Astroturfing Leonardo: New "Information Campaign" for Diamonds
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09. 4.06
Leonardo DiCaprio's new movie The Blood Diamond, opening in December, takes place in Sierra Leone in the late '90's and evidently takes a dim view of conflict diamonds. In anticipation, the ever-vigilant World Diamond Council has set up a new website to set the record straight before Leonardo, um, confuses us. “We’ve intensified our efforts because of this upcoming movie,” [President, WDC] Mr. Izhakoff said. “We wanted to make sure that retailers and consumers get the facts about the good things that diamonds do.” The NY Times compares this to our favourite astroturfing campaign from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, but this one isn't funny at all. ::Diamond Facts via ::New York Times
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I'm a bit confused as to why this is considered astroturfing? Neither this nor the Competitive Enterprise Institute campaign mentioned are anything other than straightforward PR campaigns. Astroturfing is when the group behind it attempts to hide--often masquerading as a citizens group of some kind--to pretend it is a genuine grassroots effort.
The diamond industry has plenty of sins to answer for, but it doesn't appear that astroturfing against this movie is one of them.
LA: Strictly speaking, you are correct, I appear to be misusing the term for fake "grassroots" campaigns.