Vivek Agnihotri’s latest film The Kashmir Files, which was released last week, has struck a chord with cinema lovers across India. The film is inspired by true events that unfolded in Kashmir after the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits and has been receiving praise from all quarters. However, the ratings of the film on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) website witnessed “unusual voting activity” on its review page and that affected the rating. Director Vivek Agnihotri reacted to the development and termed it “unethical”.
IMDb, which is owned by Amazon, is an online database of information related to films, television series, and streaming content online. The movies listed on IMDb include details like cast, production crew and personal biographies, plot summaries, ratings, and fan and critical reviews.
The IMDb page of The Kashmir Files shows a note that read, “Our rating mechanism has detected unusual voting activity on this title. To preserve the reliability of our rating system, an alternate weighting calculation has been applied.”
Usual ratings on IMDb can be done by registered users who can cast a vote ranging from one to ten on every released title in the database. IMDb explains that “individual votes are then aggregated and summarized as a single IMDb rating, visible on the title’s main page.”
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However, after the website noticed the “unusual activity”, IMDb changed its voting method to prevent manipulation. The rating for The Kashmir Files currently stands at 8.3 with 3,92,574 votes recorded. While 94.6 percent of users gave it a 10 rating, 3.9 percent of users rated it 1.
It should be noted, soon after the release of the film, many users pointed out how The Kashmir Files had received 10/10 ratings. But soon after, IMDb detected the alleged “unusual activity” and the website has so far not explained what this “unusual activity” was.
IMDb, however, has explained the methodology behind the weighted rating on its website: “IMDb publishes weighted vote averages rather than raw data averages.” The website mentions that under this method, they accept and consider all votes received by users, but not all votes have the same impact or weight on the final rating of the work. However, it is also mentioned that IMDb does not disclose the exact method used to generate the rating. IMDb also added that an alternate weighting calculation is applied in order to preserve the “reliability” of their system when unusual voting activity is detected. The website explains that it is done to ensure that their rating mechanism remains “effective.”
The Kashmir Files stars Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, Mithun Chakraborty, and Pallavi Joshi among others. The film narrates the story of Kashmiri Hindus and the brutality they had to suffer in 1990 when these Pandits were forced out of their homes.
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