Everyday the American people are bombarded with shocking news stories. Between the Coronavirus, the Black Lives Matters Protests, bubonic plague, “murder hornets,” or the Jeffery Epstein conspiracies, it’s a wonder any of us are sane.
After learning about the process of astroturfing, it has become even harder to trust anything anyone says. The idea of astroturfing was not something I was fully made aware of until this week.
Because of this, I have become even more cynical in my ability to believe anything that the news reports. I have read countless articles this week in regards to astroturfing, and now I feel I can only believe the events that occur in my life personally.
The definition of astroturfing is “the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants.”
Basically, large corporations, politicians, PR professionals, or people of power can hire groups of people to pretend to be whatever the corporation, politician, PR professional, or people of power want them to be to sway people a certain way. There must be a market for it because there are actual businesses out there that offer crowds for hire.
One article in particular that caught my attention was an article about Trump’s Tea Party Patriots. It claims that Trump’s right-wing, “open the country” protesters are an astroturfing operation.
Trump has even used this information against his opposition, claiming that the protests happening in Portland and Seattle are violent protesters being paid by George Soros. There have also been some accounts saying that ANTIFA is linked to George Soros.
Knowing all of this, and not really knowing what to believe or who to trust, America’s Front Line Doctors released a video this week, which almost made me go into a depression after my week of researching astroturfing. Not to mention, social media giants and the internet took down the video almost immediately for providing “misinformation”, but not before millions of people watched it.
There are a few articles out there about how some believe that America’s Front Line Doctors are getting paid by right-wing conservative groups in an astroturfing attempt to make Trump look more like the hero and that there is actually a cure for COVID-19.
Although America’s Front Line Doctors are actual doctors, credibility has obviously come into question. But has anyone actually looked into if these doctors have actually helped COVID-19 patients as they claim? And if so, is this not interesting to look into? Everyday, they are learning more and more about this virus, and if any of these doctors actually treated COVID patients with success, why wouldn’t we listen if they are professionals? I feel we are missing more to this story. Or it was just a staged astroturfing event.
This week has been mentally exhausting for me. I have Netflix and I occasionally scroll through Facebook. I have Yahoo! Mail and occasionally read some of the articles, which always seem to be biased and left-leaning, which I don’t think is fair. Now, they have even turned off the comment section in the articles that I read, so I can not even gauge the views of how other people are feeling, but then again I think… Maybe the comments section is actually related to astroturfing, too? Then, I begin to wonder if anything is real anymore and start wondering if everything is driven by money.
At the end of this class, I will be going to Colorado on a wilderness hike for 7 days, with no cell phone. I have to say that I am ready for it. I am mentally exhausted from the world right now. Then I watched this YouTube video of a TEDTalk featuring Sharyl Attkison, and she confirms my thoughts about the comments section in the first few minutes. You can view the whole video here:
I would have to agree that it has become increasingly difficult to place trust in the information any media outlet or organization produces. It has increasingly become a subversive agenda to influence your thoughts and decisions. Because of the inherent corruption and increased attempt at subconsciously influencing viewers the easiest thing to do has been to tune it all out. At the very least it makes you question the intent and focus of any piece of information being distributed.
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