Anti-astroturfing campaign
Australian public relations bloggers Trevor Cook and Paull Young have started an Internet campaign against astroturfing. Astroturfing, as in fake grassroots, is an unethical practice that harms the transparency of communication. Astroturfing is the real-world version of the Internet’s sock puppet, in which an existing participant in a discussion creates an alter-ego to support his own opinion.
It’s all about transparency. A grassroots organization started by a company or political candidate does not necessarily mean it’s astroturfing, as long as they are open and honest about who is behind the campaign, who funds the campaign, and what its goal is. As soon as covering up and pretending come into play it becomes unethical.
In the United States, many 527 organizations operate in a grey area of legality and illegality, allegedly or actually, coordinating their efforts with political parties. I wouldn’t dare calling organizations such as the Republican funded Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Democrat supported Texans for Truth actual grassroots organizations, but they cannot be labeled cases of astroturfing unless ties to their respective candidates are proven (in which case they would be illegal as well). Even this grey area, lacking clear transparency, is unacceptable and unethical in the business of communication.
Are Coca-Cola’s The Zero Movement, Butterfinger’s Follow the Finger, and SanDisk’s iDon’t campaigns astroturfing? In a way, yes, but are they really that harmful or are they just an ingenious way of selling products? Another example of corporate astroturfing, Working Families for Wal-Mart, is visibly more harmful than Follow the Finger. Why does one example sound more unethical than the other? Does it depend on what’s at stake? We are used to being sold products, but opinions and votes are more important than commodities.
Surely, it depends on the degree of transparency: The Zero Movement is obviously Coca-Cola’s effort and the company visibly lets you know; Working Families portrays itself as a community organized movement, but they neglect to mention visibly that most funding comes from Wal-Mart.
Overall, I object to astroturfing, as its very nature consists of deceit and dishonesty. Some instances might be worse than others, some, such as the Coca-Cola, Butterfinger and SanDisk examples, might even be tolerable. But when in doubt, apply the following rule of thumb: good public relations consists of transparency and truth.
