The word "astroturf" was coined back in 1985 by U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, to describe the difference between real grassroots mail from constituents and the fake stuff manufactured to look like it. Forty years later, the tactic is everywhere, amplified by social media — and it's aimed at all of us.

Astroturfing is a campaign that mimics organic community support while hiding who's actually paying for it and why. It works because it borrows the credibility of ordinary people to push an agenda that usually serves corporate profit, not community need. The cost isn't just confusion — it drowns out real community voices and slowly erodes the civic trust our movements depend on.

So I built a guide on how to spot it with 10 warning signs to watch for. A few include: identical "personal" messages copy-pasted across accounts, a sudden spike in engagement from brand-new or barely-active profiles, heavy emotional fear appeals, and campaigns that lean hard on the word "grassroots" while refusing to answer straight questions about their funding.

Here's the quick gut check: when a campaign appears out of nowhere, speaks in one suspiciously consistent voice, and won't tell you who's footing the bill — treat "grassroots" as a claim to verify, not a fact to trust.

Get the full All About Astroturf kit: Click here to download​

All the best,

Terra

PS. This guide is part of the Tools for Solidarity series which you can find here​
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