Astroturfing

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About

Astroturfing is a slang term that uses the name of a synthetic grass product to play on the notion of a "grassroots" movement. The word is used to describe the deceptive practice of hiding the actual, typically wealthy, sponsors of a message, product or organization in an attempt to make its popularity appear to be organic. The term is often used to describe the tactics utilized to falsely exaggerate the popularity of "industry plant" artists, so-called grassroots political movements, product reviews and testimonies, as well as forced memes. Astroturfing is also recognized by academics as a phenomenon that has become easier to enact in the internet age, given the ease with which companies and political parties can forge genuine-looking public support on social media platforms.

Origin

The earliest known use of a reference to AstroTurf as a means of calling out fake public support was in 1985 when Texas Democratic Party senator Lloyd Bentsen said, "A fellow from Texas can tell the difference between grass roots and AstroTurf… this is generated mail." This was in reference to an influx of cards and letters that had been sent to his office to promote the interests of the insurance industry.^[1]

Astroturfing on the Internet

Emails, online polls, digital forms, automated calls and anonymous social media accounts have made astroturfing more prolific in the digital age following the 1990s.^[2] An early instance of a widespread astroturfing campaign was during Microsoft's 2001 antitrust lawsuit when the company used its influence on Americans for Technology Leadership (ATL) to generate online polls and send pro-Microsoft consumer forms and sample letters to lawmakers, making it appear as though the wider public was sympathetic to the tech company in the anti-trust lawsuit.^[3]

On August 17th, 2004, Urban Dictionary^[4] user holloway posted a definition for the term that gathered over 1,500 likes in 19 years (seen below).

Spread

The term "astroturf" was often used to describe campaigning practices in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, as seen in an October 24th, 2016, WikiLeaks post on X (seen below, left),^[5] and a November 13th post by X user Paul Joseph Watson (seen below, right).^[6]

In the late 2010s, the term continued to spread, becoming more well-known online. On August 24th, 2018, X^[7] user @Choplogik made a post with the caption, "This week Amazon started creating astroturf accounts that search & reply to tweets criticizing Amazon's working conditions, a normal & regular thing companies do."

On August 13th, 2018, Last Week With John Oliver posted a video about astroturfing to its YouTube^[8] channel following a segment explaining the practice appearing on the show, gathering over 10 million views in five years (seen below).

On January 28th, 2022, X^[9] user @Spaced_God made a post claiming how the cultural hype around NFTs was seemingly astroturfed, gathering over 30,000 likes in a year (seen below).

In 2023, internet commentators accused makers of the 2023 film Sound of Freedom of astroturfing interest in the movie. For example, X^[10] user @JUNlPER made a post on July 15th, 2023 that read, "if you go on the angel studios website they do this thing where you can buy pay it forward tickets for this movie, it’s unreal how good rightwingers have gotten at money laundering and astroturfing," gathering over 20,000 likes in a month (seen below).