I don’t think it was a setup, or fake news if you will. After all, the screw up on announcing the Oscar for best movie cast PricewaterhouseCoopers in a bad light. The reputation of any of the giant accounting firms is important (as in worth a lot of money) to them, so I doubt PWC would go along with a fake announcement.
It might have been a legitimate mistake. Mistakes do happen, or so I’ve heard.
On the other hand, perhaps “La La Land” won the popular vote, but “Moonlight” carried the Electoral College.
