How have local governments and advocacy groups responded to astroturfing campaigns by firms like Crowds on Demand?
Executive summary
Local governments and advocacy groups have responded to astroturfing by documenting and publicizing incidents, holding hearings and oversight reviews, experimenting with detection methods and procedural safeguards for public comment, and running public-awareness campaigns to delegitimize paid “crowd” tactics—responses that mix regulatory concern with practical limitations about legality and enforcement [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. What astroturfing is and why Crowds on Demand matters
Astroturfing is the manufacture of the appearance of grassroots support—using paid actors, fake accounts or coordinated messaging—to influence policy or public opinion rather than spontaneous civic engagement, a phenomenon traced back to letter campaigns in the 1980s and amplified by social media and online tools [5] [6]. Firms such as Crowds on Demand have become emblematic because they explicitly sell “hired crowds” for rallies, hearings and PR stunts and have been publicly linked to municipal controversies like the Entergy New Orleans hearing, which triggered local scrutiny when paid speakers surfaced at a city council meeting [1] [3].
2. How local governments have reacted: hearings, rulemaking fixes and public comment reforms
Local governments have typically taken a two-track approach: immediate fact-finding or hearings when incidents surface, and slower rulemaking or administrative fixes to protect participatory processes—most clearly visible in record testimony and congressional briefings that warn about fabricated public comments and urge agencies to redesign public participation mechanisms to resist manipulation [2]. Municipal bodies confronted with paid speakers or staged rallies have used transparency tools—public disclosure at hearings and requirements for commenter identity in rulemaking—to blunt astroturfing’s impact, though sources show this is an ongoing, technical challenge rather than a solved problem [2] [1].
3. How advocacy groups and journalists have responded: exposure, naming-and-shaming and research
Advocacy organizations and journalists have pursued a strategy of exposure—documenting astroturf campaigns, naming contractors and publicizing ties to corporate sponsors—to delegitimize manufactured support and warn policymakers and the public, a tactic employed in tobacco-control battles and in local media coverage of Crowds on Demand episodes [7] [1] [3]. Research teams and watchdogs have amplified these efforts by developing methods to spot astroturf framing and patterns distinct from authentic grassroots movements, giving legal advocates and city officials analytic ammunition to challenge fake campaigns [4] [8].
4. Tools and scholarship being deployed to detect and deter astroturfing
Scholars and civic-technology advocates are building analytical tools—emphasis-framing analysis, network detection, and CrowdLaw-style proposals—to identify manufactured campaigns and harden rulemaking against mass-fabricated comments, and congressional witnesses have argued for improved data science and public-participation redesign to reduce the influence of paid comment operations [4] [2]. These technical responses aim to differentiate authentic citizen frames from sponsored messaging and to make it harder to convert money into the appearance of broad public support.
5. Legal reality, ethical debate and limits to enforcement
Despite public outrage, many tactics remain technically legal, prompting an ethical debate about whether transparency laws, contracting rules or new disclosure requirements should be imposed; commentators note a gray area between legitimate paid advocacy and outright deceptive astroturfing, and some legal scholars and journalists caution that bans risk chilling lawful political speech [9] [1]. Advocacy research also documents collateral harm: when astroturfing is exposed, public trust in genuine advocacy can decline, a measurable effect that complicates the moral calculus of both regulators and grassroots groups [8].
6. Assessment: partial wins, persistent vulnerabilities
The combined response of local governments and advocacy groups has raised the political and reputational costs of hiring fake crowds—leading to greater scrutiny, occasional policy tweaks and richer detection tools—but the problem persists because commercial firms can operate legally, often anonymously, and because technological sophistication outpaces many local procedures; exposure and research have curtailed some abuses but have not eliminated the underlying incentives that make astroturfing attractive to well-funded interests [3] [4] [2].