Craig Newmark's post on astroturfing and Nick Aster's follow-up post remind me of the famous New Yorker cartoon stating "On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog."

But astroturfing is no joke and an unfortunate, unseemly reality in the public relations industry.

Several of my colleagues from around the globe have organized an Anti-Astroturfing movement to raise awareness of this practice in the hopes that we can eliminate it.

One thing going for the public relations industry is that the Internet, social media in particular, is a meritocracy. The loudest voices have earned their highly-networked megaphones and anything that looks the slightest bit fake is quickly unveiled as such.

There is a difference between legitimate, grass roots organizations, lobbying and astroturfing. Astroturfing lacks transparency and I'm pointing you to this site so you'll know that the public relations industry is intent on stopping it by shining a light on the offenders.