Astroturf: Difference between revisions
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The word AstroTurf® is a brand name for artificial grass used for sports fields (so named because it was first used by the Houston Astros [[Baseball]] team), thus it was [[Brand Name Takeover|"hijacked" to also mean an artificial "grass roots" movement]]. Note, however, that the trope is much older; it appears in [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|Shakespeare's]] ''[[Julius Caesar]]'', and probably predates it by some time.
Astroturfing is usually managed by employing a large number of [[Sock Puppet]]s to post messages supporting the group's position in various [[Fora]], including blog comments and newsgroups, and by creating [[Flog|bogus blogs]] and websites that purport to be by "real people" but which are actually written by [[The Shill|shills]] working for the group. Such people are called [[Meat Puppet]]s to differentiate between the alternate identity of an interested person ([[Sock Puppet]]) and a third party induced to support them. Very often astroturfing extends out into the non-electronic world, with letters to newspapers from "concerned citizens", paid opinion pieces, and the formation of grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by PR firms, making them a form of [[propaganda]] (if not an outright [[Propaganda Machine]]).
'''Astroturf''' efforts are often easily detectable, though, because such campaigns typically use a small number of templates for their messages and blogs, making them repetitive and eerily alike despite the geographic or social differences between alleged posters. (Sometimes the 'post this' instructions are thoughtlessly [[Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud|copy-pasted into the message]] as well.) It has been proposed that form letters should count as a single complaint in official statistics, regardless of the number of instances sent, to combat this.
This latter point may cause opponents of the rally to claim there is an insincerity on a level that qualifies as "astroturfing", and whether you agree or not may depend on your personal views and definitions on any of a dozen levels. The confusion, of course, stems from how many individuals will gladly advertise and work to further their political views without pay, in ways that they wouldn't for a corporate product. Even the most fanboyish veterans of [[Console Wars]] don't volunteer at phone-banks to promote their system of choice.
For the purposes of this page (and the [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment]]), we shall place emphasis on specific incidents with confirmed little-to-no unpaid involvement.
{{examples}}
== Fictional ==
=== Anime and Manga ===
* [[Older Than Steam]] [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|example]]: In [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Julius Caesar]]'', Cassius has several letters sent to Brutus' house, each in different handwriting, expressing admiration for Brutus' nobility and obscurely attesting to Caesar's ambition. He hopes, of course, to get Brutus off the fence and join the conspiracy to murder Caesar.▼
* Fictional example: In ''[[Rescue Me]],'' the firefighting crew opens a bar, and after trying several themes, they finally hit on the idea of hiring people to "stand <s>in</s> [[American Accents|on]] line" outside the entrance and therefore appear busier. It works like a charm.▼
* In ''[[Durarara!!]]'', most of the early online posts spreading rumors of the Dollars were made by {{spoiler|Mikado and his online friends}}, who formed the group in the first place.
* In the ''[[Excel Saga (manga)|Excel Saga]]'' manga, Kabapu hires a bunch of shills to attend Il Palazzo's speeches and shout disparaging comments during his campaign for mayor.▼
=== Comic Books ===
* In the lead-up to ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]'', before he became firmly pro-registration, [[Iron Man]] hired his old foe the Titanium Man to attack Washington, D.C., and monologue in public about how the likes of him are just waiting for the Superhuman Registration Act to bring down superheroes.▼
=== Literature ===
* In [[Clifford Simak]]'s ''Ring around the Sun'' a company sells improbably cheap and reliable (unbreakable if used properly, even) things of all kinds, such as houses, light bulbs, cars and razors. The fact that leads to the heroes correctly guessing there's some sort of a world conspiracy in action, though, is that despite not being able to make that much profit from their own products their advertisement fully relies on the word of mouth, and that's incredibly expensive.
▲* In the lead-up to [[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]], before he became firmly pro-registration, [[Iron Man]] hired his old foe the Titanium Man to attack Washington, D.C., and monologue in public about how the likes of him are just waiting for the Superhuman Registration Act to bring down superheroes.
=== Live-Action TV ===
▲* Fictional example: In ''[[Rescue Me]],'' the firefighting crew opens a bar, and after trying several themes, they finally hit on the idea of hiring people to "stand <s>in</s> [[American Accents|on]] line" outside the entrance and therefore appear busier. It works like a charm.
=== Theatre ===
▲* [[Older Than Steam]] [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|example]]: In [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Julius Caesar]]'', Cassius has several letters sent to Brutus' house, each in different handwriting, expressing admiration for Brutus' nobility and obscurely attesting to Caesar's ambition. He hopes, of course, to get Brutus off the fence and join the conspiracy to murder Caesar.
=== Web Comics ===
* In the [[Web Comic]] ''[[Questionable Content]]'', Angus is a professional [[Strawman Political]]. He is paid to participate in public debates for one particular side, and lose the argument as an astroturfing measure. No specific campaigns he has worked on are described, but he says that he only takes jobs arguing against positions he actually supports, thereby promoting them.
▲* In the ''[[Excel Saga (manga)|Excel Saga]]'' manga, Kabapu hires a bunch of shills to attend Il Palazzo's speeches and shout disparaging comments during his campaign for mayor.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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* In late 2008 in Osaka, Japan, McDonald's acknowledged hiring almost one thousand temporary workers to artificially create long lines (and the appearance of instant popularity) for a new hamburger release.
* [[Microsoft]] has infamously attempted to use AstroTurfing to sway and/or counterfeit public opinion in its favor numerous times over the past three decades, most notably in an attempt to forestall its antitrust prosecution in 1998, and during the worst of its anti-Linux hysteria.
* Netflix's Canadian launch event was patrolled by actors posing as consumers who gushed about their excitement to the press... which [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/globe-on-technology/10-signs-youre-interviewing-a-paid-netflix-actor/article1719073/ had a field day] when it got its hands on [https://web.archive.org/web/20100929055751/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/handout-sheet-for-netflix-extras/article1719377/ the actors' script.]
{{quote|"Extras are to behave as members of the public, out and about enjoying their day-to-day life, who happen upon a street event for Netflix and stop by to check it out. [...] Extras are to look really excited, particularly if asked by media to do any interviews about the prospect of Netflix in Canada."}}
* RIM [
{{quote|"We'd say, 'Put your number in my phone and I'll totally call you. We'll go out on a date!' But we just wanted them to try the BlackBerry. I definitely didn't call anyone."}}
* In December 2006, Sony attempted a so-called "viral" marketing campaign for the PlayStation Portable by faking blogs, user-created videos, and even graffiti concerning the theme "All I Want For Christmas is a PSP"—and were caught at it within days. While, to their credit, they fessed up to it almost immediately and even poked a little fun at their failure, the [[Internet Backdraft]] lasted quite some time.
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* In the video game fandom, many people will accuse a person of working for a game company if the person defends a game or tries to show how good the game can be instead of just the bad. People will only make the accusation if the person is a little persistent, but then again, it's mostly a result of a [[Broken Base]] or [[Fan Dumb]].
** The [[Play Station 3]] board on [[GameFAQs]] has its own [[Viral Marketing]] troll, who blatantly promotes Monster Cable connectors.
* [https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/gepnl/gamepro_g4tv_and_vgchartz_gamrfeed_have_been/ GamePro, G4TV and GamrFeed] have done this on Digg and Reddit ([https://web.archive.org/web/1/www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/gepnl/gamepro_g4tv_and_vgchartz_gamrfeed_have_been/ with an archived link here for convenience]).
** ''[[Virtual Shackles]]'' mocked it [//web.archive.org/web/1/www.virtualshackles.com/202 here].
=== Music ===
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* After Ashlee Simpson's infamously off-key Orange Bowl performance, over three hundred online forums saw [http://www.metafilter.com/38963/Message-Forum-Spam identical spam posts] in support of her.
* Payola is the practice of being paid to play music on the radio, disguising it as regular airplay, used by many "request" shows. Although outlawed in the U.S. by the 1950s, record companies got around this by hiring "independent" promoters who acted as middlemen for the process.
* And, after the first [[The Police]] single "Fall Out" was released, letters began appearing in some local London music magazines praising the band's drummer, Stewart Copeland. Later (much later), it was revealed that those lettters were written by one Stewart Copeland.▼
** Payola is only illegal if it's not disclosed; that loophole still allows plenty of [[Product Placement]] on licenced stations in many countries. As some music popularity charts (such as Billboard) do take the amount of radio airplay into account as one of multiple indicators of a song's popularity, it's not unheard of for a label to pay to have a record played a few extra times in the wee hours if it's currently sitting just outside the top ten.
▲* Urban radio stations has been accused of this. Including Music Video networks.
▲*
* [[X Japan]] has engaged in
** May not be an example due to [[X Japan]] being a Visual Kei band. Aesthetic elements and fan participation are significantly more important than in most musical genres.
* An unusual application of this is what made [[Justin Bieber]] so popular. Most of the people who know his name first heard of him from covert promoters telling everybody how bad he is and how much they hate him, all over the internet.
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** For an apparent example of this, look up ''Songs for Tibet -- the Art of Peace'' on iTunes and skip to the most critical reviews. All of the 1-star reviews are either written in either Chinese or [[Blind Idiot Translation|very broken English]], and frequently call the Dalai Lama a slaveowner.
* Much in the same way, 9/11 "truth" activists, who have a nasty habit of joining forums, posting a single six paragraph "expose" topic on the main board, and then proceeding to never post again. Almost certainly spammers.
* Nothing new in any case. In the shortwave radio era, it was fairly common for the voice of "radio free (wherever)", nominally operated by various overseas expatriate groups, to be propaganda backed by the CIA or by governments as standard operating procedure in the [[Cold War]]. It was just as common for foreign dictators to attempt to jam the broadcasts by transmitting wilful interference.
* A supposed amateur [[YouTube]] video spoofing ''[[An Inconvenient Truth]]'' was found to have been sponsored by the DCI Group, which at the time did PR for General Motors and ExxonMobil.
* The [[wikipedia:Brooks Brothers riot|"Brooks Brothers Riot"]] (so called for the expensive clothing worn by the participants). The "angry mobs" outside of the recounts of the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida were made up of Republican staffers, many of whom were flown in. Robert Parry detailed the facts in [http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/080502a.html Bush's Conspiracy to Riot]. Salon.com called it [http://www.salon.com/news/politics/feature/2000/11/28/miami/ Miami's Rent-a-Riot].
* The French government has been caught red handed more than once: since the infamous [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axDyUNWyuw8 get out dumbass] incident, there has been a lot of filtering to avoid the contact between the french president and people who do not like him and members of his government have done the same thing, like [https://web.archive.org/web/20090823055920/http://www.euronews.net/2009/08/20/french-supermarket-apologises-for-fake-shoppers/ putting fake shoppers in a supermarket visited by a minister], or the French president making a speech in front of an attendance of genuine employees of the factory he visited, but making sure that [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6148872/Nicolas-Sarkozy-surrounded-by-short-people-for-TV-speech.html everyone behind him was] [[The Napoleon|shorter]]
* Workers for [[Moral Guardians|Parents Television Council]] has been accused of using AstroTurfing to bolster its pro-censorship campaigns against various television shows.
** FOX's failed [[Short Runner]] reality show ''Married By America'' was one example; the [[Media Watchdog|US Federal Communications Commission]] received more than a hundred complaints and imposed fines of several thousand dollars each on every station in the network, including the many small-town FOX affiliates which the network does not own. Many of these fines were overturned where no one who'd complained happened to actually live in that specific station's coverage area. All but two or three of the supposed "hundreds of letters" were identical form letters - with the text originating most likely from the Parents Television Council.
** The webcomic ''Joe And Monkey'' had a character, Kvetchbot, specifically designed to write letters to networks and newspaper editorial pages for this purpose.
* An offline example: protesters in Kiev, Ukraine are often claimed to be local students paid for participation. Since there is [[Broken Base|always someone protesting against somebody else]] in Kiev, it looks like a stable source of income.
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* ''[https://twitchy.com/jimj-3633/2014/10/22/hilarious-mockery-my-friends-and-i-just-voted-for-wendy-davis-pics/ Wendy Davis caught conjuring up 'imaginary friends']''. This not only earned the comment "Her Astroturf isn't even real Astroturf. Now that's embarrassing", but also mockery via posting some or other obviously unrelated photo as "Wendy's voters" — up to and including ''[[Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (album)|Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band]]''.
* In 2016, a Harvard University study revealed evidence that [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/20/china_caught_astroturfing_political_posts/ an astroturfing team sponsored by the Chinese government] was involved in a massive campaign to direct discussions on social media and other channels away from threads and subjects critical of the Communist government. For a totalitarian regime's strategy, it is surprisingly subtle and low-key, relying on distraction and redirection rather than confrontation and censorship.
* Russia has also been busy; the "Internet Research Agency" troll factory in St. Petersberg played a role in Russia's efforts to steal the US 2016 presidential election for Trump; they also supported Bernie Sanders and just about anyone who was running against Hillary Clinton (as Clinton imposed economic sanctions on Russia while serving as Obama's secretary of state). Other causes "astroturfed" by Russians pretending to be American included the supposed "Calexit" and "Texit" separatist movements; they also dabbled in US-domestic racial politics solely to spark discord. If they're meddling in US politics, odds are they're also active in trolling Russian domestic debate (presumably to prop up Putin) and interfering in multiple third countries. The full extent of the activity is uncertain.
* The millions of automated cookie-cutter "public comments" sent to the United States Federal Communications Commission in 2017 in support of ending Net Neutrality vastly outweighed the combined total of ''genuine'' comments both for and against. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai all but admitted he didn't ''care'' that they were fake, he was going to repeal Net Neutrality regardless -- which suggests whoever was behind it was unaware that the fix was in from the beginning... or maybe [[They Just Didn't Care]]. As of January 2018, though, [http://bgr.com/2018/01/24/net-neutrality-fcc-fake-comments-investigation/ the Federal Government Accountability Office] had started an investigation.
* Venezuelan goverment has what is called the "#Tropa", the mix of genuine followers and sock puppet squad that post pro-chavista and pro-government stuff and hashtags in Twitter.
=== Sports ===
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[[Category:Advertising Tropes]]
[[Category:Politics Tropes]]
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