Since the South Park episode attacking Kathleen Kennedy and Star Wars aired, former Star Wars actress Gina Carano has been going on the offensive against the company, using her behind-the-scenes knowledge to offer what tidbits of knowledge she can.
On Thursday, Carano offered some knowledge on X about Disney’s interest in Twitter, noting that back in 2016, Iger was “inches away” from buying the platform but pulled out over the presence of bots. Carano asked the question about how much the bot population on Twitter grew since that year:
In 2016 Bob Iger said Disney was basically inches away from buying Twitter but pulled out of the deal at the last minute saying they did a little more research & said this about Twitter users, “We, at that point, estimated with some of Twitter’s help that a substantial portion — not a majority — were not real.”
What do you think that “substantial portion” of fake users grew to from 2016 to before Elon Musk took over X/Twitter in 2022? How big did the bot armies get? Who were the bot armies created by & to do what?
Carano noted that buying and controlling Twitter would be a massive headache, but that creating your own bot armies would be much cheaper and more effective:
Why buy Twitter & deal with that headache when you can create armies of bots & control the narrative for much, much less money & energy. It does your promoting for you without making it look like you are promoting yourself, “Look, it’s popular on all these accounts, strangely liked by a bunch of accounts with no names, it must be good.”
What Carano is insinuating at this point is that, instead of Disney buying up Twitter, it utilized the reason Disney refused to buy it to their advantage, noting that Disney’s agenda was usually supported on Twitter by a large number of no-name accounts with very few followers.
Then she shifted gears and noted that it doesn’t always have to be used in support of a show or movie, but could be used to accomplish more sinister ends, including the silencing of those who don’t agree with their agendas…namely herself. Carano said that she sent an email to Disney brass about these bots that were going after her after the infamous tweet that was purposefully misinterpreted to make her appear antisemitic:
That leads to firing a person who thinks differently because they can’t control their voice, need a reason to fire her? Get this hashtag trending, say she said something anti-Semitic, when she isn’t at all, twist her words & hey, as long as it’s in the headlines no one will ask any questions, it must be true.
I actually told them in an email & over the phone about these bot armies & how they start the negative narrative & then the young kids would join in not realizing they’re being manipulated & then websites & small news jump on board to be cool with the kids & before you know it, you’re trending & the Hollywood media devours it. I told them I believed that is what was happening to me.
Carano then pointed out that in order to manipulate people, Disney didn’t need to control Twitter, they just needed to be able to control the narrarative, and they did that through the use of bots.
But it was clear that Disney wasn’t listening to Carano. They publicly fired her and called her tweet “abhorrent.” It was a head-scratching move given the purpose of Carano’s tweet was clearly a call to treat each other like humans and not monsters.
(READ: Gina Carano’s ‘Infamous’ Tweet Proves Correct as Mainstream Culture Ignores Dead Christians)
Yet, the bot armies that ginned up the Twitter mobs, combined with trending hashtags about Carano, won the day and Carano was unceremoniously ousted from her role as Cara Dune on Disney’s “The Mandalorian.”
Carano said that the damage done by bot armies is actually much more egregious than people think:
This action of bot armies is actually a much bigger offense than people are realizing. How many lives were ruined because of twitter bots cancelling them? In defamation law suits you need to have evidence of intent to do harm. Defamation law suits are very tricky, especially when you’re going up against someone with endless amounts of cash. I would say sending in bot armies to go after people they don’t agree with more than qualifies as intent to harm & I believe a jury would agree.
Carano then seemingly urged both ex and current employees at Disney to step forward with more evidence of Disney’s relationship with bot usage on Twitter.
Do you think this behavior of creating bots was exclusive to HBO/MAX or that maybe other major studios do this as well?
— Gina Carano 🕯 (@ginacarano) November 3, 2023
In 2016 Bob Iger said Disney was basically inches away from buying Twitter but pulled out of the deal at the last minute saying they did a little more… https://t.co/qX3JaTrhlh
While Carano’s testimony makes a lot of sense, and many Twitter users had likely noticed the unrelenting surge of no-name accounts making up the bulk of many a Twitter mob, more hard evidence is needed to tie Disney to using so many bots to accomplish their ends.
With Twitter now under the control of Elon Musk, the bot armies have indeed receded and it’s become much harder for entities to push their agendas. This may very well include Disney.
Carano likely isn’t done, either. As time goes on, she’ll probably be exposing more of Disney’s dirty secrets.
