{"id":1265,"date":"2019-08-07T13:33:25","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T12:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2019-08-07T13:39:39","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T12:39:39","slug":"astroturfing-is-a-widespread-pr-tactic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/astroturfing-is-a-widespread-pr-tactic\/","title":{"rendered":"Astroturfing is ‘a widespread PR tactic’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Astroturfing in PR is “more widespread than you’d imagine” and is not just a practice used by smaller consultancies on the fringes, according to Media House Executive Chairman Jack Irvine.<\/p>\n

He has spoken out\u00a0in the wake of the Guardian\u2019s expose of Lynton Crosby\u2019s firm CTF Partners<\/strong><\/a>, which ran online disinformation campaigns\u00a0for controversial\u00a0clients.<\/p>\n

Astroturfing refers to the practice of\u00a0creating professional-looking\u00a0Facebook\u00a0\u201cnews\u201d pages\u00a0to\u00a0reach\u00a0tens of millions of people on highly contentious topics, without apparently disclosing that these pages\u00a0are being overseen by CTF Partners on behalf of paying clients.<\/p>\n

They manage\u00a0dozens of accounts for clients ranging from the Saudi government to major polluters, such as oil companies,<\/p>\n

And they are able to sidestep Facebook’s transparency tools by using\u00a0a single high-level \u201cbusiness manager\u201d account, The connection between the pages is not visible to normal Facebook users.<\/p>\n

Irvine said: “There\u2019s a lot of dirty work going on in the PR world.”<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/p>\n

His view is that astroturfing is not limited to smaller consultancies who might operate outside of the watchful eye of trade bodies.<\/p>\n

Speaking to website PRWeek, he added:\u00a0“I don\u2019t want to sound cynical in this, but it\u2019s another tool in the PR box that is widely used,”<\/p>\n

Adding that Media House International would never use the tactic, he said:\u00a0“It\u2019s been going on for a hell of a long time; this technique is not news to me at all.<\/p>\n

“And if you had time to investigate it, you\u2019d find it\u2019s much more widespread than you imagine.<\/p>\n

“I would say it\u2019s the very big agencies that have been using it. You need a lot of manpower, a lot of clout to do it. Especially in the tobacco and oil industry it\u2019s the big agencies.”<\/p>\n

Irvine pointed out that it’s a common tactic used by big oil and big tobacco, highlighting\u00a0recent examples of astroturfing including Philip Morris’s campaign to fight plain-packaging legislation in Australia<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

He said: “There were several websites purporting to be interested parties, but pushing Big Tobacco\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s worked all over the world. Big oil companies use it when they are having problems with conservation and pollution issues.”<\/p>\n

Both PR trade associations, the PRCA and CIPR, strongly condemn astroturfing and are adamant it rarely occurs.<\/p>\n

Irvine said Media House International, which is a member of the PRCA and falls under Public Affairs Board ethical codes, has been approached to carry out a kind of astroturfing work, an offer that was turned down.<\/p>\n

“I was approached by a journalist last year and was asked if I could place pro-stories about certain Arab countries,” he went on.<\/p>\n

“There was an American PR firm willing to pay \u00a35,000 a time to get positive stories.<\/p>\n

“I said, \u2018That is absolutely outrageous, not just for a PR company to do it, but a journalist\u2019.<\/p>\n

“These things are going on all the time in the industry. I think after the Guardian story, some people might be running for cover.”<\/p>\n

A common thread with the CTF Partners case and others is the use of social media platforms to amplify and spread campaigns to target audiences.<\/p>\n

Facebook Pages which appear to be independent online news sources are\u00a0used to distribute highly selective information which reaches tens of millions of readers.<\/p>\n

Irvine said social media sites are being “used and abused to peddle fake news”.<\/p>\n

He added: “Social media is totally out of control, It has\u00a0provided this weapon and there are a lot of companies not afraid to use it.”<\/p>\n

Irvine believes social media platforms should be held responsible for spreading misinformation and “vile propaganda”.<\/p>\n

“Yes, they have a responsibility to better monitor their platforms. What would happen if The Times produced vile propaganda and made it up? They would be hammered and could be done for libel and come up before various regulators.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Astroturfing in PR is “more widespread than you’d imagine” and is not just a practice used by smaller consultancies on the fringes, according to Media House Executive Chairman Jack Irvine….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1265"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1269,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1265\/revisions\/1269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediahouseinternational.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}