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It all began with a little cup...a Dixie Cup!
Between 1909-1910 a precursor to the "grassroots" movements of today emerged; the goal, to ban the "public drinking cup." However, later a conflict of interest surfaced. The person initiating the movement was none other than Hugh Moore--founder of The Dixie Cup Company.
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So, what is Astroturfing?
The term Astroturfing was first coined in 1985 by Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen. He used the term in connecting with a movement designed by a company or person "under the guise of a grassroots movement."
As the term astroturf suggests, the movement is not what it appears to be; its fake. Those involved in the movement's construction stand to gain from its success. This unethical behavior creates myriad conflicts of interest.
Examples of Astroturfing
According to BigCommerce.com "while astroturfing has been a factor in public outreach for decades, usually through public advocacy groups with hidden funding, it is especially prolific on the Internet."
Company-employed bloggers
According to BigCommerce.com, company-employed bloggers pretend to be unbiased while posting product reviews.
Have you ever noticed the caveat attached to reviews stating the purchase was verified? This addition is meant to put the buyer's mind at ease while promoting trust.
However, what's to stop a company from providing its employees with funds to purchase the company's products and then construct positive reviews on the company's behalf?
Amazon is notorious for these types of reviews. Prior to 2016, Amazon companies were known to gift products in exchange for hyped-up reviews. Today's strict rules have forced unethical reviewing underground. This makes offenses harder to detect but still ever-present.
Fake personas
Another popular form of astroturfing employs the use of fake personas. Companies create fake personas "to create the illusion of a populist idea," according to BigCommerce.com.
Fake personas can be very complex and carry a rich history of (mis)information. According to The Guardian, fake personas can be created and continuously updated by computers. Sometimes fake personas are assigned to a person (or people). The persona is then used to unethically distribute information in favor of a company.
One Hundred Years & Counting
For more than 100 years, astroturfing has been altering consumer opinion, often without their knowledge. Unlike the easily revealed misdeeds of The Dixie Cup Company of yesterday, today's astroturfing is much harder to detect and increasingly gaining popularity.
And so readers, I revisit a line from a previous blog...Caveat Emptor! Be smart consumers of products, services, and information. Tread carefully, and acknowledge the need to safeguard your interests; sometimes its all we can do in our ever-evolving, tech-savvy world.
Nice post Dawn, I think the example of the Dixie cup, which I was not familiar with, is interesting in that it is definitely an astroturf-type campaign, but one that actually served a public good and saved lives. It would be like 3M starting a "People Who Like To Wear Masks' group on Facebook ... which I'm wondering now if they have already done. :-)
ReplyDelete- Jeff