Astroturfing implies that a corporation or government agency with large amounts of funding are paying individuals or bots to spread misinformation for their employer’s financial or strategic benefit.
You might not know this, but there isn’t a “Big Vegan” industry with deep pockets to financially support astroturfing. Agrobusinesses that grow vegetation make more money off the meat industry than they would if they centered their produce around vegetarian or vegan diets. Businesses that do cater to vegans barely manage to scrape by and have no margins to support social media manipulation; they barely even have budget for conventional marketing.
What you’re actually witnessing is legitimate grassroots efforts to inform people about the harm that the meat industry causes. You see “astroturfing” doesn’t mean “a lot of people are saying things I don’t like”. It actually means “grassroots campaign but fake”, hence the name “astroturf”, which is a fake kind of grass.
Astroturfing is not exclusive to corporations or government agencies. As you said, it means a fake grassroots campaign. That is it. Normal people can do the same too.
I’m not weighing on on whether THIS is astroturfing, just saying that is blatantly wrong to say it’s exclusive to corporations or government agencies when human beings will also willingly put themselves into idiotic groups that do idiotic things.
Is it really that hard for you to accept that some principled people may be genuinely against something that you tolerate?
You’re seeing more of it recently because veganism is actually on the rise, both because awareness about speciesism is rising and because of climate concerns. Plus you’re on the fediverse, where the concentration of principled radical leftists is higher than other platforms.
when human beings will also willingly put themselves into idiotic groups that do idiotic things
And is this one of those idiotic things? Are you implying trying to reduce animal cruelty in the world is idiotic?
Is it really that hard for you to accept that some principled people may be genuinely against something that you tolerate?
All I said was that astroturfing is not exclusive to governments or corporations.
And is this one of those idiotic things? Are you implying trying to reduce animal cruelty in the world is idiotic?
Again, all I said was that astroturfing is not exclusive to governments or corporations. The only person implying anything here is you. I even went out of my way to say that I was not weighing on the current situation and was only elaborating on the “definition” that was put forward otherwise.
If you could stop shoving stances and opinions down my throat that would be great.
Just because you personally disagree with the goal of a grassroots movement does not mean it is a fake grassroots movement.
A grassroots movement is very simply a collection of people, usually belonging to a community with a shared interest, who work together to publicly advocate for a particular cause. This is contrast to a powerful or moneyed interest that lobbies for a cause that usually only benefits a small group. When a powerful or moneyed interest is paying large groups of people (or alternatively bot farms) to manufacture the appearance that a grassroots movement is supporting their cause, THAT is astroturfing. The agreeability of the cause has nothing to do with how the strategy gets labeled.
You have such a tenuous grasp on the meanings of such basic words that you might want to consider hesitating before referring to other people as idiotic.
And you might want to read someone’s full message before having a conniption over your own failure of comprehension. I never said I agreed or disagreed with this. My issue was with your definition. I explicitly said that I was not weighing in on this. You were being disingenuous then and are being worse now by attacking me for a stance that you yourself invented.
It is astounding how you say that I have a tenuous grasp on anything when you openly shove stances and opinions down someone else’s after they already said that they have no opinion
You aren’t weighing in on it while blatantly implying that the group in question is “idiotic”, okay buddy 🥴
You’re also asserting that my definition was wrong without saying anything about how it was wrong or what would be correct.
What are you even contributing to the conversation? Why did you waste the electricity to transmit any of the utterly worthless bytes that you did? And why am I wasting my time responding?
The last question has an easy answer: I have nothing better to do while I poop. But the rest of the questions are truly a mystery.
You aren’t weighing in on it while blatantly implying that the group in question is “idiotic”, okay buddy
Again, I didn’t imply shit. You decided to make that all up on your own. So lemme get the crayons and help you out here, okay kid?
I’m not weighing on on whether THIS is astroturfing, just saying that is blatantly wrong to say it’s exclusive to corporations or government agencies
Look at that, wow. Almost like it’s what I said and that I’m not weighing in, huh? Kinda crazy right?
But nah. You had to ignore that so you could hyper focus on this next part and misunderstand. Then you decided to broadcast your misunderstanding and act like I was saying something else. Instead of asking for any clarification whatsoever, you immediately assumed and acted based off of it. Acted like a child no less. So like I said, here come the crayons.
when human beings will also willingly put themselves into idiotic groups that do idiotic things.
Yeah. What part of that implies anything about the current situation? Nothing, right? Right. My bit about saying idiotic groups that do idiotic things was an abstract and not weighing in on the current situation as I stated. I was talking about the act of astroturfing in general with people who group up into moronic little groups and decide to astroturf. Nevermind the fact that I said explicitly that I wasn’t talking about this situation. Just that groups of people can get together and do stupid things.
Now I’m going to block you because I have zero interest in having any sort of conversation with some backhanded redditor bullshit of “Oh I actually know what you’re really saying. You can’t fool me. I know what you actually meant, not those words that you said, but the imaginary words in my head that I have clearly seen coming from your mouth.”
You are pathetic. But let me answer your dumb fuck questions now that you have actually asked for clarification. You know, after multiple ad hominem attacks and slew of words being shoved down my throat.
What are you even contributing to the conversation?
Well, like I said, I took issue with your definition of astroturfing. It is not exclusive to governments or to corporations. That is it. That is what I contributed. A fleshing out of your disingenuous definition. I didn’t care about anything else other than you acting like people can’t do this type of shit and the only people on the planet who can are corporations and governments. We have seen numerous groups of people go ahead and do this shit. Want an example? Look to literally any election or group of die hard fundamentalists. Neither of those are governments and neither of those are corporations. What they are is a group of people who are neither of the things that you originally claimed were the sole groups that could astroturf.
Why did you waste the electricity to transmit any of the utterly worthless bytes that you did?
Again with your absolutely fucking insane levels of delusion. Because I don’t agree with you, it’s worthless. Because you’ve shoved every opinion down my throat other than what I EXPLICITLY STATED, it’s worthless. Not because you are a shitty person who immediately started attacking someone who disagreed with you. Again, you could have asked for clarification at any point (much like you half assed are now) but didn’t. You doubled down on being an asshole.
And why am I wasting my time responding?
Because you know I’m right and you are terrified of being proven wrong. You have a serious ego issue where any time someone challenges you, you have a full on fucking meltdown. You are incapable of letting someone disagree with you because you have to have the last word at every possible cost, even if it means you look like an absolute fool and lying about everything that’s been said prior while openly insulting anyone who dares oppose you.
Like I said. Grow up. Now I’m going to go back to not knowing you exist and living in reality instead of whatever fairytale nonsense you’ve carved up for yourself where you’re the main character who’s always right.
Astroturfing implies that a corporation or government agency with large amounts of funding are paying individuals or bots to spread misinformation for their employer’s financial or strategic benefit.
You might not know this, but there isn’t a “Big Vegan” industry with deep pockets to financially support astroturfing. Agrobusinesses that grow vegetation make more money off the meat industry than they would if they centered their produce around vegetarian or vegan diets. Businesses that do cater to vegans barely manage to scrape by and have no margins to support social media manipulation; they barely even have budget for conventional marketing.
What you’re actually witnessing is legitimate grassroots efforts to inform people about the harm that the meat industry causes. You see “astroturfing” doesn’t mean “a lot of people are saying things I don’t like”. It actually means “grassroots campaign but fake”, hence the name “astroturf”, which is a fake kind of grass.
Well then who keeps sending me all this free tofu with envelopes of cash taped to it whenever I upvote a pro-vegan meme?
Shhhh we can’t let them know that George Soros is secretly a radical leftist vegan.
Astroturfing is not exclusive to corporations or government agencies. As you said, it means a fake grassroots campaign. That is it. Normal people can do the same too.
I’m not weighing on on whether THIS is astroturfing, just saying that is blatantly wrong to say it’s exclusive to corporations or government agencies when human beings will also willingly put themselves into idiotic groups that do idiotic things.
To gain what, exactly?
Is it really that hard for you to accept that some principled people may be genuinely against something that you tolerate?
You’re seeing more of it recently because veganism is actually on the rise, both because awareness about speciesism is rising and because of climate concerns. Plus you’re on the fediverse, where the concentration of principled radical leftists is higher than other platforms.
And is this one of those idiotic things? Are you implying trying to reduce animal cruelty in the world is idiotic?
All I said was that astroturfing is not exclusive to governments or corporations.
Again, all I said was that astroturfing is not exclusive to governments or corporations. The only person implying anything here is you. I even went out of my way to say that I was not weighing on the current situation and was only elaborating on the “definition” that was put forward otherwise.
If you could stop shoving stances and opinions down my throat that would be great.
Just because you personally disagree with the goal of a grassroots movement does not mean it is a fake grassroots movement.
A grassroots movement is very simply a collection of people, usually belonging to a community with a shared interest, who work together to publicly advocate for a particular cause. This is contrast to a powerful or moneyed interest that lobbies for a cause that usually only benefits a small group. When a powerful or moneyed interest is paying large groups of people (or alternatively bot farms) to manufacture the appearance that a grassroots movement is supporting their cause, THAT is astroturfing. The agreeability of the cause has nothing to do with how the strategy gets labeled.
You have such a tenuous grasp on the meanings of such basic words that you might want to consider hesitating before referring to other people as idiotic.
And you might want to read someone’s full message before having a conniption over your own failure of comprehension. I never said I agreed or disagreed with this. My issue was with your definition. I explicitly said that I was not weighing in on this. You were being disingenuous then and are being worse now by attacking me for a stance that you yourself invented.
It is astounding how you say that I have a tenuous grasp on anything when you openly shove stances and opinions down someone else’s after they already said that they have no opinion
Flagrantly pathetic.
Grow up.
You aren’t weighing in on it while blatantly implying that the group in question is “idiotic”, okay buddy 🥴
You’re also asserting that my definition was wrong without saying anything about how it was wrong or what would be correct.
What are you even contributing to the conversation? Why did you waste the electricity to transmit any of the utterly worthless bytes that you did? And why am I wasting my time responding?
The last question has an easy answer: I have nothing better to do while I poop. But the rest of the questions are truly a mystery.
Again, I didn’t imply shit. You decided to make that all up on your own. So lemme get the crayons and help you out here, okay kid?
Look at that, wow. Almost like it’s what I said and that I’m not weighing in, huh? Kinda crazy right?
But nah. You had to ignore that so you could hyper focus on this next part and misunderstand. Then you decided to broadcast your misunderstanding and act like I was saying something else. Instead of asking for any clarification whatsoever, you immediately assumed and acted based off of it. Acted like a child no less. So like I said, here come the crayons.
Yeah. What part of that implies anything about the current situation? Nothing, right? Right. My bit about saying idiotic groups that do idiotic things was an abstract and not weighing in on the current situation as I stated. I was talking about the act of astroturfing in general with people who group up into moronic little groups and decide to astroturf. Nevermind the fact that I said explicitly that I wasn’t talking about this situation. Just that groups of people can get together and do stupid things.
Now I’m going to block you because I have zero interest in having any sort of conversation with some backhanded redditor bullshit of “Oh I actually know what you’re really saying. You can’t fool me. I know what you actually meant, not those words that you said, but the imaginary words in my head that I have clearly seen coming from your mouth.”
You are pathetic. But let me answer your dumb fuck questions now that you have actually asked for clarification. You know, after multiple ad hominem attacks and slew of words being shoved down my throat.
Well, like I said, I took issue with your definition of astroturfing. It is not exclusive to governments or to corporations. That is it. That is what I contributed. A fleshing out of your disingenuous definition. I didn’t care about anything else other than you acting like people can’t do this type of shit and the only people on the planet who can are corporations and governments. We have seen numerous groups of people go ahead and do this shit. Want an example? Look to literally any election or group of die hard fundamentalists. Neither of those are governments and neither of those are corporations. What they are is a group of people who are neither of the things that you originally claimed were the sole groups that could astroturf.
Again with your absolutely fucking insane levels of delusion. Because I don’t agree with you, it’s worthless. Because you’ve shoved every opinion down my throat other than what I EXPLICITLY STATED, it’s worthless. Not because you are a shitty person who immediately started attacking someone who disagreed with you. Again, you could have asked for clarification at any point (much like you half assed are now) but didn’t. You doubled down on being an asshole.
Because you know I’m right and you are terrified of being proven wrong. You have a serious ego issue where any time someone challenges you, you have a full on fucking meltdown. You are incapable of letting someone disagree with you because you have to have the last word at every possible cost, even if it means you look like an absolute fool and lying about everything that’s been said prior while openly insulting anyone who dares oppose you.
Like I said. Grow up. Now I’m going to go back to not knowing you exist and living in reality instead of whatever fairytale nonsense you’ve carved up for yourself where you’re the main character who’s always right.
I can’t be bothered to read any of that unhinged raving in detail but this line jumped out to me and the irony is just delectable:
Clearly I’m the one having the meltdown here 😂