New Movie Review App To Stop Trolls By Quizzing Users On A Film's Content Before Allowing Ratings
The internet has a serious troll problem, something movie review sites like Rotten Tomatoes know all too well. Recently, Rotten Tomatoes had to adopt a new system to rate films in an effort to discourage trolls who would swarm en masse to give a particular film a bad score even before the film in question had been released. The sad truth is that as long as there's an internet, there will be trolls. But a new movie review app hopes to beat them at their own game by requiring that users answer questions about the film they're rating.
Thomas Eromose Ikimi and Hamilton's Brandon Victor Dixon have created an app called Qurator, according to Variety. The idea for the app, which seeks to stave off fake negative reviews, came to Ikimi after watching internet trolls attack certain movies on Rotten Tomatoes. "A few years ago I was looking at reviews and I found it very difficult to sift through a rating and decide whether it was accurate," he said. "I thought that there must be a way of distilling the reactions actual fans would have. That's what compelled me to look for a solution."
That solution, which Ikimi and Dixon worked on together, is an app that "aims to weed out biased ratings, particularly from people who have never seen a movie, by testing user's knowledge with a 60-second quiz before allowing them to weigh in on any particular title." Here's the official description from the app's download page:
Are you tired of great reviews pushing you to see bad movies? Are you over bad reviews keeping you away from great movies? QURATE WITH US!
Pick a movie you've seen, play a fun sixty second quiz, pass and you get to rate and review, fail and you're locked out till you qualify on a set number of other movies. Review validated!
- Qurator is an app DESIGNED and POWERED BY movie fans. YES YOU!
- Qurator is a new way of approaching how audiences connect with the movies they love.
- Qurator provides reviews and ratings people can TRUST.
- Qurator lets fans connect with and recommend movies to their friends – reviews backed up by the wider Qurator community and free from all outside influence.
"For people who really care about movies, these things actually matter," said Ikimi. "It creates a more unified environment where everyone can participate in their love for films."
This isn't a bad idea overall. I suppose the real question is: would anyone want to actually use this instead of something more well-known like Rotten Tomatoes? I'm all for combating trolls, so anything that works to discourage them has my approval. I just don't know how popular Qurator might be.