Internet Changes Everything

The open source movement: astroturfing

Scotsman.com News - Sci-Tech - Lazy Guide to Net Culture: Astroturf

One of the wonderful things about the internet is its ability to empower ordinary people.

Rather than having to punch through the filters of traditonal media to get their point across, the man, woman and child on the street can make their feelings known online. This can lead to very impressive displays of popular power, as shown by the global culture of file-sharing (apparently so potent that it will make beggars of all rock stars) and blogging (though personally I find it hard to tell the difference between having a blog and having a traditional website – not a popular point of view, as shown by the amount of tedious moaning that accompanies any comment suggesting that blogs are not some kind of information revolution).

Popular sites with message boards, such as Slashdot can mobilise large numbers of people behind a particular issue. The resulting groundswell of popular opinion can have profound effects in the real world.

Put it this way, the open source movement didn't get as popular as it is by spending billions on TV advertising. Online word of mouth played a key role – as did peer recommendation.

It is obvious people are far more likely to believe a grassroots recommendation that a product or service is good than trust a pop-up ad.

Of course, professional marketers have known this for a long time. And they have found a way to cash in on this phenomenon.

Hence, we have the practice of astroturfing (fake grassroots). Disinfopedia.org has this to say about astroturfing:

Campaigns & Elections magazine defines astroturf as a "grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them." Journalist William Greider has coined his own term to describe corporate grassroots organizing. He calls it "democracy for hire."

Given the immense people to people power of the internet, it's a perfect medium for this kind of thing

An online astroturfing campaign would work by manufacturing the appearance of grassroots opinion. For instance, if I founded the Really Evil Software Company and got tired of having its shoddy, insecure products badmouthed on message boards, I would hire some dedicated marketing professionals to pose as Ordinary Members of the Public on message boards and post items like this:

Hey guys, lay off Really Evil Software Company. I just bought their Truly Awful Web Browser That's Wide Open To Hackers (TM) and it ROCKKKKKKSS. If you don’t like RESC then you SUCK, LOSER.

Of course, it's very difficult to spot astroturfing campaigns as the marketers never confess that they are marketers.

But there is a widespread belief that this goes on and the claims usually revolve around companies that are popular online hate figures. A Google search on "astroturfing" and "Microsoft" returns some 1,000 results.

One of the most recent claims (though one which is not backed up by much at all in the way of evidence) revolves around SCO, a company involved in a long and complex dispute over the open-source icon Linux.

An article on Groklaw, a blog that deals with this thorny issue, seized on a prediction by someone on the SCO side of the debate

..."open blogs" like Slashdot will start to tell SCO's side of the story, and then the media will get to understand what is really going on. I interpret this to mean that SCO is arranging an astroturf campaign. How else could he predict future behavior on Slashdot? … Ah, yes. So, I suggest that if and when you read nonsense about Groklaw ("I used to love Groklaw, but now …"), just consider the likely source. Of course, an astroturf campaign depends upon a non-moderated site, which explains [a] sudden fondness for Slashdot.

Of course, who knows whether this is actually happening?

One of the key weaknesses of the whole astrofturfing approach is shown up by the first - humorous - post on Slashdot after the Groklaw writer's theory was reported:

SCO is cool and stuff!

You see, posts that are wildly at variance with what everyone else is saying can stand out to the extent of being farcical.

August 24, 2004 at 07:46 AM in Online Marketing | Permalink | TrackBack (95) | Top of page | Blog Home