1. Photo by Mario Sixtus
Astroturfing: How “Persona Management
Software” is being Used to
Drown the Voice of Democracy
Dianne Dyslin – MSPC 3050 – April 25, 2012
2. • In this course, we’ve celebrated the many ways in
which social media gives power to the people.
We’ve talked about how it was instrumental in
launching the Arab Spring and how it gives the
everyday person a chance to be heard.
• But there is a much darker side to social media
that robs it of its potential to be a forum for
exploring issues, testing ideas, and opening
debate. It is known as “astroturfing” and it is the
Darth Vader of the Internet.
4. • AstroTurf is the bright green artificial grass
used in some sports stadiums and playing
fields. The term “astroturfing” is wordplay
based on grassroots democracy
efforts, i.e., truly spontaneous undertakings
largely sustained by private persons, as
opposed to
politicians, governments, corporations, or
public relations firms. Thus the term
“astroturfing” refers to imitating or faking
popular grassroots opinion or behavior. 1
5. Astroturfing’s techniques usually consist
of a few people attempting to give the
impression that mass numbers of
enthusiasts advocate some specific
cause. The term is said to have
originated with former US Senator Lloyd
Bentsen of Texas in 1985, when he was
quoted by the Washington Post as
saying, “A fellow from Texas can
tell the difference between grass
Former Treasury Secretary Lloyd
Bentsen in 1995.
Mike Theiler/Reuters
roots and Astroturf,” when
describing the “mountain of cards and
letters” he got promoting what he saw
as the interests of insurance companies.
He said, “This is generated mail.” 2
6. • Astroturfing can take many forms, but with regard to
social media, it refers to conversations and reviews
expressed within online communities that are coming
not from legitimate, sharing consumers, but rather
from hired imposters, who don’t disclose their
connection to an organization. 3
• Most astroturfing takes place on the forums and
comment sections of blogs and newspaper websites.
Here, individual astroturfers can leave comments under
numerous identities with little fear of discovery. 4
7. • Message boards, chat rooms, and listservs are a
great way to anonymously monitor what is being
said. Once you plug into this world, it’s possible to
make postings to these outlets that present your
position as an uninvolved third party. 5
• This deception is most likely to occur where
the interests of companies or governments
come into conflict with the interests of the
public. 6
10. Examples of Astroturfing
• Examples of astroturfing abound, but British blogger George
Monbiot of The Guardian provides a couple of particularly good
ones. He writes that he was first introduced to astroturfing in
2002, when two investigators, Andy Rowell and Jonathan
Matthews, looked into a series of virulent comments made by two
people calling themselves Mary Murphy and Andura Smetacek.
They launched ferocious attacks, across several Internet
forums, against a scientist whose research suggested that Mexican
corn had been widely contaminated by GM pollen.
• Rowell and Matthews found that one of the messages Mary
Murphy had sent came from a domain owned by the Bivings
Group, a PR company specializing in Internet lobbying. An article on
the Bivings website at that time explained, “There are some
campaigns where it would be undesirable or even disastrous to let
the audience know that your organization is directly involved . . .”
11. • The Bivings site also quoted a senior executive
from the biotech corporation Monsanto, thanking
the PR firm for its “outstanding work.” When a
Bivings executive was challenged by
Newsnight, he admitted that the “Mary Murphy”
email was sent by someone “working for Bivings”
or “clients using our services.” Rowell and
Matthews then discovered that the IP address on
Andura Smetacek’s messages was assigned to
Monsanto’s headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri.
• There’s a nice twist to this story: AstroTurf™ --
real fake grass – was developed and patented by
Monsanto. 7
12. • Monbiot provides his second, and far scarier example
of astroturfing, in a recent February 23, 2011,
column. He writes that in December 2010, he was
contacted by a whistleblower, who had been part of
a commercial team employed to infest Internet
forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate
clients. His job was to promote their causes and
argue with anyone who opposed them.
• Like other members of his team, he posed as a
disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more
precise, as a “crowd” of disinterested members of
the public. This gentleman used 70 different
personas, both to avoid detection as well as to create
the impression that there was widespread support
for his pro-corporate arguments. 8
13. How is this possible?
A real person using the Internet. Unfortunately we can no longer assume what we are reading
is written by one of these creatures. Photograph: Jeff Blackler/Rex Features
14. • Emails obtained by political hackers from a US
cyber-security firm called HBGary Federal
suggest that a remarkable technological
armory is being deployed to drown out the
voices of real people.
• The foremost weapon of this high-tech arsenal
is known as “persona management software,”
which multiplies the efforts of each
astroturfer, creating the impression that
there’s major support for what a corporation
or government is trying to do.
15. • This software creates all the online furniture a
real person would possess, i.e., a name, email
accounts, web pages, and social media.
Essentially, it automatically generates what look
like authentic profiles, making it hard to tell the
difference between a virtual robot and a real
commentator.
• Fake accounts can be kept updated by
automatically reposting or linking to content
generated elsewhere, reinforcing the impression
that the account holders are real and active.
16. • Human astroturfers can then be assigned these “pre-
aged” accounts to create a back story, suggesting that
they’ve been busy linking and retweeting for months.
No one would suspect that they came onto the scene
for the first time a moment ago, for the sole purpose of
attacking an article on climate science or arguing
against new controls on salt in junk food.
• With some clever use of social media, astroturfers can,
in the security firm’s words, “make it appear as if a
person was actually at a conference and introduce
himself/herself to key individuals as part of the
exercise . . . There are a variety of social media
tricks that we can use to add a level of
realness to fictitious personas.” 9
17. A PDF of a federal contract from the 6th Contracting Squadron at MacDill Air Force
Base, located south of Tampa, Florida, dated June 22, 2010. Other sites listed as “place
of performance” for the contract were Kabul, Afghanistan, and Baghdad.
18. • In this same article, Monbiot provides an even more
disturbing revelation. The US Air Force has been
tendering for companies to supply it with persona
management software. He doesn’t say for what
purpose, only that the USAF would like it to perform
the following tasks:
a. Create “10 personas per user, replete with
background, history, supporting details, and cyber
presences that are technically, culturally and
geographically consistent . . . Personas must be able to
appear to originate in nearly any part of the world and
can interact through conventional online services and
social media platforms.”
19. b. Automatically provides its astroturfers with “randomly
selected IP addresses through which they can access the
Internet” (an IP address is the number which identifies
someone’s computer), and these are to be changed every
day, “hiding the existence of the operation.” The software
should also mix up the astroturfers’ web traffic with
“traffic from multitudes of users from outside the
organization. This traffic blending provides excellent cover
and powerful deniability.”
c. Create “static IP addresses” for each persona, enabling
different astroturfers “to look like the same person over
time.” It should also allow “organizations that frequent
same site/service often to easily switch IP addresses to
look like ordinary users as opposed to one organization.”
20. • As Monbiot so astutely observes:
“Software like this has the potential to destroy
the Internet as a forum for constructive
debate. It jeopardizes the notion of online
democracy. Comment threads on issues with
major commercial implications are already
being wrecked by what look like armies of
organized trolls . . .”
21. • He continues:
“The Internet is a wonderful gift, but it’s
also a bonanza for corporate lobbyists,
viral marketers, and government spin
doctors, who can operate in cyberspace
without regulation, accountability,
or fear of detection.” 10
22. Conclusion
• This is incredibly insidious stuff and goes well
beyond some company stacking the deck with
favorable comments about a new product launch
on its FB page. Persona management software
threatens the very roots of our
democracy, because it obscures the line between
dealing with a person and dealing with some kind
of “bot,” whose only function is to manipulate
our opinion. Sadly, we can’t tell the
difference, and it appears to be a situation that
will only get worse.
23. • Stephen C. Webster, senior editor of Raw
Story, comments:
“Persona management software” can be used
to manipulate public opinion on key
information, such as news reports. An
unlimited number of virtual “people” could be
marshaled by only a few real individuals,
empowering them to create the
illusion of consensus.
24. • Furthermore, it creates:
. . . the potential for military-run armies
of fake people
manipulating and, in some
cases, even manufacturing
the appearance of public opinion. 11
25. • So what does this say about Li and Bernoff’s
groundswell (2008)? 12 How much power can it really
have for getting out the truth and being a tool of
grassroots democracy when the illusion of the latter
can be so easily manufactured and manipulated?
• The prohibitions put in place by professional
organizations, such as the Public Relations Society of
America (PRSA), 13 to inhibit astroturfing are totally
ineffectual when dealing with behemoth organizations
like the US Air Force, which could care less if they are
excommunicated from the member body. Theirs is a
form of stealth marketing so powerful and pervasive
that it totally sidesteps any sanctions that traditional
PR organizations have to offer.
26. References
Text References
1 Astroturfing. Wikipedia. Retrieved April 4, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
2“Linguist List.” Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0403E&L=ads-
l&P=1547
3 Pugh, M. (2010, September 20). Social media increases astroturfing, brands risk losing customers, survey
shows. Retrieved April 5, 2012, from http://socialmediatoday.com/matthewpugh/182608/social-media-
increases-astroturfing-brands-risk-losing-customers-survey-shows
4Bienkov, A. (2012, February 8). Astroturfing: what is it and why does it matter? The Guardian. Retrieved April
23, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/08/what-is-astroturfing?CMP=twt_gu
5Monbiot, G. (2010, December 13). These Astroturf libertarians are the real threat to internet democracy. The
Guardian. Retrieved April 12, 2012, from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/dec/13/astroturf-libertarians-internet-
democracy
27. Text References, cont’d
6 Monbiot, G. (2011, February 23). The need to protect the internet from ‘astroturfing’ grows ever more urgent.
The Guardian. Retrieved April 23, 2012, from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/23/need-to-protect-internet-from-
astroturfing
7 Op.cit., Monbiot, G. (2010, December 13).
8 Op.cit., Monbiot, G. (2011, February 23).
9 Ibid., (2011, February 23).
10 Ibid., (2011, February 23).
11 Webster,S.C. (2011, February 18). Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake virtual
people. The Raw Story. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/18/revealed-air-
force-ordered-software-to-manage-army-of-fake-virtual-people/
12 Li,
Charlene, Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Boston:
Harvard Business Press.
13 Public
Relations Society of America (PRSA) Member Code of Ethics. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from
http://www.prsa.org/AboutPRSA/Ethics/CodeEnglish/
28. Photo and Graphics References
Slide 1 – The Write Blog (2012, March 20). Astroturfing: The icky side of social media marketing. Retrieved April
20, 2012, from http://www.thewritersforhire.com/blog/copywriting/astroturfing-the-icky-side-of-social-
media-marketing/ Photo by Mario Sixtus.
Slide 3 – Gibbs, M. (2012, April 14). Astroturfing cold fusion: Making the promise seem real. Forbes. Retrieved
April 20, 2012, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2012/04/14/astroturfing-cold-fusion-
making-the-promise-seem-real/
Slide 5 – Rosenbaum, D.E. (2006, May 24). Lloyd Bentsen dies at 85; Senator ran with Dukakis. New York Times.
Retrieved April 22, 2012, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/washington/24bentsen.html?_r=1
Photo by Mike Theiler/Reuters.
Slides 8 and 9 – Astroturfing. Google Insights for Search. Retrieved April 23, 2012, from
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=astroturfing&cmpt=q
Slide 13 – Monbiot, G. (2011, February 23). The need to protect the internet from ‘astroturfing’ grows ever
more urgent. The Guardian. Retrieved April 23, 2012, from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/23/need-to-protect-internet-from-
astroturfing Photo by Jeff Blackler/Rex Features.
Slide 17 – Webster, S.C. (2011, February 18). Revealed: Air Force ordered software to manage army of fake
virtual people. The Raw Story. Retrieved April 24, 2012, from
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/18/revealed-air-force-ordered-software-to-manage-army-of-fake-
virtual-people/ Federal contract PDF, retrieved April 24, 2012, from http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-
content/uploads/2011/03/personamanagementcontract.pdf
