A social media expert testified that he saw more than a million negative tweets about Amber Heard during the trial. Heard’s social media activity was almost entirely to Depp’s advantage throughout their high-profile case, said Schnell in court.
The social media expert and Berkeley Research Group member works as part of the legal team representing Heard in the defamation lawsuit that has kept viewers glued to the television.
‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star Depp sued his ex-wife for $50 million over a Washington Post op-ed that claimed she was victimized by domestic abuse. Depp, 58, argues that he was the real victim of abuse in their turbulent marriage, and says the article destroyed his career and reputation.
During their relationship, Heard claims Depp was physically abusive multiple times, which she is countersuing for $100 million.
Due to Amber Heard’s claims, Johnny Depp says he has “lost everything”
Throughout this entire ordeal, Disney decided to let go of Johnny Depp and remove him from the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean sequel. Imagine that movie without Johnny Depp playing his iconic role as Jack Sparrow – yep, we can’t either. He spoke about this massive change and how it affected him:
“Captain Jack Sparrow was a character I built from the ground up and was something that I, of course, put a lot of [myself] into the character and also having worked on these films with these people and added much of myself, much of my own re-writing of the dialogue and scenes and jokes.”
The trial has been a hot topic on social media and has spawned a slew of internet memes. Many Depp fans took advantage of the incident to slam Heard and proclaim that her allegations are entirely false.
Schnell has given the Fairfax, Virginia, court insight into exactly how polarized the online reaction has been.
According to Schnell the hashtag ‘Justice For Johnny‘ had been the most widely used during the trial and most tweets using it were negative in nature.
“The tweets that had the hashtag ‘Justice for Johnny Depp’, how many of them were negative towards Miss Heard?” one of Heard’s lawyers asked. Schnell replied: “All of them”.
Taking a sample of tweets from the hashtag, the expert found that negative opinions were expressed toward Aquaman.
As a result of statements made by Depp’s former lawyer Adam Waldman in April 2020, the hashtag’s use had skyrocketed.
“It was clearly double as many [negative tweets] from April [2020] to 2021,” he told the court.
On the whole, Schnell studied tweets between April 2020 and January 2021, but he also stated on the witness stand that he had concluded there had been no change in negative sentiment towards Heard since January 2021.
Using Schnell’s testimony, Heard’s legal team argues that Depp and Waldman are running a campaign to discredit his ex-wife online.
Several experts have speculated that Heard has been targeted by bots in the avalanche of social media hate directed at her.
Alexa O’Brien, an investigative journalist, tweets that they are bots:
In your opinion, why has Amber received such a negative response? What do you think? Is it because of the campaign against her, or is it organic?
No “fact checker” USA, a million people out there said it & she deserves it. Perhaps ill be more empathetic when that 7 million that was “pledged ” actually makes it to its rightful hands. In fact, doesnt even have to be 7 million. I wld have believed her with just half but she didn’t even donate that. Sorry but she lied about her charity and to me that’s about as low as you can go. Why would anyone believe her now. Sorry buttercup, you abused a movement that for once gv domestic violence victims a voice & used it to bolster your career & Depp called your a** out. I dont really like either of you. You’re both screwed in the head to me but at least Depp owns his mess & did it with a big dose of kharma on the side.