What is Astroturfing? (Propaganda, Fake “Grassroots Movements”)

Astroturfing is the informal term for campaigns or messages that appear to be naturally occurring, but are actually being defined by a company. Astroturfing hides the financial and business associations between the originating company and the message, potentially making corporate messaging more palatable to a public that might reject forthright propaganda.

The term "astroturfing" is a play on the term "grassroots movement," since the grass is fake. Astroturfing has been attempted by online businesses who present a product as being highly desired and sought out by a certain customer base via company-sponsored message board posts, blogs or articles when there is no evidence to support such an assertion.

Articles shown:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/astroturfing

https://www.businessinsider.com/astroturfing-grassroots-movements-2011-9

https://www.bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-answers/what-is-astroturfing/

LINKS:

— Lightness Meditation sessions, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJAyVkTL0GAK7FTOm-TzgBw/about

— Podcast Engineering School, https://podcastengineeringschool.com/

— Chris’s fractal art and social media, http://fractalchris.com/

— The Mystic Show (podcast), https://themysticshow.net/

— Leap Beyond Your Limits (book) — https://www.amazon.com/Leap-Beyond-Limits-Chris-Curran/dp/1599303426