Astroturfing is creating fake comments and reviews to sway people's thoughts on products, ideas, and other people.
When you hear the word “AstroTurf,” you might first think of artificial grass. However, on the internet, “astroturfing” means something entirely different. You may think you know what people are saying online, but you could be wrong.
What Is Astroturfing?
Simply put, astroturfing is the act of creating fake comments or reviews in order to fool real people into thinking a certain way about something. Technically, astroturfing predates the internet—it was also used in “Letters to the Editor” pages in newspapers—but it’s become much more prevalent online.
Astroturfing is used for all sorts of purposes. However, there are a few areas where you should be particularly mindful of it.
Many people have most likely encountered astroturfing while shopping on Amazon. Reviews are incredibly important on Amazon, and sellers are well aware of this fact. So, to infuse their products with favorable reviews, sellers will utilize bots or bribe real buyers to leave favorable reviews.
Another popular place for astroturfing is Reddit. One of Reddit’s best features is the huge wealth of information from real humans—it’s why so many people have started appending Google searches with “Reddit.” That’s exactly what makes it perfect for astroturfing. Offenders can find threads about people, causes, or products and seed them with favorable or unfavorable comments.
The same general idea applies to astroturfing in a wide variety of places online. Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, Instagram comments, movie reviews, unlabeled sponsored articles, comment sections on news websites, etc. Astroturfing is theoretically possible anywhere that human input is welcomed and presented for everyone to see.
How to Spot Fake Reviews and Comments
With all this talk of fake reviews and comments, you might be wondering if there’s any way to spot astroturfing. Thankfully, there are some tools and practices you can use to help pick out the bad actors.
Amazon is actually pretty good at detecting reviews left by bots or AI—though that may not be the case as generative AI tools like ChatGPT continue to advance. FakeSpot.com is a great website for checking Amazon reviews. Simply enter a product page URL and you’ll get a grade along with a rating based only on the detected trustworthy reviews. It’s good for finding fake sellers, too.
Sadly, there aren’t easy tools to spot astroturfing in most other places on the internet. Instead, you’ll need to take matters into your own hands. There are a few things to take into consideration:
- Look at Dates: If there are a lot of highly positive reviews in a short span of time, it could mean they were paid for.
- Pay Attention to Grammar: Fake reviews are often sourced from people in countries where English is not the native language. For example, someone might say the price is “1000 USD,” which is not how most Americans would type “$1,000.”
- Visit Their Profile: This is especially useful on websites such as Reddit, where everyone has a public-facing profile. Are all of their comments or reviews exactly the same? Do they only comment about one specific topic or product?
Most astroturfing isn’t super difficult to spot if you take the time to look, but it works because most people don’t ever think about it. Simply being aware of it and having a healthy dose of skepticism will make it easier to spot the next time you’re browsing Amazon reviews or a Reddit thread.
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