Did ‘Russian bots’ fuel a social media campaign against Amber Heard? Depp v Heard unsealed court documents, explained

Formerly sealed documents from the defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are shedding new light on their wrought relationship.

The trial officially ended on June 1, 2022, but the newly unsealed documents are revealing heaps of previously undisclosed information. The information contained in many of these documents alters the way some saw the trial, particularly when it comes to details about how Depp and Heard’s teams handled specific, sensitive, information. The documents largely paint Depp and his team in an unflattering light, and may indicate that the passionate online discourse, which largely favored Depp, may have been both misguided and manipulated.

One detail that recently emerged appears to indicate that Depp’s former lawyer, Adam Waldman, may have had connections back to Russia. This is prompting questions about the passionate online campaign against Heard, and whether or not Waldman — and his alleged connections back to Russia — somehow influenced it.

Did Russian bots help fuel the social media campaign against Heard?

One of the unsealed documents relating to the Depp v Heard trial indicates that Waldman’s connections to Russia could have influenced the outcome of the trial.

According to the documents, the court granted a motion from Depp’s team aiming to disregard any evidence of Waldman’s “supposed misdeeds,” which included apparent “Russian connections.” This, all on its own, quickly struck a chord with many of the viewers who showed up to observe the nearly two month-long trial. It was the next portion that really stuck out to many, however, after Depp’s team worked — successfully — to exclude evidence that indicated Russian bots may have worked to discredit Heard during the trial.

Depp’s lawyers “fought to exclude evidence of negative social media traffic and purported Russian ‘bot’ campaign regarding Ms. Heard,” according to a report from Yahoo News. This indicates that social media turned against Heard for a reason, and it wasn’t entirely due to the information gleaned from the trial. Ceaseless clips of cherry-picked moments from the court case saturated social media in over the course of the trial, severely influencing public opinion and souring the web’s overall view of Heard. If these efforts were truly spearheaded by Russian bots, it’s massive news. It indicates that a foreign country is not only sticking its fingers into our elections, but also may be influencing public opinion on much smaller, insidious, matters.

So, while it’s not entirely clear that Russian bots did, in fact, influence the social media campaign against Heard, the unsealed documents certainly raise questions. It is undeniable that the online sphere quickly picked a side in the contentious trial, and a uniquely small percentage of people appeared to side with Heard. The majority of online discourse pinned Depp as the victim, and an absolute onslaught of content, on TikTok in particular, carefully selected clips from the trial to discredit Heard and boost Depp’s popularity.

If this effort was spearheaded by Russian bots, we should be concerned. We already know that foreign influence affects far too many aspects of online life, but if bots are influencing our opinions on something as objectively minor as a celebrity trial, it seems there is little hope that our everyday perspectives are not being influenced in a similar manner. While many users of the internet are well aware that they are being manipulated to some degree, these documents hint that the level of influence we experience on a daily basis goes far deeper than we were initially aware.