Ladies and gentlemen, the astroturfing industry:

https://thelensnola.org/2018/05/04/actors-were-paid-to-support-entergys-power-plant-at-new-orleans-city-council-meetings/

«However, astroturfing may be more common than you think. Crowds on Demand is one of the only companies that advertises this kind of work. But UCLA professor Edward Walker, who wrote a book about the phenomenon called “Grassroots for Hire,” said many other crowd services operate under the radar.

“There are hundreds of such firms across the country,” he told CNN in January. “By my estimate, around 40 percent of the Fortune 500 appears on the client list of at least one such firm.”»