'Rotten Tomatoes' Admits Its Score Is Fake After Viral Fan Campaign Exposes AI-Generated Reviews
A viral social media campaign has forced the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes to admit that its "Tomatometer" score for a recent blockbuster was partially generated by an AI bot, sparking outrage among movie fans. The controversy began when a Reddit user noticed that several critic reviews for a romantic comedy were identical and contained nonsensical phrases, leading to an investigation. Rotten Tomatoes confirmed that the reviews were "rotten tomatoes" — a term used internally for low-quality, automated submissions — and blamed a third-party partner for the error. However, critics say the company's credibility is now "rotten" after years of alleged score manipulation.