At last night's late night thirty-something party of wall to wall entrepreneurs where I was apparently the only one over 32 invited, talk turned to collective deriding the phenomenon called “astroturfing.” It is the faux version of authentic grass roots efforts.
It’s the practice of governments, political parties, and business-the-size-of-governments paying people to manufacture the appearance of grassroots based online commenting, rally attendance, and street protesting in their favor.
It’s both brilliant metaphor and unfortunate but predictable practice. It is also an incredibly naive practice in a world where collective driven transparency is growing as fast as the corruption of colonizing powers. How will citizen journalism play a greater role in exposing greener and inauthentic grass?
