and YouTuber Valliant Renegade questioned Zegler’s win saying, “Let’s not forget that Hollywood studios engage in heavy social manipulation. They all do. We’ve talked about this many times. All these Hollywood Studios hire very expensive PR and advertising marketing firms.”
He asserted, “Their job is to basically raise the social media specter of whatever these Studios need them to do. And Disney seems to be one of the most prolific users of this system.”
He later continued, “So how then does Rachel Zegler winning this award benefit Disney? Let’s look at the list one more time. Disney has two distinct entries in this list of eight: Brie Larson from The Marvels and Chris Pratt from Guardians 3. The problem with those films is that they’ve already come and gone and Brie Larson and Chris Pratt don’t have anything on the radar for Disney coming down the road.”
“‘But Valiant, The Hunger Games already released. It’s been out for three months now. What does that matter?’ Well, it’s not about The Hunger Games like I said. It’s about Rachel Zegler,” he shared. “And Rachel Zegler is, primarily, the biggest investment in a major capital expenditure by the Walt Disney Company that’s due out next year.”
Rachel Zegler as Snow White in Snow White (2025), Walt Disney Studios
He then posited, “If you were the Walt Disney Company and you had already spent 200 some odd million dollars filming Snow White, a live-action remake of it starring Rachel Zegler, who then stuck her foot in her mouth and effectively sank the production to the point that Disney had to pull it off of the release shelf and move it back one entire year for massive reshoots because they had to fix the things that audiences immediately and reflexively gagged at. Well, you might just want to raise the specter and the public sentiment of its principal character Rachel Zegler playing Snow White as much as you possibly could.”
“So as notorious as the People’s Choice Awards are for being able to be manipulated by say bot farms and very expensive Madison Avenue PR firms, well, who would stand to benefit from having Rachel Zegler inexplicably win this award? Well, that could be Disney.”
“Well we can’t be sure, but something tells me that a certain rat might be involved and in that sense, you know, we just we don’t know. We’re speculating. We’re theorizing but it could be,” Valliant Renegade said.
Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray Baird in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Courtesy of Lionsgate
HBO and MAX CEO Casey Bloys did admit to and apologized for using a troll army of fake social media accounts in order to boost the various show’s reputation on the network.
As reported by Variety, Bloys said, “For those of you who know me, you know that I am a programming executive very, very passionate about the shows that we decide to do. And the people who do them and the people who work on them.”
He continued, “I want the shows to be great. I want people to love them. I want you all to love them. It’s very important to me what you all think of the shows. When you think about that, and then think of 2020 and 2021, I’m working from home and doing an unhealthy amount of scrolling through Twitter. And I come up with a very, very dumb idea to vent my frustration.”
Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie in The Last of Us (2023), HBO
“Obviously, six tweets over a year and a half is not very effective,” he said. “But I do apologize to the people who were mentioned in the leaked emails, texts. Obviously, nobody wants to be part of a story that they have nothing to do with.”
“But also, as many of you know, I have progressed over the past couple of years to using DMs. So now, when I take issue with something in a review, or take issue with something I see, many of you are gracious enough to engage with me in a back and forth and I think that is a probably a much healthier way to go about this. But we’ll talk more about that, and you guys can ask me anything you want in the Q&A. I just wanted to put that out there,” he concluded.
Jodie Foster and Kali Reis in True Detective: Night Country (2024), HBO
What do you make of these latest accusations against The Walt Disney Company and its potential use of bots on X?
This sounds ripe for a complaint to the Securities and Exchange Commission for artificially manipulating stock prices.