The Search for Omer Gershon, Israeli Political Astroturfing.

Just came across a short documentary by Jon Ronson (Secret Rulers of the world, The men who stare at Goats) on control over the internet. The video is about Astroturfing, a technique used by governments and corporations who create false blogs, in the attempt to bring attention to a certain cause.

In this first episode, Ronson looks at the blog of supposed gay rights activist Mark Pax. Pax claims to have wanted to join the Viva Palistinia flotilla as a representative of the gay rights movement, he claims he recieved an email back from Viva Palisinia saying that gay people would not be welcome on any of the flotilla's. It turms out that Pax is an Israeli and that his blog was first disseminated via twitter by Israeli government sources. Real name Omer Gershon



Series 2 focus's on the Astroturfing techniques of the medical industry, I havn't had time to watch yet.