#AmberHeardisaMonster is Trending on Twitter, Here’s Why

Amber Heard received a lot of criticism on social media during her defamation case with Johnny Depp. And even though the trial has subsided, it hasn’t changed.

Currently, at the time of writing this article, the hashtag, #AmberHeardisaMonster is trending on Twitter.  There doesn’t appear to be any particular reason why, as there hasn’t been any major news since both teams filed an appeal to have the verdicts overturned.  However, let’s take a look at some of the Tweets.

I wonder what Amber was so afraid of that was on her devices that she refused to hand them over? Can’t imagine it was anything that would have incriminated her at all… #AmberHeardIsAMonster #JohnnyDeppDeservesAnApology

— Luna (@kind_luna) August 3, 2022

Imagine if the roles were reversed, a man would be castigated for behaving like this #AmberHeardIsAMonster #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser #OverUsedFlappyFishMarket #AmberHeardDeservesPrison #AmberHeardIsAGoldDigger #JohnnyDeppIsALegend #JohnnyDeppKeepsWinning #JohnnyDeppIsASurvivor https://t.co/O1HoxxL2Ue

— schatzie-mlj (@MljSchatzie) August 3, 2022

Jess coming through followed her for years on Instagram! This girl knows her shit and has several contacts who are/were involved with AH and her diabolical behaviour #AmberHeardIsAMonster https://t.co/6ZykhwRdjE

— EmLauren ❤️ (@EmlaurenW) August 3, 2022

She forgot she painted bruises on the other side #AmberHeardIsAMonster #AmberHeardlsAnAbuser #AmberHeardIsALiar #AmberHeardDeservesNothing #AmberHeardIsAGoldDigger #AmberHeardIsFinished https://t.co/zZHNsFnsiG

— °san°‍☠️JusticeForJohnnyDepp° (@s_sans_s) August 3, 2022

Weren’t y’all the same fandom that was trying to connect Johnny Depp to some made up “sex trafficking ring” Marilyn Manson “had” because Marilyn sent Johnny a weird text #AmberHeardIsALiar #AmberHeardIsAMonster #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser #DARVOHeard pic.twitter.com/RphRGHW6y2

— Ben Chew Simp ‍☠️ (@ethanstarot) August 3, 2022

we learned that people can be abusive regardless of who they are and in this case the abuser was Amber Turd ✌#AmberHeardIsAMonster #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser https://t.co/jKWpTDJtT8

— ‍☠️ willy wonka matters ‍☠️ (@wonkamatters) August 4, 2022

As social media has been aggressive to Heard (and somewhat to Depp), a study published by Amber Heard got a lot of flak on social media during her defamation trial with Johnny Depp. Now comes a report that, perhaps unsurprisingly, shows that not all of that negativity was organic. Bot Sentinel, a research firm that uses data science and artificial intelligence to detect and track bots, trolls and suspect accounts on Twitter and elsewhere, released a report Monday focused on how Heard was treated during the civil trial. It found that the targeting of the “Aquaman” actor was “one of the worst cases of platform manipulation and flagrant abuse from a group of Twitter accounts.” Heard’s legal team hired the company in 2020, but Bot Sentinel says it wasn’t paid by anyone for the Heard research it did in June 2022 after a verdict was reached in the court case. Bot Sentinel’s new report, which zoomed in specifically on Twitter, found that trolls had manipulated conversations and trends “while targeting and abusing women to suppress any positive tweets supporting Amber Heard.” Some 627 Twitter accounts were dedicated primarily to tweeting negatively about Heard and her supporters, the company found. And almost 3,300 accounts were tweeting the hashtags #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser, #AmberHeardLsAnAbuser, #AmberHeardIsALiar and #AmberHeardLsALiar, with the misspellings perhaps intended to get around Twitter filters. “We immediately observed dozens of newly created accounts spamming negative anti-Amber Heard hashtags,” Bot Sentinel said in an overview of its 17-page report. “Many accounts were replying to tweets with hashtags unrelated to the tweet they were responding to. Some accounts encouraged others to get the hashtags trending, and the trolls were successful on multiple occasions.” After looking at more than 14,000 tweets that included the hashtags above, the company said, it determined that 24.4% of the accounts sending those tweets had been created in the past seven months. One manipulative technique that was employed was “copypasta,” or copying and pasting duplicative content to game Twitter’s trends and propagate a positive view of Depp and a negative view of Heard, the report said. One such message read, “People turned against Amber Heard, not because Johnny Depp is a powerful man or a famous actor, but because we watched the trial and saw who was telling the truth and who wasn’t.” Additionally, the company said it found that women who tweeted in support of Heard were often targeted by trolls who flung “vulgar and threatening language” their way for weeks after the trial ended. An academic who supported Heard was targeted by an account featuring a photo of the academic’s dead child, the report said. Trolls amplified the harassment and eventually doxxed the academic’s family members, the report said, noting that the specific example had been included to show the level of harassment that occurred. Bot Sentinel said it submitted a list of the offending accounts to Twitter before publishing its report. The Times has reached out to Twitter for comment. “It’s our opinion Twitter didn’t do enough to mitigate the platform manipulation and did very little to stop the abuse and targeted harassment,” Bot Sentinel said in its report. “Twitter essentially left the women to fend for themselves with little to no support from the platform. The abuse and targeted harassment continued well after the Depp vs. Heard trial ended, and unless Twitter takes action, the abuse and targeted harassment will still continue.” Among the other reports published by Bot Sentinel since October 2021 was one that studied a coordinated online hate campaign targeting Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and another that revealed more than 96,000 accounts that followed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in April were created over the space of about two days.Bot Sentinel, a research firm that uses data science and artificial intelligence to identify and track bots, trolls, and suspicious accounts on Twitter and elsewhere, revealed Monday how she was treated during the civil trial.

Twitter accounts were found to have targeted the actor for Aquaman in a “one of the worst cases of platform manipulation and flagrant abuse.”

Heard’s legal team hired the company in 2020. However, Bot Sentinel says that it was not paid by anyone for doing research in June 2022 after the verdict was reached in the court case.

Bot Sentinel’s new report, which focused specifically on Twitter, found that trolls had manipulated conversations and trends “while targeting and abusing women to suppress any positive tweets supporting Amber Heard.”

The study found that there were roughly 627 Twitter accounts dedicated to negatively slating Heard and her supporters. And almost 3,300 accounts were posting the hashtags #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser, #AmberHeardLsAnAbuser, #AmberHeardIsALiar, and #AmberHeraldLsALiar, with the misspellings perhaps intended to circumvent Twitter algorithms.

“We immediately observed dozens of newly created accounts spamming negative anti-Amber Heard hashtags,” Bot Sentinel said in an overview of its 17-page report. “Many accounts were replying to tweets with hashtags unrelated to the tweet they were responding to. Some accounts encouraged others to get the hashtags trending, and the trolls were successful on multiple occasions.”

The firm found that 24.4 percent of the accounts using the aforementioned hashtags had been created in the previous seven months, according to its analysis of more than 14,000 tweets containing those terms.

One manipulative technique that was employed was “copypasta,” or copying and pasting duplicative content to game Twitter’s trends and propagate a positive view of Depp. One such message read, “People turned against Amber Heard because we watched the trial and saw who was telling the truth and who wasn’t.”

The company said that it found that women who tweeted in support of Heard were often targeted by trolls who hurled “vulgar and threatening language” their way for weeks after the trial ended.

People who supported Heard were targeted by an account with a photo of the academic’s dead child. The trolls harassed the academic and then doxxed the academic’s family members. The example was included in the report to show the level of harassment that occurred.

Bot Sentinel said it shared a list of the offending accounts with Twitter before publishing its report.

“It’s our opinion Twitter didn’t do enough to mitigate the platform manipulation and did very little to stop the abuse and targeted harassment,” Bot Sentinel said in its report.

“Twitter essentially left the women to fend for themselves with little to no support from the platform. The abuse and targeted harassment continued well after the Depp vs. Heard trial ended, and unless Twitter takes action, the abuse and targeted harassment will still continue.”

Bot Sentinel published a report in October 2021 that studied a coordinated online hate campaign targeting Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Another report released in April 2021 revealed more than 96,000 accounts that followed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis were created over the space of about two days.