(Part one here)

My good friend Jan Küveler, who writes for German news daily Die Welt, has just published a little piece on the My Little Pony IMDb mystery, entitled “Lügen haben kurze Beine” [lit. “Lies have short legs” (like ponies, get it?); in English, of course, lies have no legs at all]. After explaining the concept of My Little Pony to his German-speaking readership, who may not be familiar with the little pastel-coloured plastic ponies, as well as the democracy-in-action fact that the open rating system on IMDb is usually a fairly good indicator of whether a film is worth watching, he offers his appraisal of this curious hoax (my translation):

It is unlikely that this is a case of the production company trying to promote a bad movie, as one of the few “genuine” reviewers supposes. The other reviews are too absurdly over-the-top for that. None of the reviews ever mentions the actual content of the film, presumably because none of the reviewers has actually ever seen My Little Pony: The Princess Promenade. This is clearly all a big joke, an internet hoax, a sort of digital flash-mob. […] But what this prank really reveals is just how easy it is to manipulate ostensibly unimportant, marginal information on the Internet. Wikipedia and the IMDb only work when there are lots of attentive users who will not hesitate to raise the alarm as soon as they smell a rat. But where there is no-one looking, the door is wide open for wild distortions and ruses—whatever their motivation may be. But when some unsuspecting soul finally does come along, they’re all at sea. And when even someone like Roger Ebert can be affected, then no-one is safe. Be that as it may, one thing is for sure: it’s a hoot (or rather a whinny).