Astroturf: Health Insurers Caught Paying off Facebook Users
This is not related to climate denial, except to the degree that slippery corporate disinformation is contagious, but health insurers have been caught paying off Facebook users to write letters to Congress opposing health care reform.
As reported in the Business Insider, a consortium of health insurers, collected under the group Get Health Reform Right, are paying Facebook users “virtual currency” - which is useful in Facebook games like “FarmVille,” “Mafia Wars” and “Friends For Sale” - in return for those users to fill out a questionaire. And when they do so, the program automatically kicks out a letter to Congress.
The system dupes the user and deceives Congress - it piles lies on lies and it should be illegal, because the more we tolerate this kind of dishonest corporate manipulation of the public conversation and the democratic process, the harder it will be to deal effectively with issues like health care and climate change.
Wrong Hyperlink
The hyperlink embedded in "As reported in the Business Insider" takes one to the Mother Jones Article, not the one I suspect you intended. (Ed. Note: Thanks - and thanks Brian for the correct one. This is now fixed.)
Corporate spin & propaganca
This is one more example of the depths to which things have sunk in covert corporate lobbying and astroturfing, along with the forged letters against the health care bill, oil companies paying their staff to go to "Energy Citizen" rallies, etc.
A recent book that digs down into corporate propaganda campaigns and how they are getting so much nastier (and more effective when undetected) is:
_Not a Conspiracy Theory_ by Donald Gutstein:
http://www.amazon.ca/Not-Conspiracy-Theory-Propaganda-Democracy/dp/1554701910/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260818686&sr=8-1
Another group tracking this problem is the Center for Media and Democracy, and their books _Trust Us, We.re Experts_ and _Toxic Sludge is Good for You_:
http://www.prwatch.org
-Jim
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NEED TO KNOW HAVE TO GOO.
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