I recently met a young woman who works in public relations. As a creator of online content and a social media maven myself, I did what came naturally. I picked her brain about how PR works these days.
What I learned disillusioned me. If you don’t think you’re ready to come down this rabbit hole with me, I suggest you stop reading now.
I don’t want to sound scary, just realistic. What you’re about to read is an inside look into how modern PR practices manipulate the public through the news. Finding out you’ve been manipulated is never fun.
PR Method #1: Astroturfing
You’ve heard of the rising tide of grassroots activism which the internet facilitates. Astroturf is basically fake grassroots activism.
It happens when paid social media management people from PR firms troll influencers online and anonymously ask questions or leave comments that plant doubt in the minds of their readers.
How can you tell if it’s astroturfing or real people?
It’s hard to discern paid astroturfing from real users of online media, but one way it becomes obvious is when it happens everywhere all at once. Then you can guess with a modicum of certainty that it is coordinated and planned.
According to my new PR friend, astroturfers are also taught to use psychologically jarring words and turn arguments against people rather than ideas and facts. So they’ll throw out inflammatory language like “quack,” “lies,” “conspiracy,” and “psuedo.”
Not only will they use this highly-charged emotional language, they’ll attempt to distract readers by derailing conversations and straying off-topic to do so.
And finally, astroturfers play authority games. They question those who question authority, attempting to shame or ridicule them for asking questions. So, rather than establishing their authority and attempting to answer any questions raised, they’ll establish their authority and use it to bully others.
In her ten minute TED talk below, veteran journalist Sharyl Attkisson exposes how astroturfing works and even uses a couple real-life examples:
Is this for real? Doesn’t it seem conspiracy theorist?
I thought so, too.
A month ago I would roll my eyes whenever I heard my blogging peers mention the idea of “paid internet trolls.” I knew they were out there, but to believe they were HERE on MY FACEBOOK PAGE and MY BLOG just seemed ludicrous.
I didn’t know just how widespread they are.
My new PR friend shattered that illusion. They are legion.
According to her, every PR firm worth its salt has them or knows where to find them. In the large firms that tend to represent corporate, political, or celebrity interests, there are entire divisions of hundreds of interns dedicated to monitoring and influencing online media — doing everything from leaving comments on blogs and news sites to harassing users on Twitter, from leaving a string of hostile anonymous asks on Tumblr blogs to charging headlong into Facebook discussions.
Hundreds. In each PR firm.
Each person putting in a full 8 hours a day doing nothing but sowing doubt, confusion, and discord.
PR Method #2: Seeding
Seeding is when the PR firms plant stories with news outlets and online influencers with the end goal of those stories slowly transforming the narrative.
It can be done when a major shift/event is planned (usually up to a year or more out) and you want public perception to be favorable, or it can be done when you need to draw attention away from or bury an unfavorable news story.
Seeding takes many forms, and can be planned up to a year in advance.
According to my PR friend, almost all our news is manufactured. Apparently, very few journalists do investigative journalism any more. Most are fed stories from publicists.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as a press release which major news outlets reprint almost verbatim.
For example, in 2005 the National Sleep Foundation issued a press release about the results of a recent study on sleep that they’d done. Every major news outlet except one simply reported the press release without question with tantalizing headlines like, “Insufficient Sleep is a Public Health Epidemic.” CBS reporter Sheryl Attkisson did a minor amount of research and found out that the non-profit that had funded the survey was in fact funded by a company set to release a new sleep drug for insomnia.
Sometimes, seeding takes the form of a planned multi-year campaign meant to change the public narrative about an issue. In those cases, publicists will seed everywhere.
They’ll set up narrative-shifting interviews with “experts” in the national news media, give tips to gossip columnists and reporters for narrative-shifting stories, and even go so far as to set up publicity stunts that manage to NOT look like publicity stunts.
What does a year long seeding campaign look like?
My friend confided that she’s currently seeding for a lesbian actress who’s going to come out this year.
They’ve been seeding the idea that this celebrity’s gay for about 5 or 6 months now — arranging for her to be papped in public with another female on multiple occasions (even though all they’re doing is grocery shopping or walking down the street), seeding stories in tabloid news outlets that she may be in the closet, and generally getting her fans to start talking about and accepting the idea that she’s gay.
The whole thing is planned out and is meant to build sympathy with her fans so that when she comes out their response will be an elated “I KNEW IT!”
And this is a year long strategy, with seeding planned on four consecutive three month push-pull cycles. (PUSH is when they push a story to the influencers, and PULL is when influencers have eaten that story up and are begging for more information.)
Okay… So MAYBE this is believable. But it can’t be all that widespread or we’d have noticed it right?
News is news. Facts are facts. THOSE PEOPLE WERE PHOTOGRAPHED!
Unfortunately, we’re quite gullible. Take celebrity paps as an example.
It never occurs to us that normal people aren’t hanging out in grocery stores with DSLR cameras ready to “accidentally” take “candid” high quality photos of our favorite actress buying organic tomatoes with a woman.
It never occurs to us that we’re being set up, that candids are staged. That the celebrity also happened to be carrying STARBUCKS branded drinks with the logo conveniently displayed never raises our eyebrows.
This is not an ad. This is one of the most recognized names on the planet (Harry Styles, frontman for the most popular band on the planet, One Direction) supposedly being caught unawares walking down the street with a product placement:
(Ahem. Forgive the One Direction reference. I kinda loathe pop music, but there’s no denying that they’ve had their first 4 consecutive albums debut at #1. Not even the Beatles managed that.)
So that happened once. So what? Starbucks is popular!
True.
But it’s also true that paparrazzi go where they’re called. That’s because that’s how they make money and establish a good working relationship with various PR agencies. If they happen to catch a compromising photo that wasn’t staged, do you know what they do? They sell it to the PR agency and it gets buried.
Stories don’t make the news unless the publicist wants it to, period.
The ONLY exceptions are the rare, totally underpaid, few and far between investigative journalists who still uncover actual scandals (not staged mini-scandals that are meant to cover up bigger ones).
And so you can suddenly start discerning a pattern. Apparently no one is immune from the staged Starbucks pap:
BONUS:
Anyhow, the only point here is: you get this news because a publicist fed it to you.
So, let’s take a look at the national news headlines of the past week.
This is a random sampling from places like NPR, US News & World Report, the Atlantic, and the Washington Times and spans about 4 days of news stories:
There are hundreds more. Hundreds. Everyone is running with these stories.
Here are some interesting facts to consider:
1. Vaccines were a $23 BILLION INDUSTRY in 2013. According to the World Health Organization, they’re projected to grow to a $100 BILLION INDUSTRY within the next decade.
I say this not to ridicule for-profit industries, but to assure you that these pharmaceutical companies have a massive public relations team. There is no way they don’t.
2. In the last quarter of 2014, there was an under-reported story about how a judge ruled that two whistleblowers within Merck & Co. had adequately proven that Merck & Co. may have lied to the U.S Government about the efficacy of its mumps vaccine. Also under-reported was a story about a whistleblower within the CDC who will testify that the CDC covered up evidence linking the MMR vaccine to autism.
3. And now, in the first quarter of 2015, we get this flurry of news supposedly spurred on by a minor outbreak of measles.
4. We’ve also seen several states simultaneously introduce legislation that would restrict or altogether eliminate a parent’s right to exempt their children from vaccinations (even for religious reasons). You can see if you your own state is one of them by clicking here.
I also suggest that if you think that maybe vaccines should be mandatory, you read this post my friend Heather at Mommypotamus published today: Should Vaccines Be Mandatory? And if you feel really adventurous, go check out the Facebook discussions that post is generating on her page and see if you can spot the astroturfing comments.
Now, given what you now know about PR and seeding, what are your thoughts on these headlines?
Draw your own conclusions.
(top photo credit: ekigyuu)
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Great information. I’m not surprised. :/
Excellent article!
Not surprised.
THANK YOU!! I knew all this, but you put it in very clear terms for most people to understand.
there are no coincidences
Wow. Shameful.
Wow, I can not believe a word of this garbage. The reason vaccines are in the media currently is because outbreak of a virus, which was previously eradicated in 2002 in the United States. This disease is common in third world countries where there are large populations of unvaccinated children. The measles broke out in California where there is a large population of unvaccinated children. Measles is a highly contagious virus capable of killing 1 in 1000 people. Autism is NOT caused by vaccines, the original article has been retracted and the doctor’s license was removed because he MADE UP the data. Countless PEER REVIEWED articles have disproved this theory. Also, compared to immense pharmaceutical market, the vaccine market makes up a very small portion. I am unfollowing your site. What a shame. As a person with a PhD in the science field I urge you all to educate yourselves.
Wow, you’ve bought every lie the media has told us!
Question: what was the original title and conclusion of that “debunked” study? Do you know? (Your comment suggests you don’t.)
Yes Kate, your right about Lauren Angeline and we can only HOPE that such a troll WILL unfollow! Ha!
You are not misguided; you are just totally devoid of compassion for your fellow man. Please go to another site with your propaganda. Your lack of concern hurts people with bad advice…even with a PHD.
Want to bet this person is one of those paid trolls? She hit every single talking point, then used the “appeal to authority” fallacy. Just because someone has a science PhD–or even an MD–does not mean they know a darn thing beyond public service announcements about vaccines.
Gee–could this be what the article was talking about? I have noticed that in this current vaccines debate, those who question the vaccine industry OFTEN cite scientific articles and research. Those defending the vaccine industry very seldom do. I have looked, trying to find pro-vaccine posts and articles that cite peer-reviewed research that backs them up. I have not found ANY pro-vaccine website that has such references. Not the CDC, not the Pediatric organization whose web site I found (sorry, don’t remember the exact name, and I don’t want to mislead anyone). It’s interesting that this “person with a PhD in the science field” claims there are “countless PEER REVIEWED” articles that disproved the theory that a vaccine can cause autism—but then doesn’t cite even ONE such article. ‘Nuff said.
This is for you Lauren. Just one of a few.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21623535
There isn’t one debunked article, there is a sea of science. You can’t assume that the potent (and profitable) concoction of chemicals being given to hundreds of millions of people don’t have SOME negative results. This isn’t my list, but it looked pretty interesting and not planted by a vested interest: https://therefurbishedrogue.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/my-list-of-peer-reviewed-vaccine-research/ . We want to think that something that can have positives doesn’t have negatives. 600 people with measles doesn’t touch the number of people who have reactions to these drugs (and of those I think there has been one death (which in a country of 318M people is statistically the same as the odds of being hit by a meteor). Sadly, money does equal share of voice and companies with billions to gain from it will use that money to shape political and social opinion. It doesn’t make it right and also makes people with a reasonable doubt seem like freaks and outcasts when, in fact, they are just concerned parents and citizens who want what is best for everyone. Do we need polio vaccines, maybe, do we need 48 others? Probably not. And if we don’t get to decide that seems wrong. If you want to pump your six month old with a toxic slurry of viruses then it’s your right to do that, and IF they work then shouldn’t your kid be protected from mine who might not have all of those?
here you go
http://www.dailypaul.com/333532/us-media-blackout-italian-courts-rule-vaccines-cause-autism
I feel this article really shows people (especially young adults) a truth they don;t want to hear! Most are so electronically connected to social media and constantly bombarded with ads,trolls and uneducated nonsense that they can’t see the forest for the trees I am over 65, survived whooping cough as an infant, measles, chickenpox & strep throat in elementary school! All this PR is a mockery of your intellect!
Well said, Pat.
Because you survived, you can make this comment about how benign they are.
Those that didn’t survive these childhood diseases aren’t around to testify to their deadliness.
I can only ask, “are you a Seeder”?
I had the same exact reaction – very manipulative article. I find phrases like “quack,” “lies,” “conspiracy,” and “psuedo.” science quite accurate in describing this sort of story.
I can’t help but say: “ASTROTURF!!!” LOL!
At no point was measles ‘eradicated’ its just that no one in th united states is DYING from it. Measles is HIGHLY contagious yet out of the 100s upon 100s who woulve spent how many days at Disneyland in contact with the people or person who had it (symptoms or not) on 51 people contractinged the virus. I believe some of those people were in fact vaccinated, also even the CDC data shows no deaths from the meases in a long time and in that same time over 100 people have died from the vaccine. Vaccines are a good idea but they arent as safe as they could be. But hey, they are FDA approved and making lots of money for their makers, until we hold them to a higher standard of safety they aren
arent going to fix the problems with them (no incentive).
So it’s in “peer reviewed ” journals, where are the double blind studies that are the standard for FDA trials?
First you have the year wrong. The proclamation was in 2000 but it was another WHO/CDC lie. There were 86 measles deaths in the year 2000. My understanding of the basis for being proclaimed eradicated was less than 100 cases in a year. Now the CDC admits that Doctors have trouble diagnosis measles. Also, I have relatives who are in the medical profession and work in clinic in Peds. My niece a RN says that Doctors who see vaccinated children with the illness they were vaccinated against will not diagnosis them properly because they don’t believe a child can catch an illness from the vaccine or after being vaccinated. If a child has the measles vaccine and develops measles within that month, even though they have the same labs as a child who isn’t vaccinated and catches measles, they will diagnosis the vaccinated child: “viral syndrome, NOS.” This was on the basis that they assumed the vaccinated kids could NOT possibly have the illness! She says as far as she knows that is standard practice. So the percentage of vaccinated children who get the diseases may in fact be much higher than what we are told. Also, many parents who don’t freak out when ever their children get sick, see the illness, know what it is and just treat the child at home. Never notifying their pediatrician and therefore the cases are not counted. So the WHO eradicated measles for political reason. The current false flag measles outbreak is a prime example of how the WHO/CDC have their paid for MSM repeat constantly that “measles have been eradicated since 2000 now makes a comeback” This is the ultimate con. If you can remember bush’s rev up to the Iraqi War, this measles outbreak and the media saturation is comparable.
Measles is a highly contagious virus capable of killing 1 in 1000 people.
There have been 9 deaths from measles since the year 2000. Source: CDC National Vital Statics Reports
Your chances of being hit by a car are 1 in 1000 but no one is advocating eliminating driving.
That 1 in 1000 is directly from the CDC. How can you tell the CDC is lying-their lips are moving.
America and Korea give more vaccine to children under 5 than any other country. American autism rate is 1 in 21, Korea’s is 1 in 38.
“Autism is NOT caused by vaccines, the original article has been retracted and the doctor’s license was removed because he MADE UP the data. Countless PEER REVIEWED articles have disproved this theory.”
The peer review studies you are referring to are CDC/HHS and pharmaceutical company paid for like the RAND study published in July which states that MMR doesn’t cause Autism and vaccines are safe & effective. Problem is with this study is, Rand, a government think tank that has done numerous studies for Merck Avesta-Ssanofi, Wyeth and other companies, bases of the study was comparing it to the Japanese version of the MMR. Problem with this is Merck’s MMR measles culture is grown on aborted fetal cells called WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts and the Japanese MMR measles cells is grown on a culture of animal cells. Apples to oranges. You would not expect to find Autism in this comparison. Also,
Japan stopped using MMR because it was linked to outbreaks of non-viral meningitis and other damaging side-effects. Doctors say there were problems with the vaccine.
Dr. Wwakefield paper has been replicated and his work confirmed by hundreds of studies. Why haven’t this been publicized-read this article. Even Julie Gerberding, former head of the CDC said vaccines cause Autism:
-CDC Chief Admits that Vaccines Trigger Autism: https://www.youtube (dot) com/watch?v=Dh-nkD5LSIg
-“No Evidence of Any Link” 96 papers that confirm a link between Autism & vaccines: http://adventuresinautism (dot) blogspot.com/2007/06/no-evidence-of-any-link.html
-100 Compiled Studies on Vaccine Dangers: activistpost (dot) com/2011/09/100-compiled-studies-on-vaccine-dangers.html
-Scientific Review of Vaccine Safety Datalink Information June 7-8, 2000 Simpsonwood Retreat Center Norcross, Georgia. http://www.thinktwice (dot) com/simpwood.pdf
-list of peer reviewed vaccine research: https://therefurbishedrogue.wordpress (dot) com/2013/05/03/my-list-of-peer-reviewed-vaccine-research/
Wakefield has done nothing wrong. The children who he was supposed to have done something to, their parents have and continue to support him to the point of putting out videos. The British Medical Society and government have never interviewed the parents on this matter. No one yet has been able to explain how Brian Deer got access to 12 children’s personal medical files without their parents permission.
Thank you Brandi! You said exactly what I wanted to say myself.
I call ASTROTURFER. LOLl
Oh my gosh trolling for dollars. How many deaths have resulted from measles in the last 10 years?? Its OK to get a real job. Seriously.
WEll, considering that over 500,000 people a year in the US used to contract measles and about 500 of them died, I’d say that vaccines are a pretty fucking good thing. Who cares if someone makes money from vaccines? A lot more money is to be made by treating people in the hospital, and the undertakers can also get their cut.
I’n curious about what this has to do with the post? It is not arguing for or against vaccines, merely talking about how PR works.
I really don’t want this to turn into a debate about vaccines. My goal here is to talk about how our news cycle works, and the role of PR specialists in it.
So in future comments, try to keep discussion on topic and not start debating about vaccines. Thanks!
Great article and the previous two comments just proved it to be correct.
Yes, Kristen’s article is talking about PR. Apparently the lessons from her PR friend were not lost on her. It’s entertaining how she keeps a safe distance from actually making the claim that we’re being outright lied to about the efficacy of the MMR vaccine or about vaccines in general while maintaining a very loosely implied position that we’re actually being lied to about vaccines.
Of one thing I can be sure. Over time we have virtually eradicated smallpox, polio, diphtheria, pertussis and others. People who argue against empirical evidence tend to look foolish and Kristen does not want to appear foolish because *surprise* she’s producing a web site aimed at giving people health and nutrition advice.
Sure, we have a corrupt health system in the US. We have reimportation laws designed to protect pharmaceutical industry profits from people buying the same drugs from foreign concerns who bought the drug from those same companies at well below what they charge US customers. We have laws prohibiting the importation of foreign equivalents and generics. The US is almost alone in the distinction of being one of the few developed nations that does not have universal health care. We exist in a political realm where insurers and providers/vendors are virtually unregulated in terms of what they can charge for goods and services and insurance cartels serve networks with whom they’ve forged agreements about reimbursement. . . which translated into your ‘network’.
That, my friends, is “freedom”. Perhaps we can talk about the PR campaign that’s evolved around that concept in the last 30 years?
None of that, however, points to a cogent argument that vaccines are bad.
Kristen, I’m sorry but this is not indicative of the level of intelligence I see elsewhere on your web site. . . or maybe it is. You plug a lot of high end stuff, after all.
+1
I am not making an argument that vaccines are bad, and I’ve never made that argument anywhere. That’s really not what this post is about either, so please don’t try to redirect that conversation that way. Thank you!
If you comment again, be sure to stay on topic. You may read my full comment policy here: https://www.foodrenegade.com/about/comments
Trolls not vaccines. Didn’t you read the post.
I’ve actually been wondering why so many people I don’t know have been posting comments about vaccines not causing autism on articles I have shared on Facebook that have *nothing to do with vaccines*, but it’s merely mentioned in a peripheral comment like, “These things that have been heavily debated in the media, like vaccines.” This makes a lot of sense…
+1 and thank god I’m not the only reader who felt this way. And if Kristen wants people to not discuss vaccines, maybe she shouldn’t have used it as clickbait. I am absolutely all for a lifestyle and diet along the lines of what she promotes, but I believe something as serious to public health as immunization should never be undermined by irresponsible blogging like this. It’s clear from the comments that many, many readers have taken this as a post to confirm their personal anti-vaccination policies, rather than–ironically–examining whether their position might be informed by PR campaigns by anti-vaccination activists themselves.
As a parent who carefully considered the available research for my own child before this current news rush on vaccines came out, and consulted several friends who are in the medical research field themselves, I can say that none of this information is new. Yes, the news media is milking it for all they can–that is what the news media does and will likely always do (see the SARS or bird flu coverage). That does not change the utterly deplorable fact that an entirely preventable outbreak of a serious disease (even if “small”, as you characterise it) has erupted due to under-vaccination. /Preventable/, if not for the misguided concerns of many, being the operative fact, which you chose to gloss over. You can rant about big pharma profits and poor health coverage all you want (and I agree on that), but that baseline fact remains. I am very upset that you feel this somehow equates with a lesson on sneaky Starbucks product placement.
Unfollowed.
As I’ve written on other comments here, I don’t mind people discussing vaccines. I just ask that they do it in a way that’s relevant to what the post is about!
If you want to talk about whether or not the vaccine headlines you’re seeing now represent a PR seeding campaign vs. just a coincidence, please do so.
If you would like to talk about what you think their PR is trying to seed (is it a long-term seed to change public opinion, or a more immediate seed to distract us from another story), please do so.
If you want to talk about whether or not it’s good or bad that they’re seeding (if they are), please do.
If you want to talk about how preventable this most recent outbreak was, there are other places online holding that discussion right now. This is not that place.
If you comment again, be sure to stay on topic. You may read my full comment policy here: https://www.foodrenegade.com/about/comments
I hope this comment helps clarify things!
The first word of the article is “Vaccine”. The main image is of a guy getting a shot. Your post is about PR but you use vaccine’s and MMR conspiracy as examples. We are not stupid, we see how you’re trying to manipulate us. You’re no better than the people you write about … I unfollowed you on Facebook and will make sure to stop visiting this site as well.
As I’ve written elsewhere in the comments, the only way to make a discussion of PR tactics relevant to a health & wellness blog is to use today’s health & wellness headlines (which happens to be about vaccines).
It is good of you to question everything you read — even if it comes from me. Kudos to you for choosing to think for yourself, even if your conclusions are ones I’d disagree with!
“Over time we have virtually eradicated smallpox, polio, diphtheria, pertussis and others. People who argue against empirical evidence tend to look foolish ”
That’s a frivolous statement if ever there was one.
The reason why people are mentioning vaccines is that the heading for this article starts with the word “Vaccines”. We all watched the sobering piece framed by that word in our minds. I’m a big believer that diet and lifestyle should be a major part of a person’s regimen when it comes to fighting disease. But I don’t regret immunizing my daughter. Polio is practically, if not completely, gone due to universal immunization, so it would be nice if these other diseases were eradicated as well.
I agree with you. I also don’t regret vaccinating my children (we selectively vaccinated, and on a more European schedule than the American one). I am thankful that diseases like Polio aren’t even vaccinated for anymore because of just how effective the vaccine was in helping to wipe out the disease!
I don’t mind people mentioning vaccines. I just ask that they do it in a way that’s relevant to what the post is about!
If you want to talk about whether or not the vaccine headlines you’re seeing now represent a PR seeding campaign vs. just a coincidence, please do so.
If you would like to talk about what you think their PR is trying to seed (is it a long-term seed to change public opinion, or a more immediate seed to distract us from another story), please do so.
If you want to talk about whether or not it’s good or bad that they’re seeding (if they are), please do.
I hope this comment helps clarify things!
Well, Kristen, maybe you should do an article on vaccines! I’m sure there are plenty out there, and I don’t look around much, but the ideal that polio is eradicated is not true. It’s now called various myelitis’s and many people live on modern versions of the iron lung… Weston A. Price latest magazine has an article about that, which can be viewed on their website, I think.
I have no desire to write about the pros and cons of various vaccines! Other bloggers are doing a much better job than I would as they try to bring sanity and clarity to the issue. 🙂
Thanks for the tip about polio. I’ll have to look into that.
Polio is nearly gone because we stopped contamination of wells with feces.
Would you mind sharing the vaccine schedule you chose? I’m always looking for more information and options! Thank you!
Thanks for the clarification. Like some examples above, I read your article and thought it was ultimately about discussing vaccines and only kinda astroturfing. I’ve reread it, and get some of your points – but even after that I still FELT like it was about vaccines. Perhaps I fell under the spell of the call to engage in the comments : “NOW, GIVEN WHAT YOU NOW KNOW ABOUT PR AND SEEDING, WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THESE HEADLINES?” … and ‘these’ headlines are all about vaccinations.
That said, I’ve worked for two very large retailers with pretty decent clout in the online space; and yes, astroturfing is real and happens. However, on the business side it has to make sense with $$$. It can be expensive to police the internet, and if it doesn’t save more money than you spend trolling, its not worth it. Paid amazon reviews (salting 5 star reviews close to the release date) on books is pretty profitable for a seller (when done right) – but the line of cause and effect is pretty specific (it doesn’t work on a lot of vague levels; it can be hard to get advertising to work. If subliminal manipulation, we could really save on marketing budget this year)
I think the onus is still on you, the author, to provide strong proof that astroturfing is being done for vaccines. How would I tell the difference between regular trolls and secretly paid trolls? To me, it looks like this is just an issue that is emotionally compelling to argue – fear mongering, I’m smarter than thou’ing, etc etc. Besides that, here are my economic questions on vaccination-related astroturfing.
How would you solve the “problem of the commons” – dozens if not hundreds of companies are involved in producing distributing vaccines, who fits the bill with hiring the internet army? (Connected with this branding, individual costs, etc).
Why would you spend money on internet comment trolling when you could spend it directly on the actual decision makers (in terms of policy)?
If what you say is true, that vaccinations are booming – why do they need a fake grassroots team of supporters? If most people vaccinate and seem to believe that the medical consensus is that vaccines prevent a lot of harm to a lot of people, is the tide of momentum changing enough to really warrant fighting it in such a petty way?
Do we have any examples of people coming out and saying, yes I got paid to astroturf for this cause? Conspiracy theories can kind of difficult to disprove – invisible unicorns suck your blood at night and inject it back right before you awaken and if anyone ever finds out about it they hypnotize them to bend their memory. Outside of implication, is there any proof?
Anyway, cool topic. Thanks!
This is an absolutely perfect example of the type of comments that paid trolls leave on the internet. Thanks for sharing!
I was thinking exactly the same thing, haha 🙂
Hmmm, I would also say that when one has to revert to profanity in an otherwise reasonable discussion his/her credibility goes out the window.
Clearly there is and has been for many years much attention paid to the psychology of the human mind and how to manipulate it.
I love the example from a popular book, of a super expensive brandy put into a boring, unattractive bottle and a cheap brandy put into a very expensive looking bottle. The people who tasted them both were consistently loving the cheap, but expensively bottled, brandy.
We, as consumers of both product and information need to be able to notice and pick through manipulative methods.
Eh. To be fair, I kinda like profane language so long as it’s not directed at people (no calling people awful names). But I also think it doesn’t really have a place when you’re trying to set a thoughtful tone or enter into dialog with people.
Ding! Here’s another paid troll. Off-topic, inaccurate, and rude.
I agree that vaccines did wonders. But to try and take a parents right away amd force them to give vaccines to their child is redic. This isn’t really an “anti-vaxx” thing its more about pro-choice and being given all ends of the spectrum to be able to make a decision if you want to get a certain vaccine. To turn this whole nations news outlets into this pitchfork style cult againt the “disgusting ppl who dont vaxx” js obviously intended for other purposes. I speak for myself when I say, Im not questioning whether vaccines are a big hoax or not or I’m not saying all the hard work and time put into the research on vaccines was all pointless. I’m saying parents who choose not to vaccinate should be left alone because in reality they’re not causing sny outbreak or walking around spreading diseases. It’s all hype.
I remember when my son was born the end of 2013, he has a older cousin, we always had to ask her mom if she got her shots recently, because we didn’t want to bring our son around a recently vaxxed pwrson. The doctor told us that. Not “watch out for those unvaxxed kids”
Correction:In the United States about 500 people got measles last year and none of them died. You are likely a troll or do not know how to access the MMWR.
^astroturfing?
Astroturfer.
I feel like I’ve mnown this for years without having a name for it. I’ve been wondering when some of the blogs I follow would address this issue. Does anyone know if any of the people who’ve been infected have already had the vaccine? Because if they have I suppose that would mean it’s ineffective right? Either way it should always be a parents/persons own right to choose what to put into their body.
Yes, a fairly large percentage was already vaccinated. I got that from naturalnews.com I understand the same thing happened with the whooping cough awhile back…same state too.
I asked that question in a “discussion” once. If the shot is so great & perfect, why are the vaccinated getting sick. I loved the answer. “Because they weren’t properly immunized” and, therefore, I wasn’t allowed to point to them as evidence that shots are not perfect and will not guarantee you 100% safety.
Ummmm – they got their shots like they were told to, and it didn’t work for them. That would make them THE evidence. Hello?
I’ve seen it. It’s ugly.
Lauren……a few things. 1) “That doctor” did not “make up” his data. His research showed a link between gut bacteria and autism and it happened to be he found remnants of the MMR vaccine still in the gut of many autistic kids. If you actually knew what you were talking about there have been recent PEER REVIEWED studies that have said the exact same thing. “That doctor” never actually claimed that vaccines cause autism. He said there was a link between gut bacteria and autism. But he got railroaded by big pharma who didn’t like the idea of anyone questioning what we are injecting into our babies. 2) 23 billion and rapidly growing is hardly a “very small portion”.
Yes, I have seen this quite a lot. I’ve been targeted very heavily in the last several weeks. Hundreds of people on my page, saying anything they can think of — horrible things — to try to drown out any reasonable conversation. It varies from the “hahaha you guys are so stupid I love to mock you all” to “you are a dangerous, murdering psychopath and we’ll do anything it takes to stop you.” Yes, they say things like that. They swear at me. They tell me I should be sterilized, have my children taken away, and so on. They search my blog and my personal Facebook page and look for anything they can possibly use against me. They take the snippets they find and twist them into a monstrous version of the truth (which barely even resembles the truth at all) and then spread them all over the internet. I often have 3 – 4 different “science” blogs responding to my posts when I write a popular, controversial one on vaccines.
They also love to plant lots of stories, some real, some fake, about families inconvenienced by “maybe” being exposed to measles, or being hurt by a serious illness or death. These, of course, were caused directly by “anti-vaxxers.” Share a story about vaccine injury and you will be told it is a coincidence…or that you are flat-out lying. I sadly have no compassion any longer for people sharing stories about illness because I often think that they are lying, and even if they are not, I know they are trying to use their story to manipulate others.
This is very, very real. Thankfully these people are over-the-top enough that most people recognize them as trolls and do not take them seriously.
My very favorite part, though, is that people are so sick of being mocked, belittled, pushed around that they’re pushing back. HARD. As it turns out, people’s minds can’t be changed through these types of overt, desperate tactics. It’s gone from subtle PR attempt to outright verbal slaughter, and many have had enough. I have. I’ve seen it even shifting a bit in mainstream media in the last few days as most “should vaccines be required” polls have come up with a solid NO, and a few reporters have actually done stories speaking against mandatory vaccination or even about vaccine injury. People are pushing back hard enough after this two-week round of multiple-daily-attacks that they are back-pedaling a bit. Hopefully we’ll stay on top of them, and keep our right to choose.
I’m not a blogger, so maybe I don’t quite get it – but if you are being harassed like that on your blog posts, why wouldn’t you moderate the comments?
Oh, I do. Those types of comments never see the light of day on the front end…but I still have to read them on the back before I delete them. And while I can (and do) ban people from my Facebook page who get nasty, many have multiple profiles and well…there are hundreds of them. :/ It usually takes a team of 3 – 4 moderators just to keep the page mostly free of them when they flock in.
I hope more people wake up and fight for our right to not be poisoned!
Besides autism is about the 154th thing on my list as the reason we dont vaccinate
wow
Let’s try to stay on topic, okay? I don’t want to turn this into a debate about vaccines. I want us to talk about how PR works and whether or not we’re seeing seeding from pharmaceutical company PR firms, and if so what are the seeding for?
Quite true. I worked for years in the PR industry. I very quickly became sceptical of “The advertising Facts” I learned to read what isn’t said rather than what is said. I to can tell when some product isn’t selling well, all of a sudden out of the woodwork comes the PR saying how well it is selling.
For example recently we have seen a multitude of press releases saying how well those e readers are selling and where the figures could be heading. I noted then that they must be past their use by date and not selling at all.
That has proved to be the case. It was a fad and people have turned them off. Done away with them. I made a particular note to see the percentage of people reading books. They out number the kindles 998 to 2 and book shops here are having up to 30% increase in sales, but the PR companies keep spilling out the hype that books are doomed in favour of devices.
The same principle is applied across the board. NEVER believe the advertising/press publicity releases. NEVER.
I totally believe that about ereaders! When I’ve released books and asked my readers which they prefer, almost all said “real books.”
I think that ship has sailed. You can’t post anything about vaccines with the current media cycle and not expect it to become about that.
If you didn’t want it to be about vaccines then you should have included it as an example in your article
PS: I Know, because I used to write some of them…
You know what, I have been wondering what happened at the beginning of the year, even my own small eastern European home country’s newspapers and bloggers started FLOODING with pro-vax headlines, exactly in the style ‘let’s ridicule them that they are so stupid and have no idea what is going on’. I thought it could be absolutely NO coincidence. Which is very disappointing. I personally am not surprised, nor could I get caught in this trap, but apparently it is very powerful and many people are. 🙁
I bet that access is Kristen Stewart. So obvious. Always getting pap-d.
Glenn Gudino & Jacquie Harris
Good for you Lauren Angeline. This not vaccinating bs is ridiculous. Probably not someone @lauren with your skills!
important topic, great info… saw a typo: it’s ‘sowing’ not ‘sewing’ in your context..
I’m curious – if the purpose of your article is to inform us about modern day PR tactics, why did you title it “Vaccines, PR, and the News Cycle”? Vaccines are just one of your examples. Seems like you threw it into the title to try to stir up extra interest.
Not discrediting what you said about modern day PR. Just don’t see why you titled it as you did.
P.S. I am sick of all those ” You exposed my child to the measles” articles on Facebook…
Because the only way a discussion of modern day PR tactics is relevant to a health and wellness blog is to tie it into to today’s health & wellness headlines.
I’m not sure I can stand to be more disillusioned and jaded than I have already become.
Gurl you know I LOVE this!
Love this! No surprises here sad to say.
OK, I read it. Feel like I just woke up in The Matrix.
And for balance, the anti vaccination movement also employs the same strategies. The money turned over to not vaccinate – money spent on alternatives – is huge. Wakefield alone has a $40 million annual turnover. The key then is to learn to research and not to make your judgement off articles that appeal to your emotional beliefs. Stick to the facts 😉
Er…Ms. Troll, I’m guessing much of what is being counted in that total is money parents are spending to try to remediate vaccine injuries in kids that they, of course, no longer vaccinate. Not vaccinating kids doesn’t cost a cent. In fact, if my kids are any example, it’s a huge money saver, because they are very seldom ill and only one has ever even needed a prescription. Keeping their immune systems in good shape with good food, vitamins, etc, is just responsible parenting, which should be happening whether or not kids are vaccinated.
Unfortunately the current PR campaign bombarding us from every perspective is not new. The Nazi regime perfected it and progressives in the US have been using the same playbook. It’s only effective on people lacking critical thinking skills, but given the state of today’s culture…I’m guessing critical thinking is no longer being taught in schools. It’s probably been replaced with classes like “The Feminist Critique Of Christianity” or “Zombies In Popular Media”.
Exactly! how about the media telling the truth that all these measles and other flu like illnesses came from all the children crossing the borders this summer not a word mentioned about that. I have know this lies and hype for over 5 years since Obama became president . Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin talk about this on their talk shows . Wake up America you are being taken over by the government and now they want to Control the internet.
My husband works in advertising, and this article is very true! Behind all this PR work is also a lot of consumer research, psychological evaluation of different groups in society taking into account race, age, socioeconomic status, location etc etc and it’s especially focused on manipulation from getting people to buy something through to swaying public opinion or even getting gamblers to bet more.
With it being even easier to reach more people via the internet and social media, the manipulation is working harder and faster than ever before. The sad thing is that the bulk of society seem happy to be manipulated. When someone says to me, did you see that news story about such and such? I say, pay less attention to what they’re telling you, and more attention to what they’re not telling you.
mind. blown. 😛
Yes!!! Finally someone is talking about something I have seen for years and years (20 to 30). I know this started with the newspapers and tv long ago. Recently my husband and I noted a news story about depression in teen aged boys and how they are high in cortisol. We happen to know that the drug RU 486 (remember the morning after pill?) has been renamed as a drug to be used for Cushings Disease. This is a rare disease that my daughter and husband have. It is caused by a pituitary tumor that causes cortisol excess, among other things. We are predicting that Pharma is getting ready to push this drug as a treatment for depression in teen aged boys. It has grave results for girls so it will not be pushed for girls IMHO.
You can bet the same exact PR nonsense is going on with Common Core. Except the anti CC activists are slowly winning. The news is manipulated, the reports and data manufactured by people who stand to make a LOT of money from CCSS being mandated and made law.
I don’t watch the news. And I avoid most commercials. Stupidity and ignorance abound however. No one wants to think for themselves any more.
Wow, Kristen, I’ve been following your blog for a long time and I’m rather in shock over this post. Sure, I accept the idea that marketers use social media to manipulate people into believing what the marketers want people to believe. And sure, big companies run huge marketing campaigns all the time – I accept that too. But I find it really strange of you to ask readers about how they feel about provaccination media coverage after presenting information about how astroturfing and other social marketing techniques work. Of course those of us who feel strongly about vaccinations are going to express our opinions since you asked us to think about the media coverage surrounding this topic. And now everyone who says they think people should get vaccines are being labelled as astroturfing trolls? WTF? Are you trying to get your readers to insult each other??
Well, as one commenter pointed out on the Facebook discussion of this post, it’s also likely that the anti-vaccine side is doing its own seeding and/or astroturfing, particularly if money’s involved. Yes, there’s a lot real grassroots support for both sides, but if someone’s comments seem to be pushing something that costs money (like natural alternatives to vaccines), then we have just as much right to question those as any other.
My hope is that we can now use this knowledge to have intelligent discussions where NO ONE insults each other. If you’ve been on my FB page at all this week, you’ve seen how very firm my anti-bullying, anti-name calling stance is.
If a key strategy of astroturfers is to confuse the discussion by attacking people or organizations using inflammatory language rather than having constructive discussion, and if my readers now know that this IS REALLY HAPPENING, then they won’t be so quick to fall into that trap in online conversations. Instead, they’ll nip all the inflammatory comments in the bud so that the ones left behind are actually informative or thought-provoking.
Thank you for this. It’s very difficult to get down to the issues, the facts and then take into account and RESPECT people’s personal choices. I have long had the opinion that most media is BS in some way and I try to limit my exposure to sites that I have personally vetted and feel that they do their due diligence, and also provide resources and research that I can read and decipher on my own.
I was unaware of the exact nature of how PR firms guide the conversations, but I am not surprised. Very uncomfortable as to the extent of it, but not surprised. I really appreciate the deeper information as to how this works, because I do think that knowledge helps people understand that it’s not just individuals expressing their personal opinions out there. There are professionals directing the conversations and attempting to obscure anything that contradicts their goals. We need to know this.
The Matrix, indeed.
EVERYONE needs to see this post, and that video is SO valuable. We are all PUPPETS if we don’t wake up and realize this is going on!
Thanks Kristen!
Kel
You’re welcome, Kel. LOVE YOU!!!
I’m very much aware of PR seeding as well as product placement and fake “candids” of celebs and politicos. The vaccine issue is another story, though I’m sure there’s seeding going on there as well. Public health departments have no choice when they’re competing with celebs who decry vaccines.
I was around for the “hushed up” measles outbreak in the bay area in 2000. [TPTB didn’t want to freak anyone out because it may hurt business tourism.] I’ve seen babies and children die of whooping cough in the past few years. I’m old enough to remember the children born to moms who had rubella or rubeola while they were pregnant. Not a pretty site. Blind and deaf with single digit IQ’s-The ones that lived were institutionalized for life because of their birth defects. I’ve also seen children with brain damage from the fevers from Measles-recently.
Loss of herd immunity is a death sentence for children who can’t be vaccinated because they have cancer or have had a transplant.
Hi Peggy,
Thank you for commenting, but I am not sure how your comment is addressing the post. Did I, at any point in the post, make a comment about the value of vaccines, their benefits or risks?
The post is about PR, how news becomes news, and how we can potentially “read” the pattern of headlines presented to us to tell a larger story. The topic of the day happens to be vaccines, but it could just as easily be some educational initiative like Common Core, or any other pattern of headlines that emerge in cycles and shape the public narrative.
It’s got nothing to do with whether or not people should opt to be vaccinated.
So, while I appreciate your thoughts about that, this really isn’t the place to have that discussion. It’d be better had on a site that’s actually taking a stance on the vaccine debate.
In future comments here, please try to stay on topic. Thanks!
I saw this when Monsanto launched it’s tv campaign to avoid gmo food labeling in Oregon in the weeks before we voted last year.
awesome article Kristen! I too only just became aware of the devious presence of paid online trolls, they literally are everywhere! I’m so glad you wrote this as it highlights some of the major problems in journalism. It’s so hard to get any real information nowadays, everywhere you look studies are backed by corporations and governments are trying to manipulate decisions that could effect our lives. My encounters with these paid trolls have been sparse but usually it’s pretty obvious who they are. But a lot of people don’t know about this and would read comments thinking these are just unbiased opinions from normal everyday people. I can already spot a few trolls in your comments for this post, I’m sure they love your awesome alternative website 🙂
Of course Astroturfing and Seeding are true. I saw it for myself in 2007/2008 when I volunteered with a Presidential campaign. Not only Astroturfing and Seeding, but outright lying – many, many times.
After the campaign was over, I was approached a couple of times to be a paid blog commenter. I refused.
If companies/politicians have the money, they are Astroturfing and Seeding. No doubt about it. It’s real and it happens all the time. They do the same thing on CNN, FOX and the networks, too.
Kate Tietje – actually, there’s a massive amount of money in anti Vax. It’s not popular – it’s click bait. Totally different.
Curious who benefits financially from antivax? Follow the money and find the lies…
Awesome!
Thank you for this.
Of course it’s true. Those people aren’t just going to sit back and just hope they get to keep their billions.
They have to spend money to reinforce what our grandmothers knew – that not vaccinating means dead kids. My grandmother lost three, and one aunt survived polio with terrible complications, but our collective memories are short.
I wonder what your point is with fact #1. The chemotherapy industry makes billions of dollars a year. Again, what, exactly, is your point? Can you please cite the points you make in #2? I’d like to read them. As for #3, measles used to be at zero, and now has more than 100 reported outbreaks. That is certainly newsworthy in my opinion. And #4, yes, there are many people who believe that when the actions of people can endanger lives of others, that is what our legal system is made for. I find it fascinating that you post an article with the premise that you want to talk about PR, when really you are pushing an anti-vaccine agenda. The irony is that you are calling your readers to pay attention to what PR firms are doing and to question everything that’s being fed to us, yet you are doing the EXACT same thing.
Daniella Muscarello Hauptmann, mind blowing. Christine Bree Webster, I think you might find this interesting.
Thank you! I really needed this post.
Karl
Yes, Kristen’s article is talking about PR. Apparently the lessons from her PR friend were not lost on her. It’s entertaining how she keeps a safe distance from actually making the claim that we’re being outright lied to about the efficacy of the MMR vaccine or about vaccines in general while maintaining a very loosely implied position that we’re actually being lied to about vaccines.
Of one thing I can be sure. Over time we have virtually eradicated smallpox, polio, diphtheria, pertussis and others. People who argue against empirical evidence tend to look foolish and Kristen does not want to appear foolish because *surprise* she’s producing a web site aimed at giving people health and nutrition advice.
Sure, we have a corrupt health system in the US. We have reimportation laws designed to protect pharmaceutical industry profits from people buying the same drugs from foreign concerns who bought the drug from those same companies at well below what they charge US customers. We have laws prohibiting the importation of foreign equivalents and generics. The US is almost alone in the distinction of being one of the few developed nations that does not have universal health care. We exist in a political realm where insurers and providers/vendors are virtually unregulated in terms of what they can charge for goods and services and insurance cartels serve networks with whom they’ve forged agreements about reimbursement. . . which translated into your ‘network’.
That, my friends, is “freedom”. Perhaps we can talk about the PR campaign that’s evolved around that concept in the last 30 years?
None of that, however, points to a cogent argument that vaccines are bad.
Kristen, I’m sorry but this is not indicative of the level of intelligence I see elsewhere on your web site. . . or maybe it is. You plug a lot of high end stuff, after all.
Sage reply scottie
In Australia, health care is free, drugs can be supplied generically, lots of prescribed drugs are heavily subsidised by the government. Private health care is a choice if you want to open up your choices and preferences – it is not a necessity.
Pensioners and health card holders pay a capped price for medicine. ($2.50 or $5 – can’t remember)
Our system is also corruptible and at times corrupted by greedy individuals and corporate players but seems it might be a shade better than the USA.
If you get sick, maybe you should emigrate to Australia or UK…
Interesting read. All due respect, I think many are benefiting by increasing exposure via joining in on this controversy. Want to get a lot of comments, new followers, etc, post about vaccines b/c everyone is losing their mind about it. A bit opportunistic, IMO.
I think we might be seeing a fine example of your post right here.
Wishful thinking! Every time I even mention the word “vaccines,” I lose hundreds of followers! Everyone’s sick of this debate. Comments turn into a war zone. And everyone is so emotional they misinterpret both myself and everyone else, so they unfollow me in a huff.
You have a new follower 🙂
Have you read the Overton Window? I think you’d like it. The second book was called The Eye of Moloch.
Real information with a fictional,thrilling story line of how these pr tactics are used to control everything. From the food we eat, to how we dress, to who we trust.
I will read it! Thanks for the recommendation. I’m probably one of the most well-read people I know (to the tune of 5-10 books per week) and gobble up recommendations like this.
Ooooh. I so want to read this now!!
AstroTurf v’s gas lighting. I see little difference
Very interesting article, thanks for sharing.
Food Renegade—I enjoy following you and reading about food and health. Some great information and ideas. (We are like minded in many ways, I feel.) However, medical decisions should be discussed between a parent and their child’s provider. I feel like this only adds fuel to the fire and more fear into the mix. I’m a pro-vaxxer, a nurse and a mom. Parents—go talk to your health care providers. Please, please stop making health care decisions based off of someone’s opinion. We all want what’s best for our families.
Interesting that you would mention we should check with medical professionals regarding making decisions About health choices such as vaccinating or not, I asked both Nurses and Doctors what ingredients were in a particular vaccine, none of them had a clue!! Ridiculous!
Which is dumb since they have the vaccines in their office and the vaccine inserts.
All parents should know about vaccine inserts!
I was already pretty aware but I think many people who fail to do any research off the main grid are often like little lemmings following the lies being fed them right off the cliff to their and sometimes others demise. Would not be at all surprised if the vaccine companies initiated the breakout to push their product.
Hi. Vaccines are incredebly important in almost erradicating some terrible diseases. I don’t think that what ever I wrote would be able to sway anyone from ‘their side’ of the argument.
I just hope your son or daughter does not suffer a terrible preventable disease. I also hope you are lucky not not give birth to a baby with birth defects.
Unvaccinated kids can avoid contracting a nasty disease when the community around them are vaccinated. As the community becomes less and less vaccinated, the risks become much higher.
Cheers,
Gra
And people can stop dying in car accidents by not driving too!!
It’s funny that all of the contradictory comments on this post have nothing to do with the actual content of this article, and the people who wrote them don’t seem interested in any kind of response to their initial comment.
BINGO. Now that we know that this is a REAL THING, it will help us all police our online conversations better. If we see bits of the pattern emerging — derailing discussions with off-topic or inflammatory comments, attacking people rather than ideas, establishing authority and belittling those who question authority, etc, we are now empowered to immediately nip that behavior in the bud instead of falling for it.
Our conversations will BE SO MUCH MORE PRODUCTIVE.
So are you afraid to take a stand on vaccines? Or you’re not sure where you stand?
My “stand” is and has always been to fight the idea of mandatory vaccines, but that’s fighting for my neighbor’s freedom to choose which medical procedures/treatments they want.
Personally, I’m fully vaccinated, and my kids have been selectively vaccinated on a schedule much more like a European one than the American one. But I would never presume to force others vaccinate.
My goal is and has always been to pass on information that I find compelling so that others can read it, investigate it for themselves, and generally be more informed. It’s about empowerment, and assumes that my readers have integrity and intelligence.
On the one hand it can be expressed as a freedom issue. On the other hand it’s a public health issue. Both cases are academic. Usually it’s more complex mix of circumstances that drive the choice. What if it were smallpox instead of measles?
In my opinion the public health concern outweighs personal freedom. People will disagree with me. All I can say is that I hope those people do not have to regret their choice.
Luisa Turnbull and Jeff Turnbull did you see this?
Wow, I really, really needed to read this article. It makes so much sense (and makes so much MAKE sense). Thanks so much for sharing, Kristen. This has forever changed the way I will assess everything I read on the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDb0ZS3vB9g
Deirdre, this might blow your mind like it did mine!
Bravo!!! I wanted to share my commentary that I posted when I shared this article on my Facebook page tonight:
Guys, we are living in an age where a computer keyboard can shape the world, so if you believe in freedom and democracy, BEWARE and SPEAK UP! It’s time to stop being MANIPULATED!
For months I have battled about writing on topics I’m most passionate about in holistic health because of the backlash from all the “mean people” out there who say such atrocious things. I can’t even handle reading their comments before deleting them. I am a STRONG woman, never afraid to share my opinion. Yet I feel like such a wimp- not even strong enough to hit “delete” on a nasty comment- so I avoid writing the article and providing my readers with important information I believe they need. But this article by Food Renegade is making me want to change my tune! (Link to the article in the first comment.)
My friends and I often talk about how horrible people are willing to be behind their computer screens, as I’m sure many of you have said before as well. Because of all these “mean people” we swear off social media and reading blogs. But what if there aren’t so many atrocious people out there writing these things on blogs and Facebook pages? What if we can restore some of our faith in humanity and our collective ability to discuss things with respect for each other?
In this article, what Kristen uncovers isn’t a total surprise to me, but it has empowered me to not let those rude and insulting comments get to me so much. I believe that what this article uncovers is very true (visit former CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson’s site for more evidence). After reading this, I’m starting to have a restored faith in REAL PEOPLE who read my blog and social media pages. But I am more frustrated (eh, insert a more harsh word) for companies and organizations that have hired PR employees to viciously attack the passionate moms, dads and REAL people who are publishing the only real investigative journalism left on the Internet, via their blogs and websites. Not to mention the professionals with medical degrees and multiple doctorate degrees who are called “quacks” and “pseudo…whatevers” or should “have their licenses revoked” just because they question the status quo.
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IS THAT THESE PAID PR EMPLOYEES WHO SPREAD CRUELTY AND VICIOUS PERSONAL ATTACKS ALL OVER THE INTERNET HAVE TAUGHT “REAL PEOPLE” THAT IT’S OKAY TO ACT LIKE THAT ONLINE, SO THE PROBLEM PERPETUATES AND PEOPLE LEARN TO BE NASTY.
I don’t want to be afraid anymore because I believe that the truth will prevail and nice, intelligent people can interact with each other about real issues once again as we learn to recognize and ignore the “trolls”. But people like you and me who have an educated and intelligent point of view need to keep fighting against this money-driven world that is trying to manipulate our minds and perspectives. I’m all for free market business, but not for corruption, manipulation or over-reaching government power! This is America! Don’t let us become like the other nations in history who became straight-up EVIL because they eliminated free speech, freedom of the press, and every other freedom by slowly brainwashing their citizens out of critical thinking and intelligent debate. Don’t back down on your beliefs just because some paid intern strategically tried to plant doubt into your mind by saying something cruel. Fight the trolls!
I am so thankful to read your response! This is really what I am hoping for, too. I wash hoping that by sharing this, I’ve educate our community enough so that we can spot the astroturfing and steer the conversation back to something more fruitful.
I also am fascinated by the idea of being able to “read” the patterns of headlines as they come and go in Push/Pull news cycles. Because surely the patterns MEAN something! And if we know what’s being seeded, we can be better equipped to anticipate future movements with the various “big industries” we fight (like biotech agriculture).
So what I’m looking at when I see these headlines (coming on the heels of a flood of bad PR and coupled with the legislation that’s been introduced in so many states ALL WITHIN THE LAST FEW WEEKS) is a possible pattern that’s attempting to seed for a federal law a year or two down the line that requires mandatory vaccinations for children.
Maybe that’s reaching. Maybe it’s something more immediately market driven. That bad last quarter affected Merck’s bottom line, so maybe the flurry vaccine headlines is meant to boost sales this quarter.
Either way, isn’t it interesting to have our eyes opened enough to see what’s happening? And to NOT feel like “nutjobs” or “conspiracy theorists” but instead intelligent people making intelligent observations about PR strategy?
I, too, have noticed this constant bombardment of vaccination propaganda, from Ebola, to the flu, to measles, is very conveniently taking place when just about all the state legislatures are in session. Even my state legislature, which is only in session for 90 days every OTHER year, is meeting right now.
I LOVE THIS. The whole point of learning about seeding (to me) is so that we can identify patterns like these now, and then ask ourselves what they mean. It’s much more “Big Picture.”
This is exactly why I do not follow the ‘News’ with anything beyond fascination. CNN is sponsored by Merck; every measles story they tell is aimed at selling their sponsor’s product. (100 cases in a country of 370,000,000 is barely a story at all!)
Not that this is only about vaccines.
Rachel.
So true this whole debate is crazy. We should have the right to choose almost anything else in this country why should this be different
Elisha R Larsen. Interesting.
I too do not wish to get into another vitriolic debate about vaccines. I am not an immunologist so I am not qualified to substantiate my beliefs on either side of that debate. However Kate, I want to thank you for this fabulous post which exactly calls out the sinking feelings I have when hearing the endlessly recycled news reports about vaccines. “Seeding” I hear the same phrases over and over and the term “anti-vaxxers” has a punch similar to calling someone a racist or a Nazi. There is never any nuance or depth to the news reports, as if the issue was so clearly between good and evil that one should be institutionalized for questioning vaccine safety. It MAY be that we MUST vaccinate if we want to do what is best for the whole of earths people. However, my dear educated friends, exactly how often do you see corporate policy truly directed towards the health, well-being, equality and safety of the environment and the community at large?
Great post.
One would think that just reading the inserts that come with the vaccines would drive most people away.
Fear, uncertainty , doubt, and distract , (FUDD) are basic sales techniques taught to many aspiring professionals. It works and these corporations use it.
Not to mention dozens of other methods. It would a good idea to pick just about any sales training book found at your local mainline book store. Read it and you will see how prevalent the psychology of the process is in our society. From commercials to marketing displays to news and politics.
The appeal to the human emotion is quit remarkable.
If we are going to win the fight on any of the issues we value, we need to be truthfully persuasive.
We can be right and happy.
The really hard thing is that I’d like to be able to have my opinion, share it, and not get in trouble with really opinionated friends, in my case. I DID venture into the medical world as an RN for a few years though my mom and her mom were more of the ‘natural’ persuasion. I have a nurse friend who is taking my opinions personally as well as a dietician friend and one with a lot of education in — education. I don’t always agree with my friends’ positions, either, but usually just don’t bother commenting on them. If I really feel I need to say something, I generally do my own post, a few days later, with my own opinion and no one else referenced. Others feel completely free to come on my page, say something they say is meant to be civil but then say not to believe everything on the internet (I’m slightly past 50 — this has been in my DNA for longer than the internet has been around). It IS insulting, though I try to give them the benefit of the doubt that they don’t totally mean to be.
I feel this current debate (and pretty much all the others) is meant to divide us. It’s doing a pretty good job. Certain ideas are accepted and, if you agree, you’re relatively safe. If you think differently (even from your friends) you’re pigeonholed as a crackpot. They come on my page, well-meaning, to make sure I don’t lead others astray by thinking differently out loud.
I had to laugh at another food post today about cholesterol (after 40 years it might not be as bad as they thought) — talking about how even the revered ‘double-blind’ studies come down on both sides of issues.
Thanks for sharing Sharyl Atkisson’s talk! She has learned, first-hand, that you’re not supposed to ask too many questions or there will be consequences. Thanks, too, for the entire article on astroturfing. I’d never heard of it until people on my side a few years ago were accused of it! I see it all the time but this post is quite helpful in spotting even more!
Really interesting, thanks for sharing.
So Orwellian!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this.
I think vaccines are pretty awesome as a whole, but there’s no denying the money to be made from them. And it’s disturbing that they are basically excluded from lawsuits. I am pro-vaccination, but always a skeptic. The information about other drugs is even more disturbing to me. They have really gone haywire and I don’t believe for a minute that pharmaceutical companies actually care about our health and well being.
Great article. Thank you.
Great article. Thank you.
I had to get a tetanus shot after stepping on a huge roofing nail and only after I got it did they tell me it was TDaP. Now my arm hurts like heck and I’ve been tired and grumpy!! I hate vaccines!
Fantastic article. Thank you.
Very informative, scary too.
I’m so glad you wrote this! I have wondered about this myself before when I have looked up natural remedies or recipes that I know work for our family, but they are nowhere online! I’m so glad to see these facts and, as I’m a bit of a chicken when it comes to rippling the waters about things, I already feel braver knowing that some of those mean commenters are actually getting paid to be mean and they prob don’t have a real passion about the topic even!
Wow. I think I knew it on some level, but have never really thought about it.. And I tried to catch some astroturfers on Mommypotamus’s FB, but they’re doing a rather good job.. not that easy to spot, but with that post in mind, I’ll look at comments with a more critical look from now on:) Thank you for the post, an eye-opener for sure!
It’s also helpful that she’s doing a bang up job moderating that discussion. She’s been on Facebook for hours on end over the past couple days deleting comments and banning commenters who are violating her comment policy (which expressly said: avoid inflammatory language). It’s harder to astroturf if you have to be polite!
Seriously? You hate vaccines? How about you hate not having Polio? Or tetanus? Everyone needs to stop basing decisions on FB and do real research.
Theresa Stevens
I have no doubt that the media manipulate public perception about just about everything. The way to get around this is to learn how to do your research. It is also important to be skeptical of everyone, including those who share your convictions. For example, I acknowledge that Food Renegade is giving lip service claiming to want to talk only about PR tactics and results, but if that was the case, she wouldn’t have mentioned vaccines in particular. “Vaccines” wouldn’t be the first word in her title. How is a discussion of vaccines now not relevant to the topic?Furthermore, she benefits from high engagement with her website resulting from people’s current interest in this topic.. Notice all of those advertisements on her page? Yeah, they pay her.
It is disturbing that so many people have come to believe ONE medical research article, which equated correlation to causation (statistical no-no #1), and has since been retracted. ONE article, which was made popular by Jenny McCarthy, is believed as a so-called whistleblower, over the thousands of medical professionals, scientists and university students who are rallying to inform the public about the public health dangers associated with refusing vaccination. And no, the vast majority of those people speaking out against anti-vaxers are not being paid. They simply have a concern for public health, just as anti-vaxers do.
Yes, medical students and doctors get kick-backs from big pharma, but do you really think that so many people in the world are so cold and heartless that they would agree to endanger children for any amount of money? If yes, it is a very sad and dark work in which you live.
Please, if you are going to back a cause, learn to do basic statistical analysis, learn to research the background of researchers, and recognize that the scientific method, including peer review and retractions of papers considered not to have followed basic scienfitic rigour, are in place for the protection of scientific integrity, not for the protection of big pharma. With regards to vaccines in particular, also try looking into the history of vaccination, the many proofs and scientific checkpoints that have been passed to allow vaccination on a large scale, and realize that even after FDA approval, doctors are required to report adverse affects of any medication, which provide data to recognize possible correlations (but not necessarily causation! We could just as easily relate the rise in use of refridgerators to the rise in rates of autism, it doesn’t mean either causes the other). Lastly, look into the history of the diseases for which these vaccines provide protection. These are not diseases we want to see ravaging our population again. We are privileged to receive these vaccines in North America. There are people in other parts of the world that would beg to be vaccinated.
Call me an astro-turfer, or whatever. I’m just a concerned citizen who happens to study paleopathology and the history of disease and medicine. Yes, I’m pointing that out because it is relevant to this discussion and my depth of knowledge on this topic, not because I am trying to exert pressure or deem myself superior. But just as Food Renegade has pointed out, it is necessary to know your sources.
I’m so dissapointed that you are promoting the antivaxx propaganda. Keep your kids locked away because I don’t want mine to die from polio, measles, pertussis etc thanks and good luck
According to my new PR friend, astroturfers are also taught to use psychologically jarring words and turn arguments against people rather than ideas and facts. So they’ll throw out inflammatory language like “quack,” “lies,” “conspiracy,” and “psuedo.”
Not only will they use this highly-charged emotional language, they’ll attempt to distract readers by derailing conversations and straying off-topic to do so.”
Hmmm. Coincidence? I think not.
Hmmm.
An interesting post that will get drowned out by the strawman – vaccines- designed to pull attention away from the methods used by the PR and media industry; despite being asked to stay ‘on topic’.
People must stay blind and confused – yet given the feeling they are somehow empowered to make their own choices. Well, maybe they can choose vanilla or strawberry but it has to be ice cream. They live – a great John Carpenter film shows this quite well.
Keep up the good work.
Crystal Lindsey Staggs, interesting.
Have you read C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength? If you haven’t, you absolutely should. It will make everything, ever that is happening make sense.
I’m a professional historian who used to work for a Nazi Germany historian, so I’m always aware of the former Nazi conglomerations that now exist in our present day. I always knew Bayer was one of those companies, and I was speechless sitting in the OBGYN’s office seeing the Bayer label on all contraceptive advertisements. I guess it makes sense that a company founded in eugenics would now have a hand in contraceptives and sterilization. Ugh.
My family has been trying more and more to live in our present life — less on Facebook, watching news, reading papers — but interacting with our friends and neighbors, supporting our local government and local activities. We’ve had a much more peaceful life. It’s very Chesterton, Lewis, Tolkien esque 😉
The PR tactics/paid trolls and etc are one thing, another aspect is the frightening thought- if, as is the case, nearly all prominent news media outlets and publications have jjumped on this bandwagon, who is behind it all, controlling them, and what other strings are being pulled.
Brilliant!
Sooo- you’re saying we’re being prepped for a huge vaccine revolution? Say mandatory vaccines or other legislation that takes away more of our dwindling rights and they want to Jedi mind trick the public into not pushing back?
This made me think of the Overton Window Theory. Measles outbreak in the Amish community: hardly any PR. measles at Disney: the media is all over it; throwing it in our faces, causing fear and panic; new proposed legislation limiting vaccine expemptions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Thank you!!! I’m sharing this information!!!
Spot on!!
It isn’t really educating people about vaccines, their risks, and the diseases the prevent, or even how you might prevent them otherwise if you’re just pointing the finger at “the machine” for spinning the story to their monetary advantage. That shouldn’t be news to anyone. In the grand scheme of things, you’re only going to be manipulated if you let people manipulate you. “Down the rabbit hole”, oh please.
That ted-x talk video was awesome. Never looking at Wikipedia again.
Haha, some astroturf comments here. Yes, clearly it was happening but it is great to get the down low on how/why. Most people don’t know this, so it’s important to explain it all! Thanks 🙂
Excellent article. Really gives you something to think about. I was kinda feeling a little uneasy that this whole vaccine issue was going to lead to the states wanting to take away our rights to choose whether or not we vaccinate our kids. Any time there is a lot of fear going around about a particular subject I get a little uneasy. A fact I can’t seem to get away from is that during that week long period that the measles was going around Disneyland they had hundreds of thousands of people there. If my reading was correct, they actually had to shut the park down because they met their max capacity. So let’s just say there was 100-125 thousand people there on any given day for a week long period. Only 34 or 35 people actually got it from exposure to Disneyland (not secondary exposure). That’s really a small percentage for such a dangerous disease that’s “very contagious and stays in the air for up to two hours”. Also, I’ve never read if they tracked down the carrier and whether or not they were vaccinated or what the deal was….
Either way, this post isn’t coming from a parent who is against vaccines or whose kids are unvaccinated. I just don’t like having the government over involved in my life and I fear that’s where we are headed with this.
Wow. Wow. Wow. Thank you so much for bringing this issue to light! Since this (literally) insane measles and vaccine hysteria began I’ve felt like the world’s completely gone mad and lost all critical thinking ability. How is it possible for a society as a whole to be so willfully gullible? This fills in the blank as to why. I knew that the media was “bought”, as well as the healthcare industry (and politicians), but I had no idea how far “the rabbit hole” actually goes. What I wonder though, is how all these astroturfers and trolls and other paid PR guys sleep at night, and if they REALLY want to help create the world they are helping to shape? They KNOW they are pushing manipulative information and that it is changing the world–the same world their children and grandchildren will be born into. They must be getting paid extremely well, and maybe they aren’t planning on having children of their own….
Those of us advocating for vaccine CHOICE have known about these practices for quite some time. We see the “trolls” all over the place. Thank you for lending some credibility to the issue, b/c you know, anything we say is just “those crazy anit-vaxxers spewing conspiracy theories again.”
The article title was seeded–with ‘what you should know about….Vaccines…’. Which is what drew me in. Good job, Kristen! I do subscribe to the theory that what we see in the news is there because someone wants us to see it and take a position. Sides are demonized no matter which position you hold. I do believe in vaccines–the ones which have been around for a long time. That opinion aside, I try to do my research, speak with doctors who are friends, speak with my researcher former college roommate and gather my own thoughts because all that we read has been put out there to persuade for one reason or another. Recently my MIL asked me what my thoughts were on Michael Moore’s ‘inflammatory comments’ regarding the American Sniper movie. I said “I do not even think about him. It’s a PR ploy to get his name in the news bc he hasn’t been relevant since Bowling for Columbine. What he’s doing is no different than a celebrity calling the paparazzi to let them know what restaurant they will be at tonight and getting out of the limo with no underwear on. It’s all just a ploy.” I appreciate the nutritional news from this site and that Kristen is trying to open our eyes–even a little bit–to how the media works, she has done the same thing by including ‘vaccines’ in the subject line of her email. And, clearly it worked. I have not seen so many comments on many of her blog posts.
Eh. You should check out my post on Why I’m Not Vegan. Anything like this stirs up more comments than usual. 🙂
It doesn’t bother me that the government is limiting exemptions for vaccines. Vaccination is a social obligation and a public health issue. We would expect the government to step in in the incidence of an outbreak but become offended by legislation requiring vaccinations that can prevent outbreaks to begin with. I’m not condoning media hype causing increased fear but people should be able to educate themselves more effectively with the wealth of resources the Internet provides. Credible objective resources are available and personal accountability needs to be adopted as the norm. You can even find information on how to research and recognize a credible study and evidence based practice
Un-liking your page.
Everyone is screaming it’s the drug companies making money off of vaccines. You know what makes drug companies a hell of a lot more money than vaccines? SICK PEOPLE. Vaccines were not a scheme from big pharma. They were invented by real scientists. Actually, by eastern medicine long before Edward Jenner or Louis Pasteur.
Fear monger. Unliking.
That ironic moment when you get unliked and called a fear monger for sharing an article that highlights how the media is fear mongering… LOL
People just don’t like to do their own research. They like easy answers and are so used to living in fear because of social media that seem to automatically gravitate towards the negative and the shocking.
Kevin Hanson
very sad!!!
Tristan Wellings
I know this is a particularly hot topic for you. Thought you might like the opportunity 🙂
Elle Gallant mind blown
It’s not that it’s a hot topic, it’s that people are freaking out about what’s in vaccines and following a mindless bandwagon full of psychological fallacies and they think they’re right.
I have been feeling this BIG TIME about media reporting for the past 2 years or so. All of a sudden something is a HUGE deal, for about 2-3 weeks, maybe 4. Then it pretty much disappears from discussion.
Kara, we were talking about this the other day in C. S. Lewis book, “That Hideous Strength”
Loved this, thank you for posting it!
This sort of thing is used in most of the polarizing issues we are subjected to…gender, racial, religious, political… there are regular trolls that simply enjoy enflaming arguments as well as this more organized form of manipulation.
Excellent! I’ve been wanting to see it all put together like that for a long time, because I’ve suspected something similar for many years. Thank you for sharing this article.
Kristen Manning Welch, did you read this article? It’s fascinating…but I already “caught on” with the news media a long time ago. I just had to open my eyes.
Thank you for the article. I’d been thinking along these lines lately but didn’t even know how to articulate or where to turn to research PR. What got me thinking about it a few weeks ago is that there is currently a commercial on with a little girl in the doctor’s office saying she isn’t sick. She says it several times and then the doctor confirms she’s not sick. Rest of the commercial is praise for the visit to the doctors for preventive care. A light bulb went off for me. When my children were little the push was for constant well child visits. I realized that overall they were for nothing more than for them to be checking me out as a parent or to get money from insurance or my pocket.. I’m told that some visits actually catch something without the patient being pre-aware of the problem, but I wonder how many? I’ve never known anyone personally for this. It’s always the patient that has a clue and brings it up seeking help. So commercials like I mentione seem to just be a push for more visits to the doctors and more money out of the pocket.
Seriously awesome article. Thank you so much for sharing this information!
I have been saying the same thing (Truman Show)!
Thank you!
I went to school for marketing and actually enjoy reading up on it still. So none of these tactics were a surprise to me. I’ve been telling my family about the paid trolls for ages. I also often point out the “framing” of a news story or blog post. Even some of the smartest people I know tend to be naive sometimes.
I know this article is mostly about the manipulation that is happening on the internet and news media but I can’t help but to comment on the constant bombardment and manipulation that goes on in every TV series or sitcom I watch. Every social issue that happens to be anywhere ends up in my favorite TV show… I really hate that I can’t even just watch a simple sitcom without being manipulated one way or another.
I’ve used The Truman Show reference several time this week.
Do you think it is a coincidence that the media is twisting and turning everyone against those who choose not to vaccinate? USA Today boldly published an article suggesting parents who don’t vaccinate their children be jailed.Parents of children who have had cancer or have cancer on news channels suggesting schools not allow children to attend who haven’t been vaccinated. Some states are introducing bills to further limit vaccine exemptions. If the public yields to not having any exemptions for vaccines, that is one freedom taken away. The same thing is being done with guns. All the publicity on how bad guns are. Do you enjoy your freedom of drinking raw milk? This is illegal in some states to purchase raw milk for legal consumption, but no one here bats an eyelash about ways to get around that. Put parents who don’t vaccinate in jail seriously? keep there kids out of public schools? Confine them to their homes because society thinks they are diseased? Just because someone has a vaccine does not make them healthy or disease free. Spend time money and resources to put parents in jail? So all those who are pro vaccine think people should not have the freedom to choose for themselves? You use the its for your own good and safety. Will everyone say the same when the govt comes to take away guns? What other freedoms would you like to take away? Can no one think for themselves anymore? Is everyone this brainwashed from the media? Vaccines are MANDATORY I for one would like a choice to vaccinate or not vaccinate without having to fill out paperwork. I have a friend who didn’t vaccinate and she had to fill out mountains of papperwork, get it notarized etc when she enrolled her kids in school. She was treated like a second class citizen, he dr treated her like a second class citizen, even her family ridicules her. No wonder people submit, no way would I go through that. To me that is not medical freedom.
The suggestion the any reputable PR firm has hundreds of staff dedicated to astro turfing is ridiculous. I work at a very large firm with some of the worlds biggest Pharma clients and don’t know a single colleague at my firm or others that would sign off on an AstroTurf campaign. It was an issue in the industry early on during the rise of social media but there are no reputable firms that would engage in the practice.
The issue about seeding a story also seeks to lie at the feet of lazy media outlets versus an issue with PR.
Watch “The Century Of Self.” I think that you can find it on Vimeo. It talks a lot about it and how far it dates back.
Rebecca Tomezak very on topic! Make sure you read the whole thing and listen to the TED talk x
Bottom line… Whether you’re pro-vaccine, anti-vaccine, or fall somewhere in the middle, the questions you need to ask yourselves are as follows: Do you want to live in a world, where you cannot freely refuse a medical procedure that carries risk of injury or death? I’m not questioning your comfort level with today’s vaccine schedule, because today’s vaccine schedule will change. New vaccines and additional doses are added all the time. children today receive as many as 49 doses of 14 vaccines before they reach age six, which is roughly 12 times higher than the number of vaccines administered to children back in 1940. With more than 220 new vaccines in the developmental pipeline for children and adults…and no end in sight..the question you must ask yourself is ARE YOU CERTAIN you will be 100% comfortable with vaccines that are added to the mandated list in the future? If you say that yes, you’re comfortable, then you’re either a) not expecting to be a parent or grandparent, b) don’t have to worry about it because your kids are grown and out of the house, or c) lying to prove a point. No critical thinker, no honest person, would ever sign off on the sight-unseen vaccine schedule of the future. And yet that’s what you’re doing when you condemn the people who are fighting for your right to refuse. YOU have the right to refuse, should you ever choose to use it, because the very “anti-vaccine” people you demonize have been fighting for us all. Right now, the burden of “herd immunity” falls on small children, but that is changing. Vaccine manufacturers see an untapped market in adult vaccines and are coming for you next. What will you do if your state, your employer, or your insurance company forces you to get a vaccine that you simply don’t want? It hasn’t happened to you yet, but if the right to refuse is eroded, it will happen to you sooner than you might think. Who then will you turn to? Your legislators who get campaign donations from pharmaceutical companies? The CDC that has former pharma executives sitting on the board? Who will you turn to if you ever want to say no? There will be no one. Once we enter the slippery slope of removing and individual’s right to refuse medical procedures that carry a risk of injury or death, once we remove an individual’s right to speak for him/herself and his/her children, we open ourselves up to an insidious new era, where other drugs and other procedures can be mandated. I heard (on NPR, interestingly enough) that there are people who want to test for a gene marker that’s been found in mass shooters in the hopes that they can put the carriers of that gene on medications in early childhood. Sounds great, right? But many of us carry genes that will never be expressed. You could be a carrier of that gene. Or your child could be a carrier. So if we follow the “for the greater good” mentality behind vaccines (or the Nazi’s “for the greater good” mentality behind eugenics (breeding out illness), we are looking at forcing people who may never express a sociopathic gene to take antipsychotics, just in case. Because that’s what forced vaccination does. It asks children who may never come into contact with a particular virus to accept a vaccine just in case. And that’s what eugenics was all about. It sterilizes people who can pass on a genetic disease just in case. Forced vaccination is a human rights violation, and to support it when you know that the government’s own Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System exists and lists people who have died as a result of vaccines is unethical at best, sociopathic at worst. The ethical thing to do is to allow people their right to refuse and leave it up to doctors and big pharma (who have marketing budgets larger than the GDP of some countries) to do a better job of convincing parents that vaccines are safe. We can start by reversing the law that grants vaccine manufacturers total immunity from vaccine injury lawsuits. Because as it stands, you can’t sue a vaccine manufacturer if your child is injured or killed by a vaccine, even in cases where they could’ve made a safer vaccine and chose not to or when they failed to recall a contaminated lot# in a timely manner. Think about that. You can’t sue the manufacturer. That immunity from liability does more to shake parents’ confidence in vaccines than anything else out there.” Author unkown. It is getting shared all over on other sites and felt it brought some insight maybe not thought about.
This is why we don’t have cable….it helps a lot
Thanks for sharing. The PR industry has been helping keep the public uninformed and marginalized for over a century. Noam Chomsky has written (Manufacturing Consent – 1992) and lectured extensively on the history and current events of this topic for decades. I mostly agree with you however I think some people are genuine in their comments, blogs, etc. These folks are simply the indoctrinated and the result of PR/Corp Media/State. Not questioning or critically thinking but unconciously defending the dogma and ‘towing the line’ of an entrenched, orthodox institution. With no little involvement from aforementioned astroturf trolls. A vicious cycle. But it can be broken.
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1992—-02.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET_at6tPlsE
“Public relations” is the nice term for propaganda.
This has been going on for some time now.
Google Edward Bernays Propaganda pdf.
Edward Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, and is considered “the father of public relations”.
From his Wiki page: Due to negative implications surrounding the word propaganda because of its use by the Germans in World War I, he promoted the term “Public Relations”. According to the BBC interview with Bernays’s daughter Anne, Bernays felt that the public’s democratic judgment was “not to be relied upon” and he feared that “they [the American public] could very easily vote for the wrong man or want the wrong thing, so that they had to be guided from above.”
It’s simple to understand the truth.
Google who owns the banks, media, pharmaceuticals etc. Then read John 8:44
I think Andrew Carrington Hitchcock’s book does a good job at explaining this.
Something as equally depressing as all of this is the fact everyone seems to be posting from FB.
http://www.tradyouth.org/2015/02/facebook-promoting-queer-sado-masochistic-bestiality/
Reading Libido Dominandi: Sexual Revolution and Political Control by E. Michael Jones to understand this topic on a whole new level.
Thanks for sharing. This is in line with critical thinking, and I needed to hear it : )
Geez. Is nothing truly real or unbiased anymore? The person with the biggest wallet gets to yell the loudest?
Thanks for sharing this Kelly…. amazing to lift up the hood and see how things really work.
“MaMa!”
I think this media frenzy is all orchestrated by PR firms that were waiting for the right timing of some cluster outbreaks. It is even likely that the drug manufacturers themselves knew that the measles vaccine isn’t effective enough and had this media frenzy and talking points planned.
Ashley Nicole
Getting my Master’s in Strategic Communication right now and I’m thrilled this is being discussed. Freedoms come with a lot of rights. Let’s use our brains and not emotions to find the Truth of situations. Great article! Bravo!
I may ramble a little here…
It’s also dangerous to assume that someone is a “paid troll”. If someone posts a comment going against the consensus of the readers, they’re either uninformed, an idiot, or being paid to post. If that same someone posts a comment affirming the consensus, then they’re “100% right”, or making a good point. Here’s an example.
Once someone on this site posted a comment speaking positively of Monsanto. Commentors assumed this person was being paid to post. What they refused to take into account was a.) they included a spam link for something related to an online game and b.) the comment actually made little sense when taken into context. The more likely scenario was that it was a non english speaker who saw the name Monsanto in the article and posted it into a pre written comment that was meant to speak positively of whatever website they were on. When I tried to explain this the response was something like, “No, they’re working for Monsanto!” I gave up on that one.
Here I see people calling out others as being “paid trolls” for disagreeing with the article. I’ll say that it makes sense that PR firms would pay people to post on websites for their clients. With the internet today it would probably be considered dumb not to. But we shouldn’t go on witch hunts and calling people out with little to no evidence. Instead, either respond with a coherent, thought out counter argument, further research the topic for yourself, or ignore it. And at the end of it move on. There will always be someone out there to argue pretty much anything with you. And yes, they will use “psychology” and “talking points”. It doesn’t mean that they’re being paid.
One more thing then I’m done rambling. The issue of Ebola. I was told of a Nigerian doctor who spoke to American healthcare providers about conditions in Nigeria. He said that Ebola isn’t the problem. It is, in fact, malaria that is the issue. Apparently Ebola is generally kept under control, whereas a person living over there can visit the emergency room on average of twice a year for malaria. As scary as ebola is, we’re not being told about the real epidemics of the world. At least, not unless it appears on our turf. Then the media can’t get enough of it.
Kristen,
I have to second the comments several posters have made regarding the inflammatory nature of the title. Claiming to have intended comments to a very narrow interpretation of the title and the article is at best naive and at worst guilty of some of the same manipulation you describe in the main post (I’m afraid I’ve succumbed to the “click bait” as well). I’m disappointed that you chose to create such a post and to not provide any guidance up front on how you wanted people to comment.
While I have my own feelings on vaccines, I will not share those here and I will respect your wishes.
THIS ARTICLE IS SO SO SO GREAT. THANK YOU.
And you shouldn’t AT ALL excuse yourself for including One Direction. I am pretty sure NONE of the fans will send you hate, as directioners are actually quite aware of this type of media maniulation… A lot of us are quite perceptive, if i may say – and quite angry with 1Ds management and PR team.
(That starbucks shot was perhaps one of, say, a couple of thousands pap shots of the band, their teams, “girlfriends” and friends with starbucks products. )
Anyways, it is amazing that someone who has a bit more credibility than a fandom primarily consisting of teenage girls can shed some light on this media situation.
THANK YOU SO MUCH.
AGAIN.
I thought you’d find this interesting.
http://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5
Wow.