Astroturfing: Fake it til you make it?

Sydney Fine

sf675318@ohio.edu

What is Astroturfing?

The term astroturfing refers to the deceptive practice of presenting an orchestrated marketing or public relations campaign in the guise of unsolicited comments from members of the public. Astroturf is artificial grass, which plays on the idea of a fake grassroots campaign.

Picture source: slideshare.net

Astroturfing can take many different forms, such as political groups paying individuals to make multiple Facebook accounts and to pretend to be outraged by a cause. This gives the allusion that thousands of citizens are upset, when in reality it might just be a few dozen that have been paid to comment.

Another example is organizations paying people to protest. If a soda company's PR firm pays hundreds of people to hold up signs and protest against a sugar tax, then it gives the illusion that it is an issue that many people care about.

Astroturfing is especially common in product reviews, as it is estimated that nearly one third of online reviews are falsified. Is the loss of credibility and trust by consumers if these campaigns were uncovered really worth it?

Dangers of Astroturfing

In addition to misleading the public, the tactics of some astroturf campaigns can be especially harmful. A YouTuber recently blew the whistle on a marketing company that offered to pay him to tell his followers that the Pfizer vaccine had almost three times the death rate than those who had the AstraZeneca shot. Obviously, this information wasn't true.

The marketing company behind the effort to spread misinformation and vaccine hesitancy in the middle of pandemic is called Fazze, and it is part of a digital marketing company AdNow. The company is registered in both the UK and Russia, and very secretive about the motives behind the campaign.

Some have suggested that Moscow could be behind the campaign to spread misinformation through YouTubers from around the world. "Bad mouthing vaccines in the West undermines trust in our democracies and is supposed to increase trust in Russia's vaccines, and there is only one side that benefits that, and that is the Kremlin," said Omid Nouripour, the foreign policy spokesperson for the German Green Party.

Regardless of who was behind this particular astroturf campaign, it is clear that more transparency is required for the best interest of the public. It shouldn't be nearly impossible to find the clients that are paying PR and/or ad firms in astroturf campaigns. These campaigns mislead the public.