Also for people who don't know, if you pay someone to post something (including just giving them a free product) it has to be disclosed. Astroturfing is (in simple terms) a form of fraud and the FTC does go over companies for it.
I'm curious, where it has to be disclosed? Like if a company would pay a few legitimate reddit account owners to review their post and upvote, and would disclose this activity in the DISCLOSURES.txt available on their website, would that be legal?
Where would one find some reddit users willing to do such reviews, by the way?
You should see Higgsfield right now.
They're buying stolen Reddit accounts and spamming over 500 videos a day to various subreddits.
They're also advertising fake "unlimited" plans. Their reseller pricing (they're a reseller) is 1/10th the upstream API pricing, so they're metering and throttling and banning users that cost them money.
They're getting thousands of people to subscribe to $1800 "18 month" plans.
Their unofficial subreddit is full of complaints. Probably a dozen complaint threads a day now.
Highly unethical company.
Astroturfing is the practice of creating a fake "grassroots" movement to make it look like a cause, product, or candidate has widespread public support when they actually do not.