The Kashmir Files: IMDb changes rating mechanism after detecting 'unusual voting activity' for Vivek Agnihotri's film

Popular film database IMDb has made changes to its rating mechanism after noticing "unusual voting activity" for the recently released The Kashmir Files, directed by Vivek Agnihotri.

India Today writes that on March 14 (Monday), the film had a rating of 8.3 on IMDb from 2,31,676 votes. Out of this 94 per cent of voters had given the film a 10 on 10 rating, while 4 per cent gave it 1. Before the rating criteria was changed by IMDb, the film stood at 9.9 points.

Soon after the website placed a disclaimer: "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."

IMDb's help section states that an alternate calculation approach may be applied "in order to preserve the reliability of our system." 

Soon after, this development was picked up by Twitter users, and noticed by director Agnihotri. He tweeted that the website's response was "unusual and unethical."

Here is his tweet:

Mithun Chakraborty as Brahma Dutt, Anupam Kher as Pushkarnath, Darshan Kumar as Krishna Pandit, Pallavi Joshi as Radhika Menon, Bhasha Sumbali as Shraddha Pandit, Chinmay Mandlekar as Farooq Malik aka Bitta (Inspired by Farooq Ahmed Dar), Puneet Issar as DGP Hari Narain.

The Kashmir Files has earned Rs 47.85 crore within 4 days of its release on March 11, states a press release shared by the makers. The film has also been declared tax-free in several Bhartiya Janata Party-rules states like Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. 

Also read — The Kashmir Files review: They try too hard to show you the horrors of an unheard part of a war