Astroturfing
What is astroturfing?
Astroturfing is when individuals, companies or organizations try to make it look like there is a natural grassroots movement supporting their ideas or product, but have actually planned and paid for a campaign with specific messaging. For example, a political campaign may hire more people to attend a rally or post positive comments online to make it seem like they have more public support than they actually do.
We can think about promotion and grassroots movements as types of grass. Natural grassroots movements are like meadows or a backyard: maybe there is some maintenance required, maybe it is a little unruly or messy, but the grass grows naturally, slowly, and mostly on its own. Astroturfing is an artificial lawn: it shows up seemingly overnight, costs a lot of money to install and maintain, and gives the neighbours a false impression about how good you are at gardening.
How does astroturfing affect information ecosystems?
Astroturfing, as it is intended to do, tricks people into thinking certain ideas, products, or people are more popular than they really are. Online astroturfing campaigns may falsely encourage people to be more open towards or supportive of a given issue or candidate because it seems like it has received lots of public support and reinforce a mentality of, “if everyone likes this, maybe I should too!”
Astroturfing can influence public discourse and push it in a particular direction. By artificially inflating how popular something is, the organizations behind astroturfing influence everyone else into talking about it: news outlets may cover it, politicians may need to address it, more users discuss it online. However, they can also undermine trust by making people suspicious of genuine grassroots movements and public opinion.
How do you identify astroturfing? What can you do about it?
Astroturfing is difficult to identify by design, but online efforts share a few common characteristics:
Look for identical comments. If it seems like everyone is saying the same thing about a specific topic or person, they may be part of a coordinated campaign.
Pay attention to timing. Astroturfing manifests as a sudden explosion in interest and support for something, so overnight engagement with a topic or person can be a sign.
Check the users. If you suspect someone is part of an astroturfing campaign, look at the group, account, or hashtag: if it is newly created and has only posted about the specific topic, this could be a sign of astroturfing.
If you think you have identified a case of astroturfing, there are some steps you can take:
If you suspect the campaign may be using bots, you can report the fake accounts to the platform you found them on
Talk about it with friends and family. See if they had heard about the topic or person before, or if they had also only suddenly been exposed to the movement.
Report it to our tipline so we can investigate it further.