The U.S. News reported last week of a Craigslist ad for the D.C. area of a job, offering to pay people to sit in on a hearing on Capitol Hill. The job would pay $25 for the hour and a half hearing and preferred female attendees.
The event was a hearing for Jacob Ostreicher, “an Orthodox Jewish businessman who was arrested in Bolivia without being charged last year.” US News reported. The job poster was a family member who had been advised by New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith that a full hearing room “can give off more of an impression.”
The family of Jacob Ostreicher was allegedly told by Smith’s office “Don’t make this a Jewish event. It’s better to make it look libertarian. And try to get as many women as you can.”
Craigslist has been used as a means of “astroturfing” before.
U.S. News reports also of a coal group that posted a Craigslist ad offering $50 to people to wear pro-coals shirts to an Illinois EPA meeting. While the posting was later deleted, investigative website, Republic Report, grabbed it.
Many also have reported political astroturfing occurring on Twitter by programed bots.
Payment for protesting and political activism extends beyond the interwebs. People are more and more are paying people to make an event look more widely attended, or protest appear stronger.
The Daily Caller reported in February of protesters at CPAC earning $60 for a day of protesting — many entirely unaware of what CPAC even is.
In October of last year, a liberal protester reportedly paid Hispanic protesters, explaining “Some of them are volunteers. Some of them aren’t…I’m not going to get into an identification game.”
Just last week, “a DC-based PR firm wanted to impress a potential big client coming to town. So, it hired temps to fill up empty seats in the office, “ U.S. News reported.
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