Contributed by: filbert Friday, August 14 2009 @ 09:13 PM CST
… tell me it ain’t so![*2] .
Turns out Obama delegate[*3] and Organizing for America[*4] activist Roxana Mayer, who lied about being a pediatrician, was invited to the forum by that nutball Obama campaigner who sported a Che Guevara poster in her office.[*5]
Remember her?[*6]
In case you’re not up with the hip, with-it on-line lingo:
Astroturf[*7]
Astroturfing is a word in English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous “grassroots” behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.
The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt (“outreach”, “awareness”, etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual pushing a personal agenda or highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research.
Usage: David Axelrod is a well-known architect of astroturfing political campaigns.
Sockpuppet[*8] :
A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception within an online community. In its earliest usage, a sockpuppet was a false identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks with or about himself or herself, pretending to be a different person, like a ventriloquist manipulating a hand puppet.
In current usage, the perception of the term has been extended beyond second identities of people who already post in a forum to include other uses of misleading online identities. For example, a NY Times article claims that “sock-puppeting” is defined as “the act of creating a fake online identity to praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one’s self, allies or company.”
Usage: Obama’s “town hall” meetings are filled with his donors and campaign workers acting as sockpuppets.
It’s a wild world out there. Y’all be careful.