A study from 2023 in the Journal of Business Research, claimed that nearly 30% of all online reviews were fake. In 2024, TripAdvisor removed approximately 2.7 million fraudulent reviews from its platform. A study from Carnegie Mellon University found that 82% of retweets around the COVID-19 pandemic could be traced to bot accounts that were simulating grassroots activity.
Both of these examples highlight the difficulty in separating authentic voices and reviews from coordinated manipulation. And, coordinated manipulation is exactly what astroturfing is.
Astroturfing is when marketing or PR campaigns are made to look like genuine, organic, grassroots activity.
Astroturfing can take the form of fabricated product reviews, undisclosed influencer promotions, or even large-scale social media pushes.
So, is astroturfing illegal? The answer you will almost always get is yes.
Many authorities around the world treat astroturfing as deceptive marketing, consumer fraud, or even a securities violation. Yet proving astroturfing is taking place isn’t simple. Detecting and proving astroturfing requires not only monitoring but also capturing reliable evidence.
In this article, we explore what astroturfing is, how it is viewed globally, and delve into how it can be identified and proven in court.
What is Astroturfing?
The term “astroturfing” comes from AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic grass. In the digital context, it refers to orchestrated campaigns made to seem like they come from ordinary users aka. “Grass roots movements”. However, in reality, they are coordinated and often paid for.
Some of Astroturfing tactics are:
- Sock-puppet accounts or fake profiles that are used to post or comment online.
- Automated bots that swarm different platforms with coordinated messages.
- Undisclosed influencer endorsements that are made to look like genuine, personal recommendations.
- AI-generated reviews and comments.
Why do organizations resort to astroturfing?
The motivations for astroturfing vary.
In commerce, companies may attempt to boost product ratings or suppress criticism with astroturfing. In politics, parties use bots and fake accounts to sway public opinion or overwhelm debate forums. Even nonprofits and advocacy groups have been caught staging “organic” support to influence legislation.
The unifying factor in all of these cases is pressure — whether it be financial, reputational, or even political.
The different forms of astroturfing
Astroturfing online can look like:
- Fake reviews or testimonials designed to drive sales
- Bot-driven campaigns to amplify partisan messages or silence opponents
- Orchestrated hashtags or “viral” posts that are meant to influence public sentiment around topics like health, climate, or social justice
If astroturfing is sounding like run-of-the-mill PR or marketing so far, you’re not entirely wrong. But there is one major difference — the lack of transparency.
You cannot usually trace the source of messaging in online astroturfing, making it appear organic or at least not a coordinated effort from any particular group. This misleads audiences, and if discovered, can damage trust and invite regulatory scrutiny.
Is Astroturfing Illegal? Exploring the Global View
Astroturfing is an ethical and legal problem. Organizations participating in fake reviews or deceptive endorsements are now often faced with lawsuits, regulatory fines, and long-term reputational harm.
Let's see how the laws differ across the globe:
Astroturfing Laws in the U.S
According to the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Endorsement Guides, any undisclosed paid endorsements, fake testimonials, and manipulated reviews are deceptive advertising.
Your business can face major penalties for these practices. In 2024, the FTC announced a rule that bans the sale or purchase of fake reviews, including AI-generated ones. The rule also allows for penalties of up to $51,744 per violation.
Astroturfing often shows up in government, too. For example, during the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s 2017 net neutrality consultation, millions of fake comments were filed using stolen identities to sway the outcome. In 2023, three marketing firms agreed to pay $615,000 after they admitted to submitting 2.4 million fake comments in that process.
Astroturfing Legislation in the European Union
The EU’s Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) prohibits misleading actions, including fabricated reviews. In 2022, an EU-wide “sweep” of online platforms found that nearly 55% of websites checked contained misleading tactics, such as fake discounts and endorsements.
Enforcement is also tightening under the Digital Services Act (DSA). This requires large platforms to take more responsibility for detecting and addressing manipulative behavior, including fake reviews.
Astroturfing in Australia
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) treats false reviews as a breach of consumer law. Businesses have been fined for posting fake testimonials. One example is A Whistle & Co., which was penalized for misleading online reviews. The ACCC warns that false endorsements can lead to serious penalties.
Canadian Astroturfing Law
The Competition Act contains provisions addressing false or misleading representations and deceptive marketing practices in promoting the supply or use of a product or any business interest. Recent cases have focused on greenwashing and misleading ads. Penalties for being convicted of these practices can range from $200,000 for individuals up to $15,000,000 for corporations. In some cases, persons convicted can be imprisoned for up to 14 years.
Asia-Pacific
Governments across Asia are also taking action against astroturfing:
- Singapore: The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) empowers regulators to issue correction notices and takedown orders against coordinated online deception.
- China: Authorities regularly target “brushing.” This is the practice of faking e-commerce transactions and reviews. Companies have faced multi-million yuan fines for engaging in this kind of large-scale deception.
These enforcement trends confirm that for regulators around the world, astroturfing is illegal.
Modern Astroturfing Tactics
Astroturfing has evolved into a highly sophisticated practice that goes far beyond fake product reviews. Today, it relies on technology, scale, and coordinated strategies designed to influence perception.
Modern astroturfing tactics include :
- AI-generated armies: Large language models can generate hundreds of convincing reviews or comments in minutes.
- Influencer-bot hybrids: Influencers are paid to seed messages. Automated accounts then spread the same content across platforms. This creates the appearance of widespread public support, even when it does not exist.
- Review farms: Groups of individuals are paid to leave fake reviews across marketplaces.
- Hashtag hijacking: Bots push a hashtag into trending lists on TikTok, Instagram, or X, tricking users into believing that a campaign is organically popular.
Astroturfing tactics move fast, often appearing overnight and disappearing just as quickly. For investigators the challenge is that without timely capture, evidence of deception may not be usable in court.
Identifying and Responding to Astroturfing
The real challenge of investigating astroturfing campaigns lies in spotting coordinated behavior and as well as preserving evidence of that behavior that will stand up in regulatory or legal settings.
To investigate astroturfing, here are some key steps you should take:
Monitor for suspicious patterns
Watch for identical wording across posts, sudden surges of activity, or clusters of new accounts promoting the same message.
For example, during the 2020 U.S. election, researchers found thousands of identical comments were submitted to the FCC about net neutrality. Most came from fake identities.
Capture evidence quickly
Content can disappear as quickly as it appears. The posts, the context, and metadata (timestamps, account IDs, geolocation data) should be preserved immediately.
Analyze account behavior
Look beyond surface content. Check posting times, shared IP addresses, and linguistic patterns. These details often reveal when activity is coordinated rather than organic.
Respond strategically
Depending on severity, you may need to file takedown requests, send legal notices, or report violations to regulators. Well-preserved evidence of astroturfing is what makes these actions defensible.
Addressing astroturfing requires more than a single team.
- Legal teams ensure that responses meet regulatory and contractual requirements.
- IT teams provide the technical expertise to uncover links between accounts and identify coordinated activity.
- Communications teams handle messaging to stakeholders and the public to limit reputational impact.
Having these groups aligned before an incident ensures faster, more credible action when manipulation is detected.
Best Practices Checklist
If you want to guard against astroturfing, you should:
- Continuously monitor platforms for unusual activity
- Automate the capture of potential evidence
- Maintain tamper-proof archives of your social media profiles, comments, and replies
- Set alerts for sudden spikes in reviews or hashtag activity
- Train compliance teams to recognize AI-generated content
- Keep logs of actions taken against suspected deception
- Establish internal policies that prohibit staff or contractors from engaging in astroturfing, knowingly or unknowingly.
- Provide training on disclosure rules for marketing, social media, and influencer partnerships.
- Encourage whistleblowing or internal reporting mechanisms if suspicious behavior is detected.
How Archiving Can Protect Against Accusations of Astroturfing
The penalties for astroturfing can be steep. As we’ve seen, they can include millions of dollars in fines or even jail time. So when your organization is accused of astroturfing, you need to move fast to prove that your campaigns are all above board, and capture any evidence to the contrary so you can investigate the accusations.
This is where automated social media archiving can help.
Automated social media archiving preserves online content from your profiles completely. This includes its metadata, timestamps, linked content, media, and even edited or deleted comments.
This offers three critical protections:
- Legal defensibility: If every post your organization has posted is archived in full detail with digital signatures and hash values, you’ll be able to provide evidence of any astroturfing campaigns against your business and prove that your social media records are authentic and tamper-proof.
- Clarity: A full history of what was posted and how it was handled. This is essential if astroturfing tactics target your profiles.
- Trust restoration: Demonstrating exactly what appeared on official accounts helps reassure regulators, stakeholders, and customers that manipulation has been addressed transparently.
When astroturfing takes place outside a company’s own accounts, evidence collection tools like WebPreserver complement archiving by capturing third-party content with full context and metadata. When used together, Pagefreezer’s archiving and WebPreserver’s evidence collection provide organizations with reliable records to respond effectively to astroturfing.
