Letterboxd Bans Bounding Into Comics Film Critic For Negative Review Of Billy Eichner’s ‘Bros’ Film
Jacob Smith
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The movie review social platform known as Letterboxd has a long history of censoring opinions of movies that they don’t approve of and it looks like they have done it once again.
(from left) Bobby (Billy Eichner), Louis (Harvey Fierstein) and Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) in Bros, co-written, produced and directed by Nicholas Stoller. © 2022 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
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Letterboxd claims to be a social platform for online users to share their taste in films but if you come to the site with an opinion that moderators don’t approve of, you will likely be silenced and for myself, this is now the third time that I have dealt with censorship on Letterboxd.
On Thursday night, the Society Reviews Letterboxd page was removed from the platform due to a negative review of Billy Eichner’s gay rom-com film Bros. The Universal Pictures film bombed at the box office only grossing $13 million dollars globally in 4 weeks despite glowing reviews from mainstream critics.
(from left) Bobby (Billy Eichner) and Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) in Bros, co-written, produced and directed by Nicholas Stoller. © 2022 Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
The film was reviewed here on Bounding Into Comics last month which you can read in its entirety. After removing Society Reviews’ (Jacob Smith) review of the film for an alleged “community guidelines violation,” Letterboxd banned and removed all content and reviews from the Society Reviews page.
The official notice from Letterboxd says the following:
Hello,
As you are aware, our community policy states, “You must not use the Service to promote, engage in or incite hate, violence, discrimination or intolerance, including based on race, age, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation or other protected attribute.” All members are required to abide by this policy and the associated terms of service.
Your review of Bros breached this policy and was removed—twice. Circumventing the removal of the review is also a violation of our policy.
Due to your history of offensive language, your account has been removed from the Letterboxd service. If you would like an export of your account data for use elsewhere, please reply within 48 hours.
Society Reviews Banned On Letterboxd
This is not the first run-in we have had with Letterboxd. Three years ago, Letterboxd banned Society Reviews due to a negative review of the 2019 film Queen & Slim starring Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith.
Daniel Kaluuya as Slim and Jodie Turner-Smith as Queen in Queen & Slim (2019)
Letterboxd at the time claimed that myself, a black libertarian film critic, was “promoting, engaging in or inciting hate, violence, discrimination or intolerance, including based on race, age, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation” due to the film’s themes that supported the progressive backed Black Lives Matter movement.
However, after the story went viral, Letterboxd reversed its ban citing an error in their decision, but the censorship didn’t stop there.
Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira in Unpregnant (2020)
In 2020, Letterboxd censored Society Reviews yet again for a review of the HBO Max film Unpregnant.
The movie starring Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira is about a teenage girl who travels to New Mexico to get an abortion at the protest of her boyfriend and her family.
Society Reviews Censored Reviews Of ‘Unpregnant’
The film was the progressive Hollywood response to the recent wave of heartbeat bills being passed across the country that banned the act of abortion when the heartbeat of a child is detected in the womb.
Letterboxd censored Society Reviews from being able to post his review of the film which you can read here in order to protect the overall far left wing message of the movie.
Barbie Ferreira and Haley Lu Richardson in Unpregnant (2020) 2
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Earlier this year, Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire was the victim of Letterboxd’s censorship as the social platform completely banned ANY reviews of his documentary “What is a Woman?” from being seen by any users.
Letterboxd hid all reviews and ratings of the movie from public view. Users who were not registered would have all reviews of the movie completely hidden from sight while registered users could only view the reviews of people in their friends list.
Letterboxd later put out a statement claiming that due to high volumes of moderation on their site, they were temporarily removing all reviews of “What is A Woman?” from public view.
“Due to a high volume of moderation traffic, reviews for this title are hidden at this time. Reviews remain visible on members’ profiles, with the exception of those removed for violating our Community Policy.”
Matt Walsh’s documentary is the only film on the site that you are not allowed to see public reviews.
Letterboxd Has Removed All Reviews From Public View
Letterboxd has refused to respond to a appeal for Society Reviews’s ban on the platform and the account is still deleted.
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