I worry that the modern definition of "astroturfing" is so broad that it can be applied to any kind of large-scale organizing. It shouldn't be surprising to discover that the anti-shutdown movements in various states have ties with each other and with anti-shutdown politicians.
Astroturfing is actually appropriate. The movement pretends to be grassroots. This looks like it was organized in multiple states (possibly even countries) by the same organization, that's not grassroots.
It's kind of a grey area and debatable. A group of people starts protesting on a small scale, and then quickly gets a lot of professional and political help, along with a lot of attention from media that wants to push a narrative.
My point was that, for something that is fairly grey such as the coordination versus spontaneity of protesters, you're not going to get solid evidence.
Any disinterested search for truth here would involve reams of original-source facts. This is probably not the right forum for that.
FWIW I did not make the claim for which you are requesting evidence. I just don't think asking for evidence in this case will be very fruitful.
You are right. I suppose I am too loose with my understanding of action as a byproduct of external influence versus direct sponsorship. As an example, the former would be a vague cultural sublimation of influence from a position of power, and the latter would be an immediate demand from a position of power.
I'm not sure I agree. Consider the example of BLM. You can tell two equally true stories:
* Black Lives Matter was a grassroots movement, where a bunch of individual people across the country organically discovered the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag and felt it summarized their thoughts on current events.
* Black Lives Matter was a organized effort by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi to drum up public support for their preferred economic and social policies. They learned how to do this at BOLD, a little-known organization teaching people how to shape the public's anger in ways that serve their political goals.
"Ties to each other" is one thing. The same person registering all the domains within minutes of one another, and populating them with cut-and-pasted content, is quite another.
There was a claim going around that those were actually registered by someone who opposed this movement to stop supporters from registering the names. Which is, of course, the trouble with claims of "astroturfing" - anyone can spot a movement in its early moments and take actions like registering domain names.
