What is astroturfing, the defamation technique allegedly used against Blake Lively?

Between the two stars of “Jamais Plus”, everything exploded last weekend. In an investigation by the “New York Times”, Blake Lively announced that she had filed a complaint against Justin Baldoni, the film's producers and communicators for sexual harassment and astroturfing. On this second point, she accuses them of destroying her online reputation by sharing false stories about her.

And according to the messages sent by Justin Baldoni to his team revealed by the “New York Times”, it could be that the actor has indeed orchestrated a smear campaign against the actress, for fear that she would take speak out about the sexual harassment that occurred on the set of the film in 2023.

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According to their SMS conversations, the group of communicators (in which is primarily Melissa Nathan, Johnny Depp's public relations expert) would have on the one hand controlled the releases – or non-releases – of articles revealing the behavior alleged problem of Justin Baldoni on the set and on the other, highlighted those who could demean Blake Lively in the eyes of the general public.

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What is astroturfing that Blake Lively denounces?

L’astroturfing can be described by the manipulation of discourse via social networks, the creation of false waves of enthusiasm online or disinformation. A phenomenon that Fabrice Frossard, communications and digital transformation consultant, detailed with a very specific example on the airwaves of “France Inter” last April: “Everyone says that global warming is linked to human activity. And there, you can have associations, institutes coming out of nowhere who will tell you that this is not at all the case, with supporting evidence.” According to him, these are people “paid by public relations firms” to spread false information with the aim of selling, or on the contrary destroying, a product. In the case of Blake Lively, theastroturfing would have gone further and even come close to the use of artificial intelligence.

In another message revealed by the “New York Times”, Justin Baldoni would have worried about this subject with his publicist: “How can we prove that we did not cause all this – it seems like we are trying to take it down. »And it is up to her to reassure him by affirming that the accounts deployed online are all “untraceable” and “are not robots”.

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“The goal is to create a false crowd”

However, on X in particular, hateful publications towards Blake Lively multiplied visibly at the time. Accounts shared old interviews deemed “problematic” with the actress and pointed out her silence on the subject of domestic violence which was the main theme of the film. A mass effect that more and more people ended up joining – with publications garnering hundreds of thousands of likes. A result that Justin Baldoni's team would have welcomed by SMS: “That’s why you hired me, right?” I’m the best,” Melissa Nathan reportedly replied.

The goal behind this phenomenon is therefore very simple: to influence the Web by convincing Internet users that a large group of people adhere to the same vision of things. “When online accounts – whether real or not – push the same narrative forward, those campaigns are unnatural.”explains Doctor Joan Donovan, professor at Boston University and expert in disinformation, to “People”. “The goal is to create a false crowd.” Because if 10,000 people suddenly hate Blake Lively, why wouldn't the rest of Internet users follow the trend?