Astroturfing

astroturfing · also Artificial turf

Disguising an orchestrated message as spontaneous grassroots support, hiding who is really behind it, for example with large numbers of fake accounts.

The term comes from AstroTurf, a brand of artificial turf, in contrast with genuine "grassroots" support. Common tactics include using large numbers of accounts to produce seemingly spontaneous posts, comments and likes.

The social-media analysis firm Agoratlas listed this mass production of fake content as one possible explanation for the especially large number of opposing posts on X.

Last updated 2026-10-22 · 中文詞條 · Suggest a correction