I had to subscribe to a VPN service and invent a French postcode to watch La fabrique dulie on France.tv, the latest episode of which is dedicated to Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Posted yesterday at 7:00 p.m
That’s the problem these days: when we’re always just a click away from a conspiracy theory, we sometimes have to contort ourselves to get documented facts.
Because the documentary The Johnny Depp / Amber Heard Affair, Social Media Justice (directed by Cécile Delarue and Elsa Guiol) is a masterful lesson in information, the detailed and unrelenting chronology of the hijacking of a trial made a lot of noise last year.
We remember, this affair was passionately followed by netizens who followed it live on the web. In fact, most people watched daily social media recaps courtesy of misogynistic influencers who didn’t shy away from manipulating the truth. Result ? Everyone has been manipulated. Johnny Depp was made a hero fighting a woman’s deceit, and Amber Heard suffered the most hateful digital surge imaginable.
It was this hatred that troubled me as I followed the trial. At first, like many people, I laughed a little at the shameless unpacking of the couple’s problems that we witnessed, but very quickly this process between the pro-dorks (majority) and those, less often, who tried, went insane around Amber Heard To defend.
Remember it all started when Johnny Depp sued Amber Heard for defamation after she posted a forum where she presented herself as a victim of domestic violence without naming him. In another libel trial in London in 2020, Depp lost to The Sun tabloid when the English judiciary found 12 out of 14 domestic violence charges against him. Unable to appeal, he turned it in against Amber Heard in a new televised trial in Fairfax, Virginia that would become a real circus.
PHOTO JUSTIN TALLIS, AGENCE FRANCE PRESS ARCHIVE
Actress Amber Heard leaves the trial
After this case, I had never seen such an allegation of violence against a woman, enough to see it as revenge on the #metoo movement.
And you know what ? That’s exactly what it was, according to the documentary The Factory of Lies. A frontal attack on #metoo, five years after women worldwide spoke out. A unique opportunity to attack your credibility on Amber Heard. We underestimated the power of masculinist groups online, but since this documentary, along with that of Léa Clermont-Dion and Guylaine Maroist, salute you bitch: misogyny in the digital age, we can’t bury ourselves in the sand anymore. They are organized, evolve alongside society, and are dangerous. Often swimming in the same waters of disinformation and the far right, radicalization specialists are increasingly convinced that they pose a threat to the internal security of democratic countries.
In this documentary, we learn that Depp’s attorney approached the masculine YouTubers even before the trial, allegedly providing them with snippets of the couple’s taped screaming fights, which they edited to make Heard look bad. .
This happened throughout the process of isolating images to influence public opinion. For example, Amber Heard showed off a Milani makeup palette, similar to the one she reportedly used to hide her bruises. In a TikTok video, the brand took a stance by saying that this range did not exist at the time of the events – however, Amber Heard never said it was this brand that she had been using, but very quickly on the internet it became proof, that she lied. And Milani got a publicity stunt from the gang.
According to the specialists consulted for this documentary, the traditional media was too quick to categorize the London Depp Heard trial in the “press people” department, which during the second trial gave the entire space to the disinformers on the social networks where the actual show took place let. So much so that people have been forced to tell the story of the masculinists who have invaded the field – and made nice bucks on the platforms.
They were particularly involved in this process, not only for ideological reasons, but because it was also very profitable. We know that the content that generates the most engagement is the one that generates anger more than goodwill. Imran Ahmed, director of the Center for Combating Digital Hate in England, explains the phenomenon: “One of the reasons malicious and hateful content is on the rise is that it is profitable. For the platform and for internet users. And don’t count on the platforms—especially Elon Musk, who wants to defend “freedom of speech”—to clean up. Fox News monks supported Trump’s lies on TV for the same reason: to avoid killing the golden goose.
On TikTok, the biased coverage of the trial went to young people. Through laughter. For example, a feature allowed the platform to isolate a sound clip from Amber Heard’s testimony. Thousands of tiktokers could laugh at her by mimicking her while she recounted… a spousal rape. Humiliation, digital raids, harassment, that’s the tactic.
Masculinists created the hashtag #justiceforJohnnyDepp, which quickly took off on Twitter. And when the algorithm detects a trend, it forwards it to users who are not necessarily following this story and who received it without neutrality, to say the least. There would have been 6000 bots to boost the pro-dork campaign. An online petition to have Amber Heard removed from Aquaman 2 has garnered 4 million signatures, making it “the most signed petition in the world against one person,” notes actress Rose Lamy. We are far from the little chicanery between stars that only interests gossip magazines made there.
A masculinist influencer will write: “This lawsuit is more important than Depp. What I want to do is destroy the idea that you have to believe women. Human rights are important. »
He’s absolutely right that this lawsuit was bigger than Depp. Apply the treatment Amber Heard has received to any minority or divisive issue in society and you have a small idea of the real threat hanging over our democracies.
I sincerely hope that this episode of The Factory of Lies will be shown in Quebec (everywhere, really) because it’s probably one of the most revealing documents I’ve seen about the brainwashing phenomenon that is possible on social media networks, about the extraordinary damage potential that makes this possible. The radicalization of men creates berserkers like Andrew Tate, who has millions of views and subscribers and whose hateful content has not gone away despite his arrest for pimping.
“The way social platforms work will always encourage misogyny and misogyny,” concludes Imran Ahmed. The purpose of all this? Fear and silence, which is the opposite of freedom of expression.
Because while Johnny Depp lives his life comfortably, Amber Heard, who has been recognized by a court as a victim of domestic violence and who has also been the victim of online hate, has to live under a false name in Europe. Regardless of what one thinks of Depp or Heard, what happened on the sidelines of this case is disgusting. And more than worrying.