Rotten Tomatoes Adds A "Verified" Feature To Combat Review-Bombing From Trolls

Review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes is taking another step to prevent false review-bombing/trolling among users. You may recall that the site was flooded with negative reviews of certain movies, like ‘Captain Marvel’, before they even opened. Following the review-bombing of ‘Captain Marvel’, Rotten Tomatoes disabled the ability for “audience members” to post reviews until after the film actually opened.

Now, the site has taken one further step by introducing the Verified Audience feature. Movie attendees who buy their tickets through Fandango, can link their Fandango account to RT, with their purchase of the tickets “verifying” that they have seen or will at least will see a certain movie.

If you don’t buy tickets through Fandango, you can still post reviews of movies after they have opened, but those un-verified reviews will fall under the “All Audiences” section, meaning that readers are aware they whoever wrote the review may not have actually seen the movie in question. And the Verified reviews will be the defaults visible on RT’s landing page. “All Audiences” reviews will have to be clicked on to be read. (Or not. Who wants to read troll rantings and ramblings?)

If it seems too narrow that the Verified designation is only offered to Fandango users, by the end of the year, those that buy their tickets directly through AMC, Regal, and Cinemark Theaters will also be able to link those accounts to the RT Verified status. Rotten Tomatoes is also looking at a way to allow those that buy tickets in person or through another third party to be verified, possibly using confirmation numbers or barcodes. As VP product Greg Ferris states, “Ultimately, our goal is to make this as ubiquitous as possible.”

Verified reviewers will feature a “badge” beside their name– basically a checkmark indicating that the person posting has at least bought a ticket to see the film they are writing about.