Sony Admits It Used Employees as Bogus Fans — “Still reeling from revelations that its

advertising department had concocted

a phony film critic and used him to promote

four Columbia Pictures releases, Sony

Pictures Entertainment has now admitted

that two of its own employees posed as

ordinary moviegoers in on-the-street

interviews to promote another Columbia

release last summer.” New York Times Should moviegoers take this evidence of an unprecedented degree of manipulation and mindfuck with complacency, or has anyone proposed a boycott of Sony/Columbia pictures? The lawsuits viewers are bringing, claiming they’ve been damaged by being so misled, will probably be thrown out as frivolous, but if a significant change in the company’s profit/loss data were identified publicly as a consequence of the company’s actions, would other companies’ film executives take pause before they crossed a similar line? Do we believe there haven’t been similar instances of manipulation by others already?