Imagine I am the CEO of a corporation whose factory farming practices drew the attention of the Humane Society and legislation has now been proposed to reign in my cruel excesses. If I appeared in a video complaining about the Humane Society forcing me to be less cruel and this would have a tiny impact on my vast wealth, few people would be sympathetic. If I was smart and evil, I would use astroturfing instead of honesty. Astroturfing involves concealing those behind a message or organization to make it seem that it arose and is funded by grassroot participants. In this imaginary scenario, I could hire a company to lay down some AstroTurf for me.

 While astroturfing can be a complicated, it usually involves three basic techniques. The first is using positive names for the shell organization(s). For example, my Astroturf organization might be called “Friends of Friendly Farming”, which is much more appealing than “Cow Cruelty Crusaders.”

A second technique is using commercials depicting the “common folk” who just happen to be extremely concerned about the issue. For example, my commercial might feature a mother venting her rage that meat would be unaffordable for her family if the wicked Humane Society had its way.

The third and key part of astroturfing is that those behind it remain anonymous. After all, if people knew that I was behind Friends of Friendly Farming, they would find it less appealing. Since astroturfing is inherently deceitful, it would seem to be immoral. But what, if anything should be done about it?

The use of deceptive names is unethical because of their rhetorical influence over people who might not otherwise support the group if its name matched its purpose. Going back to my example, most would find “Friends of Friendly Farming” appealing. But most would not be won over by “Make Sure Mike Keeps Making Money by Being Mean to Animals.” This technique is like advertising and labelling unhealthy junk food made in China as patriotic, healthy, “Yankee Snacks”. That is, it is deceit. However, just because something is unethical does not entail that it should be illegal.

While the First Amendment does not explicitly protect the right to deceptive speech, laws aimed at requiring honest naming for groups would seem unlikely to withstand scrutiny. There are also practical concerns about enforcement and the potential for abuse of such laws. For example, Republicans would presumably use such laws to insist that all liberal and moderate groups label themselves as “Woke Marxist Transgender Anti-American Vermin.”

 There is also the problem of sorting out whether terms, especially value terms, are being applied correctly. Value terms are especially challenging, given the extent to which even good faith disagreement about them exists. For example, determining whether a group called “Righteous Americans for Righteous Justice” is righteous and for righteous justice would be difficult. As such, while the use of intentionally deceptive names is unethical, it should not be illegal.

The use of dishonest and deceptive commercials is also unethical. They are like listing false ingredients on a food label to get people to buy it. It is also like catfishing. This is when a person pretends, online, to be someone desirable as part of an intentional deception. As with deceptive names, the use of actors portraying “common folk” with strong views on the issue is probably protected by the right to free expression.  There is also the fact that politicians favor allowing considerable leeway in certain deceptive practices, usually determined by which industry is bankrolling their re-election.  

As noted above, the essential quality of astroturfing is that the real parties remain anonymous, hidden behind an appealing shell. In addition to being unethical, this anonymity makes it difficult to assess the case made by those speaking for the anonymous entity. This is because the identity of the source of a claim is necessary to assess the credibility and possible bias of that source. While claims obviously stand or fall on their own, the identity of the source is critical to the practical matter of judging claims.

While there might be a right to deceptive (or persuasive, if one prefers) speech, there is not a right to anonymous speech. Requiring those funding groups and ads to identify themselves does not limit their right of free expression and it serves, as noted above, to protect the right of the listeners to properly assess the claims intended to influence them. Naturally, there are cases in which anonymous speech is morally acceptable—such as in oppressive regimes.

Those who engage in astroturfing might claim they would be harmed if their identities were known. After all, they want to be anonymous because they believe that if people knew their identities, then their efforts at persuasion would be less effective. As such, not being allowed to remain anonymous would harm them.

The easy and obvious response to this is that people do not have a moral right to remain anonymous simply because people would be less likely to be persuaded if they knew their identity. Using an analogy, a company wanting to sell dog meat could not justly claim it would be harmed if it was not allowed to hide the identity of the meat. In such cases, the right to know trumps the right of free expression. As such, it would be reasonable to have laws that forbid such anonymous funding. Naturally, moral exceptions can be made in oppressive countries that engage in unjust persecution.