The Bivings Group is a PR firm whose clients include Monsanto, a company with a long history of harmful practices impacting the environment and human health.[1][2] [3]. They seem to specialize in the creation of fake grassroots Astroturf supporters for their clients.

An article on the Bivings web site, titled "Viral Marketing: How to Infect the World," originally recommended covert and deceptive Internet activity, "there are some campaigns where it would be undesirable or even disastrous to let the audience know that your organisation is directly involved...

In May 14, 2002, Guardian journalist George Monbiot reported on "invisible persuasion" techniques used by Bivings that included the creation of fictional individuals on the Internet. "Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the Internet," he wrote. ... Detective work by the campaigner Jonathan Matthews and the freelance journalist Andy Rowell shows how a PR firm contracted to the biotech company Monsanto appears to have played a crucial but invisible role in shaping scientific discourse."

Reading comment threads on the Guardian’s sites and elsewhere on the web, two patterns jump out at me. The first is that discussions of issues in which there’s little money at stake tend to be a lot more civilized than debates about issues where companies stand to lose or gain billions: such as climate change, public health and corporate tax avoidance. These are often characterized by amazing levels of abuse and disruption.

Articles about the environment are hit harder by such tactics than any others. I love debate, and I often wade into the threads beneath my columns. But it’s a depressing experience, as instead of contesting the issues I raise, many of those who disagree bombard me with infantile abuse, or just keep repeating a fiction, however often you discredit it. This ensures that an intelligent discussion is almost impossible - which appears to be the point.

Monsanto also came under fire in February of 2011 when it was discovered by scientists that the biotech corporation’s herbicideRoundup Ready was likely causing infertility in livestock. It would seem that Bivings Group was in the business of trying to convince internet users that Monsanto is environmentally and socially conscious.

U.S. Military Launches Spy Operation Using Fake Online Identities


The U.S. Military has purchased software designed to create and control false online personas in an attempt to use social media and other websites to counter anti-U.S. messaging.

According to the contract between US Central Command (Centcom) and California company Ntrepid, the software would let each user control 10 personas, each "replete with background, history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographically consistent." The software would also be able to let personas "appear to originate in nearly any part of the world" and interact through "conventional online services and social media platforms," while using a static IP address for each persona to maintain a consistent online identity.

These false online personas, also known as "sock puppets," would be equipped to seem like real people while entering online discussion through blogs, message boards, chats, and more. With a false persona, a user could discredit opponents, or create the semblance of consensus.

Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media
Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda
The Guardian, Thursday 17 March 2011 13.19 GMT

Last month, hacker group Anonymous unloaded a batch of 50,000 emails from security firm HBGary, where documents indicated that the firm was in the process of developing their own persona management software. T

You know, some people say they see past the RW/LW paradigm. And some I believe.

But then others say they see past the RW/LW paradigm shortly before or after accusing people of being "commies".