Astroturfing
Astroturfing is the deceptive practice of hiding the sponsors of an orchestrated message or organization (e.g., political, economic, advertising, religious, or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from, and is supported by, unsolicited grassroots participants.
Astroturfing can influence public opinion by flooding platforms like political blogs, news sites, and review websites with manipulated content.
[1] In the EU, social networking sites may be governed by the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive which also prohibits undisclosed paid endorsements and connected individuals from misleading readers into thinking they are regular consumers.
[9][10] In the first systematic study of astroturfing in the United States, Oxford Professor Philip N. Howard argued that the internet was making it much easier for powerful lobbyists and political movements to activate small groups of aggrieved citizens to have an exaggerated importance in public policy debates.
[13] In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may send cease-and-desist orders or require a fine of $16,000 per day for those that violate its "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising".
[16] In October 2018, after denying that they had paid for people to show up in support of a controversial power plant development project in New Orleans, Entergy was fined five million dollars for using astroturf firm The Hawthorn Group to provide actors to prevent real community members' voices from being counted at city council meetings and show false grassroots support.
[6] The New York Times reported that "consumer" reviews are more effective, because "they purport to be testimonials of real people, even though some are bought and sold just like everything else on the commercial Internet.
"[24] Groups like FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity assert that providing organizational structure and support to grassroots movements is essential for effective advocacy.
They argue that the concept of grassroots movements being entirely spontaneous is unrealistic and that some level of organization is necessary to amplify voices and mobilize supporters effectively.
The authors argued that astroturfing that is "purposefully designed to fulfill corporate agendas, manipulate public opinion and harm scientific research represents a serious lapse in ethical conduct.
The author said that it undermines the public's ability to inform potential customers of sub-standard products or inappropriate business practices, but also noted that fake reviews were difficult to detect.
[30] Front groups may resist legislation and scientific consensus that is damaging to the sponsor's business by emphasizing minority viewpoints, instilling doubt and publishing counterclaims by corporate-sponsored experts.
[27] Filippo Menczer's group at Indiana University developed software in 2010 that detects astroturfing on Twitter by recognizing behavioral patterns.
[19] According to the Financial Times, astroturfing is "commonplace" in American politics, but was "revolutionary" in Europe when it was exposed that the European Privacy Association, an anti-privacy "think-tank", was actually sponsored by technology companies.
The NSA and other tobacco interests initiated an aggressive public relations campaign from 1994 to 1999 in an effort to exaggerate the appearance of grassroots support for smoker's rights.
ATL contacted constituents under the guise of conducting a poll and sent pro-Microsoft consumers form and sample letters to send to involved lawmakers.
[56] In 2009–2010, an Indiana University research study developed a software system to detect astroturfing on Twitter due to the sensitivity of the topic in the run up to the 2010 U.S. midterm elections and account suspensions on the social media platform.
[61] In October and November 2018, conservative marketing firm Rally Forge created what The New Yorker described as "a phony left-wing front group, America Progress Now, which promoted Green Party candidates online in 2018, apparently to hurt Democrats in several races.
"[62] Its ads on Facebook used socialist memes and slogans to attack Democrats and urge third-party protest voting in several tight races, including the 2018 Wisconsin gubernatorial election.
[63][64] In 2018, a website called "Jexodus" claiming to be by "proud Jewish Millennials tired of living in bondage to leftist politics" was set up by Jeff Ballabon, a Republican operative in his mid-50s.
[65] In January 2021, a team led by Mohsen Mosleh conducted a politically oriented astroturfing campaign on Twitter, using "a set of human-looking bot accounts"; each bot would search for users posting links the researchers considered to be fake news, and "tweet a public reply message to the user's tweet that contained the link to the false story".
[74] In 2014, the Toronto Sun conservative media organization has published an article accusing Russia of using astroturf tactics to drum up anti-fracking sentiment across Europe and the West, supposedly in order to maintain dominance in oil exports through Ukraine.
[75] In Canada, a coalition of oil and gas company executives grouped under the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers also initiated a series of Canadian actions to advocate for the oil and gas industry in Canada through mainstream and social media, and using online campaigning to generate public support for fossil fuel energy projects.
[79] In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission settled a complaint with Reverb Communications, who was using interns to post favorable product reviews in Apple's iTunes store for clients.
"[82][83] An Al Jazeera TV series The Lobby documented Israel's attempt to promote more friendly, pro-Israel rhetoric to influence the attitudes of British youth, partly through influencing already established political bodies, such as the National Union of Students and the Labour Party, but also by creating new pro-Israel groups whose affiliation with the Israeli administration was kept secret.
[27][86] In June 2010, the United States Air Force solicited for "persona management" software that would "enable an operator to exercise a number of different online persons from the same workstation and without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries.
The contract is thought to have been awarded as part of a program called Operation Earnest Voice, which was first developed as a psychological warfare weapon against the online presence of groups ranged against coalition forces.
The campaign "creates the appearance of widespread support for Putin and the Kremlin in the shadow of the invasion and relies on... inauthentic accounts to accomplish its goal", according to a report.
Lead researcher Moustafa Ayad described the network and its practice of using tens of duplicate accounts in potential violation of Facebook's rules on inauthentic behavior as an example of astroturfing.
