Health Insurers Caught Paying Facebook Gamers Virtual Currency To Oppose Reform Bill:
Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama’s health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money — called “virtual currency” — to send letters to Congress protesting the bill.
Here’s how it’s happening:
Facebook users play a social game, like “FarmVille” or “Friends For Sale.” They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy “virtual goods” such as a machine gun for “Mafia Wars.” But these gamers don’t buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency.
The gamers get virtual currency three ways:
Winning it playing the games
Paying for it with real money
By accepting offers from third-parties — usually companies like online movie rentals service Netflix — who agree to give the gamer virtual currency so long as that gamer agrees to try a product or service. This is done through an “offers” provider — a middleman that brings the companies like Netflix, the Facebook gamemakers, and the Facebook gamemaker’s users together.
It’s this third method that an anti-reform group called “Get Health Reform Right” is using to pay gamers virtual currency for their support.Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, “Get Health Reform Right” requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep:
“I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have.”
Under the “Who We Are” tab on the gethealthreformright.org website: Association of Health Insurance Advisors, America’s Health Insurance Plans, American Benefits Council, BlueCross BlueShield Association, Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, Healthcare Leadership Council, Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers, National Association of Health Underwriters, National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, and the National Retail Association.
The practice of rounding up a fake grassroots “reaction” to something is called, astroturfing. Get it? Fake grass. I suppose we could call this, Facetroturfing.
