Neil Gaiman Accused Of Hiring PR Firm To Flood Social Media With Bots Promoting His Work To Hide The Allegations Against Him

The Sandman creator Neil Gaiman is under fire for his manipulation, this time of social media to sweep his accusers under the rug.

Public relations firms using bots to change the narrative for social media has been a massive problem in 2024, as it’s been exposed that companies like Disney and Amazon Prime Video have been caught using massive bot campaigns to try to shift the narrative of their failing TV shows to pretend like there’s positive reaction to them. Now users are accusing Neil Gaiman of hiring a PR firm to create bot activity around his name to clear allegations of his sexual misconduct from searches and instead only show promotion of his works. 

Neil Gaiman has been under scrutiny over the last few months because of alleged sexual abuse, which has been brought forward by six different women, four of which come from the Tortoise podcast, an investigative journalism outfit known for its in-depth reporting. The abuses range from employees of Gaiman to fans of his work who felt he used his status in the industry to manipulate them into acts they didn’t want to do. 

The most harrowing accounts of the women come from a former babysitter/nanny, who says that within hours of meeting Gaiman, she was asked as an employee of the family to come into a bathtub with the Sandman creator and do degrading acts. Gaiman has stated he only was in the tub cuddling with her.  The second employee involves the wife of a landscaper on his New York estate, who claims Gaiman made her perform sex acts in exchange for not getting evicted from her home. 

Gaiman has been completely absent from public appearances, having canceled one of his speaking sessions since these allegations took place. He’s also been notably silent on his social media platforms, with no posts since the allegations began. 

According to an online source close to Neil Gaiman, he’s hired public relations firm Edendale Strategies to handle the crisis. Allegedly, this firm has been employing the use of bots on X to dominate the conversation around Gaiman and make it harder for users to find information about his abuse by having his name flooded with mentions of his works.

Author Moniza Hossain broke the story to X in a viral post, “Wow take a look at the comments under this tweet to catch a Black Mirroresque glimpse into what it looks like when rich people buy bots to shape online discourse about themselves.” 

With this, she tweeted a post that appears to not be written by a human, “One of the best Netflix shows of the last two years, The Sandman's TV series turned author Neil Gaiman's *ahem* dream for a worthy live-action adaptation into reality in mid-2022. Indeed, it had spent over 20 years in development hell before Netflix did something other studios had failed to do. It was an oh-so-nearly perfect retelling of Gaiman's most famous works, too, which I thoroughly enjoyed for multiple reasons (its amazing cast performances, elaborate story, and mind-blowing visuals to name just three). With The Sandman season 2 currently in development, you've got time to *double ahem* stop sleeping on this high-fantasy program. So, hop to it!”

One user in the comments then linked a flood of other eerily similar posts about Neil Gaiman’s work which apparently show a pattern of bots meant to manipulate the Sandman creator’s public image by dominating the platform with fake conversations.

MasterOfTheTDS has been exposing bot use by pop culture PR firms over the last year, catching Disney in the act of employing bots to counter the negative fan reaction to Star Wars: The Acolyte and Doctor Who. He’s currently exposing a bot campaign for Amazon Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power. 

Elon Musk recently asked on his feed, “Are you still seeing a lot of bots in replies?”

To which MasterOfTheTDS replied, “They aren’t in the replies, but I find them all over and track them. I even helped some of your guys take down some accounts that were farming the ad revenue sharing and stealing money from Twitter. Here are some promoting Rings of Power I found last month. Found some more promoting Star Wars: Outlaws just a few hours ago.  Would love to do more to help out @elonmusk”

He accompanied his post showing how bad the Rings Of Power bot use is.

Mainstream entertainment companies and stars like Neil Gaiman have a massive problem. With the public onto how awful their content and the people surrounding them are, they’re forced to try to distort reality to boost their own narratives, as their manipulations are no longer working.

What do you think of Neil Gaiman allegedly using bots to try to sweep his accusations under the rug? Leave a comment and let us know.

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