The Anti-Astroturfing Campaign :: Time for Ethics Education?
The initial blog storm around the anti-astroturfing campaign has died down. Many bloggers have stated their support and there’s a great collection of resources at the campaign home page, but the question is - where is the next step from here?
The campaign has attracted mainstream media attention, blogosphere buzz and the support of some PR agencies (Jackson Wells Morris, Altyris, Flatiron Communications and Voce Communications take a bow) but no professional association or large PR agency has lent any meaningful support. Maybe it’s too difficult, maybe it’s because they lack courage.
Of course it is a complex issue full of nuance. Richard Bailey, one of the most upstanding PR practitioners you’ll come across, can only offer luke-warm support. It’s not black and white, it’s not the only ethical issue facing our profession, and it’s only a small part of the overall transparency debate we must confront in order to convince the public to allow us to perform our role in the new world online.
The difficulties in definition do not alter the fact that astroturfing is one of the most deplorable practices in our industry, and at the very least there are astroturfing activities that every communicator can oppose in every instance. It is an issue that an impressive collection of communicators see fit to oppose, and while it’s a difficult topic to confront – it doesn’t deserve the too-hard basket.
The thing that has struck me with the campaign so far has been the number of PR students and new practitioners who were blatantly unaware of the tactic and uncertain about why it is so wrong (this video is an example). I’ve been regularly discussing the issue with my peers for several months now and few have had cause to consider the ethical implications of their practice.
The vast majority of the industry are intelligent, ethical operators who will always avoid these dodgy tactics … but these are not the kind of people who will fall down with astroturf.