Blame the trolls: IMDb, the Amazon-owned website that provides movie, TV and celebrity content, has decided to shut down its message boards because they’re “no longer providing a positive, useful experience” for the vast majority of its users.
“As part of our ongoing effort to continually evaluate and enhance the customer experience on IMDb, we have decided to disable IMDb’s message boards on February 20, 2017,” IMDb said in a notice posted on its site on Friday. “We regret any disappointment or frustration IMDb message board users may experience as a result of this decision.”
The shutdown also means IMDb’s private-messaging system will be disabled on Monday, Feb. 20. The website said the decision to kill off the message boards came “only after careful consideration and was based on data and traffic.”
Amazon, which acquired IMDb in 1998, says the site has more than 250 million monthly users worldwide.
The website said part of the decision was driven by the fact that users have migrated to IMDb’s social-media accounts as the main forums for comments and communication with IMDb editors and other users. It currently has 6.9 million followers on its Facebook page and nearly 3 million for its official Twitter account.
According to IMDb, it plans to launch new features in 2017 to help users “communicate and express themselves in meaningful ways,” but it didn’t provide details on what those might be.
