Environmental astroturfing. The beginnings of the buzzword "astroturf".

Once again I see the catch phrase "astorturfer" being thrown about to support an anti nuclear diatribe on twitter so I decided to do some research on the origins of it. What I found is the environmentalist movement is extremely guilty of of being big businesses pawns all while putting on a Earth friendly face. I have supplied some links that show the depths of deceit used to push an agenda.

Here’s an interesting item from an environmentalist group opposing the Pebble Mine project in Alaska. They’re running a road show, not in Alaska, but in mainland cities to try and stir up the masses. Sign a petition,win a prize.http://wizbangblog.com/2011/10/19/enviromentalists-astroturfing/

What does New York Alliance for Environmental Concerns advocate for? Whom does Citizens for Fire Safety Institute represent?
Both, it turns out, work on behalf of businesses that produce or use chemicals. Lobbying always has an element of spin, but some organizations make it easy to misunderstand whom they speak for or what they stand for.http://www.cityandstateny.com/albany-astroturf-lobby-groups-names-story/.


Environmental Groups Tout Their Astroturfing Campaign As “Unanimous” Opinion.http://wizbangblog.com/2012/08/14/environmental-groups-tout-their-astroturfing-campaign-as-unanimous-opinion/

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Disinformation and anti-propaganda campaign against Thorium and LFTR reactors.http://pche-sts.blogspot.com/2012/05/disinformation-and-anti-propaganda.html.

 

The Astronomical Rise of Astroturfing

So, with all the astroturfing currently going on how can you spot the astroturfers? 
A research group at the Indiana University has developed a program called Truthy that allows anyone to track cases of “astrotweeting”. Any search term can be entered into Truthy and the program will scan the Twitter API and build a model of how the search term originated. The group have even provided a selection of handy templates to help you decode the data!
http://neurobonkers.com/2012/01/09/rise-of-the-astroturfer/.

 So the next time someone calls you an "astroturfer" you can be better informed of where this started.