astroturfing

[Mark A. Mandel]

>From a friend's blog (http://xiphias.livejournal.com/335683.html):

>>>

So, Lis tells me that, on one of the blogs she reads, someone linked to an
interview in which Samuel L. Jackson said that he sometimes goes around to
random blogs which are talking about Snakes on a Plane and comments on them,
either anonymously or pseudonymously, talking up the movie and talking about
himself as an actor, without letting people know who it is.

I thought about this for a minute.

IAN: So, wait. . . Samuel L. Jackson is astroturfing1 his movie? But. . .
astroturfing is usually a really scummy thing to do. Yet, somehow, this is
cool. How the hell is astroturfing* cool when Samuel L. Jackson does it.

[...]

*"Astroturfing" is the process of commenting all over the place anonymously
to make it sound like there's a widespread opinion about something, when
it's actually just a handful of people, or a paid publicity firm, or
something. The term means "fake grassroots" -- something that LOOKS like
grassroots support, but isn't.

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m a m

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