Social media has made it easier than ever to spread misinformation. A single tweet can reach countless people and its 250 character limit leaves few people asking for sources. This has had a large impact on elections, one being the 2010 special election between Coakley and Brown. Days before the election took place a "Twitter Bomb" erupted likely leading to Coakley losing the election. This so-called "bomb" included 1,112 tweets leading to a website titled coakleyaidit.com, which held a petition in protest of Coakley's discriminatory actions. These tweets can be traced back to nine Twitter accounts which all had similar usernames and were all created within a thirteen-minute interval. What looked like a grassroots uprising against Coakley was actually a prime example of astroturfing. The intent of astroturfing is to "give the impression that a discussion is truly representative of what a lot of people are thinking" (Ehrenberg 23) while actually being carefully planned machine-generated outrage. This practice can highly influence one’s perception of public opinion and can affect elections as well as the reputation of others.
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