Paramount Caught Using 'Astroturf' Group to Drum Up Fake Support for Merger
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Paramount 与 Warner Brothers 之间价值 1110 亿美元的合并提案正受到严格审查，因为这可能对劳工、消费者及更广泛的媒体市场造成不利影响。除去对交易结构性的担忧外，Paramount 的高层还采取了激进且带有误导性的手段以求获批。其孤注一掷的做法包括将批评者污名化为反犹太主义者、威胁将公司迁出 California 以报复反垄断执法，并与政治盟友合谋散布有关媒体整合利益的虚假说法。
这一策略的关键一环是所谓的 astroturfing，即企业利益方制造出草根支持的假象。 Paramount 被指与名为 Neighbors for Strong Communities 的组织有关联，该组织向 Californians 发送短信，敦促他们向州 Attorney General Rob Bonta 施压，要求撤销针对合并案的反垄断诉讼。这些信息虚假宣称，执法反垄断将导致数千人失业，意在利用公众对公司可能撤出该州的担忧。
Committee for the First Amendment 的独立分析显示，这个 astroturfing 组织具备企业资助的前台组织的所有典型特征：仅在三个月前成立，不披露创始人、董事会成员或资助者信息，登记地址仅为 UPS store 的私人邮箱，且在常用的非营利组织数据库中找不到记录。该组织披着地方公共利益的外衣推动合并，替 Paramount 掩盖身份并规避问责。
此类合并的现实后果，尤其是涉及 Warner Brothers 的交易，往往是大规模裁员、消费者价格上升与产品质量下降，因为合并后实体常难以消化沉重债务。此外，当前并无结构性保障能阻止影视制作进一步外包到海外——这一趋势在 Hollywood 已相当普遍。 Paramount 依靠欺骗性和隐蔽的公关手段推动交易，其做法暴露了公司潜在的文化问题，也警示了若允许其在 U.S. 媒体领域获得更大控制权将带来的风险。
The proposed $111 billion merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers is facing significant scrutiny due to its potential negative impact on labor, consumers, and the broader media market. Beyond the structural concerns surrounding the deal, Paramount leadership has resorted to aggressive and misleading tactics to secure approval. These desperate measures have included painting critics as antisemitic, threatening to relocate the company out of California in retaliation against antitrust enforcement, and coordinating with political allies to spread false narratives about the benefits of media consolidation.
A key part of this strategy involves the use of astroturfing, where corporate interests manufacture the appearance of grassroots support. Paramount has been linked to a group called Neighbors for Strong Communities, which has been sending text messages to Californians urging them to pressure state Attorney General Rob Bonta to drop an antitrust lawsuit against the merger. The messaging falsely claims that enforcing antitrust laws will lead to thousands of job losses, a tactic designed to exploit fears about the company's threat to leave the state.
Independent analysis by the Committee for the First Amendment reveals that this astroturfing organization bears all the hallmarks of a corporate-backed front. Established only three months ago, the group provides no information about its founders, board members, or funders. Its listed address is merely a private mailbox at a UPS store, and it is absent from standard nonprofit databases. The organization serves as a vehicle to promote the merger under the guise of local public interest, while shielding Paramount from accountability for the campaign.
The reality of such mergers, particularly those involving Warner Brothers, typically points toward a future of mass layoffs, higher consumer prices, and reduced product quality as the entity struggles to manage debt. Furthermore, there is no structural safeguard to prevent further offshoring of film and television production, a trend already prevalent in Hollywood. By relying on deceptive, covert PR efforts to push the deal, Paramount's actions serve as a stark indicator of the company's underlying culture and the potential risks of allowing it to gain even greater control over the U.S. media landscape.
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• Paramount 可能通过未及时终止试用账户而人为夸大订阅用户数，直到 Skydance 合并公告后才把这些账户剔除。
• 大规模企业间的数据差异通常源自部门各自为政、管理层疏忽或过度关注交易本身，而非单纯的故意欺诈。
• 合并期间常以"成本协同"为由大规模裁员，然而结构性冗余往往难以产生预期效率，反而可能掩盖债务偿还的需求。
• 媒体整合让少数机构占据主导，削弱市场竞争、限制内容多样性，并导致基于特许经营、迎合最低共同标准的低质同质化内容泛滥。
• 伪草根运动（astroturfing）的普遍存在已成为高风险合并期影响监管机构和民选官员的常用工具。
• 外国敌对势力和秘密机构通过放大极端化言论来瘫痪公共讨论并移动 Overton window，有效利用了既存的社会不满情绪。
• 私营实体在操控公共舆论方面往往比政府更深、更大规模，常借助专业传播手段绕过公众的批判性思维。
• 现代媒体环境呈现系统性"制造共识"的倾向：金融利益和既得权力决定了公共辩论的边界，使传统的民主讨论日益表面化。
• 以竞争为名允许合并的监管安排（例如强制出售门店）常常适得其反，造成市场空白和失败，其对消费者的伤害有时甚至超过由单一主导企业带来的影响。
• 当前的后真相格局特征是噪音压倒信号，真实的异议经常被协调一致的运动淹没，导致公众普遍冷漠、参与度下降。
上述讨论反映了对现代企业合并动机的深刻怀疑：这些合并与其说是战略性的商业整合，不如说是债务管理、垄断控制和政治影响的工具。一个明确的共识是：由伪草根运动专业化和数据操纵驱动的媒体集中化，正在严重威胁市场完整性和文化输出质量。人们感到挫败，因为无论是企业还是国家行为者的影响机制都已变得极其复杂，在公众表达真实观点之前，这些机制已能有效预先占领或扭曲舆论。归根结底，这加剧了一种广泛的社会无力感：民主监督难以跟上系统性信息操纵和经济权力集中化的步伐。 • Paramount may have artificially inflated subscriber numbers by failing to terminate trial accounts, only purging them following the Skydance merger announcement.
• Large-scale corporate data discrepancies often result from internal departmental siloes, leadership negligence, or a singular focus on closing deals rather than active deception.
• Corporations frequently utilize "cost synergies" as a justification for mass layoffs during mergers, though structural redundancies often fail to yield the promised efficiencies and may hide underlying debt-servicing requirements.
• Media consolidation into a few dominant entities reduces market competition, limits content diversity, and leads to the proliferation of franchise-based, lowest-common-denominator "slop."
• The prevalence of astroturfing—where corporate interests manufacture fake grassroots support—has become a standard tool for influencing regulators and elected officials during high-stakes mergers.
• Foreign adversaries and clandestine agencies effectively exploit existing social grievances by amplifying polarized rhetoric to paralyze public discourse and shift the political Overton window.
• Private entities often engage in more pervasive, large-scale public opinion manipulation than government agencies, frequently utilizing professional-grade messaging to bypass critical reasoning.
• Modern media environments exhibit a systemic "manufacturing of consent," where financial interests and established power structures dictate the parameters of public debate, rendering traditional democratic discourse increasingly superficial.
• Regulatory frameworks that permit mergers under the guise of competition—such as forcing store sell-offs—often backfire, resulting in market vacuums and failures that harm consumers more than a single dominant player would have.
• The current post-truth landscape is characterized by a high signal-to-noise ratio where authentic dissent is frequently drowned out by coordinated campaigns, leading to widespread public cynicism and disengagement.
The discussion reflects deep-seated skepticism toward the motives behind modern corporate mergers, which are viewed less as strategic business consolidations and more as mechanisms for debt management, monopolistic control, and political influence. A clear consensus emerges that media concentration, fueled by the professionalization of astroturfing and data manipulation, poses a significant threat to market integrity and the quality of cultural output. There is palpable frustration that the mechanisms of influence—whether from corporations or state actors—have become so sophisticated that they now effectively preempt or distort public opinion before it can be expressed authentically. Ultimately, the discourse underscores a broader societal feeling of powerlessness as democratic oversight struggles to keep pace with the systemic manipulation of information and the centralization of economic power.