There was a moment during the August publicity tour for the movie It Ends With Us when the mood online seemed to dramatically change.
For months, fans had noticed something was amiss between the film's main stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, who also directed the movie.
For one thing, Lively's husband, fellow actor Ryan Reynolds, blocked Baldoni on Instagram — the ultimate snub in 2024.
And it soon became apparent that Lively and Baldoni were not posing on red carpets together or doing joint interviews, despite being the movie's leads.
But online speculation about a possible feud between the actors suddenly morphed into an internet pile-on, with TikTok, Reddit and X users blaming Lively for the drama surrounding the publicity tour.
The 37-year-old was slammed for encouraging movie goers to "grab your friends, wear your florals and head out to see" It Ends With Us — a film about a domestic violence survivor named Lily Bloom.
"Wear your florals? WTF? This isn't another Barbie movie type film. So damn tone deaf. This is why we need Justin to do the marketing," one Instagram user posted.
"Mean girl vibes, Justin deserves better," said another.
Lively was also criticised for spruiking her new hair care line, discussing her red carpet looks, and claiming credit for the final edit of the movie.
Baldoni, meanwhile, was lauded online for raising awareness about domestic violence during the movie's publicity campaign.
"If a Lily Bloom in real life can sit in this theatre, and make a different choice for herself than the one that was made for her, maybe she sees herself on that screen and chooses something different for herself," he said.
Online, fans said Lively and her team had "bullied" Baldoni, and wrestled away creative control of the movie he directed, many using remarkably similar language in the comments.
"Justin Baldoni, the man that you are, you deserve better," wrote one TikTok user.
"Justin Baldoni, the man that you are, still such a caring and compassionate person after everything that's happened," said another.
"Oh Justin Baldoni, the man that you are," wrote a third, along with a heart and crying emoji.
Then old clips began to circulate online, in which social media users claimed Lively was being snippy or hostile to reporters during interviews.
"Is Blake Lively set to be CANCELLED? String of 'hard to watch' videos that have surfaced following 'tone deaf' Q&A," the Daily Mail wrote in August.
But Lively has now alleged in a legal complaint filed against Baldoni that the wild events of the It Ends With US promo tour were not just the internet taking sides in a Hollywood feud.
The actress instead claims her co-star hired a crisis public relations expert to orchestrate a smear campaign against her.
"Millions of people (including many reporters and influencers) who saw these planted stories, social media posts, and other online content had no idea they were unwitting consumers of a crisis PR, astroturfing, and digital retaliation campaign created and funded by Mr Baldoni and [his production company] Wayfarer to hurt Ms Lively," she said in her court filing.
"That is precisely the goal of an astroturfing campaign — to light the fire and continue to stoke conversations secretly, blurring the line between authentic and manufactured content, and creating viral public take-downs."
A lawyer for Baldoni's production company, Wayfarer, has vigorously denied the allegations, saying they are Lively's "desperate attempt to 'fix' her negative reputation".
But the furore has raised questions about the role of astroturfing in manipulating public opinion.
In a social media ecosystem already rife with misogyny, racism and aggression, experts say it's remarkably easy to shape the narrative around a public figure.
Lively is not the only female celebrity to claim to have been the victim of online smear campaigns.
Actor Amber Heard says she was the target of the same PR firm hired by Baldoni when she was sued for defamation by her ex-husband Johnny Depp.
And the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, who once described herself as "most trolled person" in the world, appears to have also been the centre of a coordinated hate campaign of mysterious origins.
'Astroturf' is all around you
Astroturfing is a deceptive tactic to fake a grassroots movement with the aim of influencing public opinion. It predates the internet — and the practice is not just limited to Hollywood.
For example, in the 90s, the tobacco industry was facing increased restrictions and higher taxes as governments tried to dissuade people from smoking.
To combat this, Philip Morris hired a PR firm that created a group called the National Smokers Alliance, a collection of thousands of apparently disgruntled tobacco users willing to fight for their right to smoke.
But the group had quietly paid hundreds of people to recruit members in bars and bowling alleys across the United States, according to UK anti-smoking group, Tobacco Tactics.
The rise of social media has only made it easier for political organisations and companies to engage in astroturfing without detection.
Russia's attempts to influence the outcome of the US election in 2016 by hiring troll factories to sow discord online was an astroturfing campaign.
Even social media influencers who spruik a product to their followers without disclosing the fact that they've been paid by a company to do so are technically engaging in astroturfing.
No matter the strategy of an astroturfing campaign, the goal is always the same: to make an illusion feel like reality.
At the heart of Lively's dispute with Baldoni is a debate over whether the damage to her reputation this year was his fault or hers.
What we know for sure is that Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment during the production of It Ends With Us in 2023 — an allegation he denied.
Then, during the film's publicity campaign, Baldoni feared Lively might leak damaging stories against him, so he engaged the services of crisis management expert Melissa Nathan to safeguard his reputation.
Texts and emails obtained by Lively's legal team appear to show Ms Nathan, Baldoni, and his publicist Jennifer Abel, discussing the possibility of using astroturfing techniques.
In one exchange between Baldoni and Ms Abel, he sent her a screenshot of a thread on X which claims to outline the bullying behaviour of a female celebrity.
"This is what we would need," he allegedly wrote, according to Lively's complaint.
The subpoenaed communications make references to "social manipulation" and "proactive fan posting," as well as celebrating that they were "crushing it on Reddit".
"Socials are really, really ramping up. In his favour, she must be furious. It's actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women," Ms Nathan allegedly wrote to Ms Abel.
But all of those allegedly involved in the smear campaign deny engaging in astroturfing, instead saying that the backlash against Lively was entirely her fault due to her own missteps.
"No negative press was ever facilitated, no social combat plan, although we were prepared for it as it's our job to be ready for any scenario," Ms Abel wrote on Facebook.
"But we didn't have to implement anything because the internet was doing the work for us.
"Sure we talked about it, contemplated if we needed certain things, flagged accounts that we needed to monitor, worked with a social team to help us stay on top of the narrative so we could act quickly if needed, and yes, we rejoiced and joked in the fact that fans were recognising our client's heart and work without us having to do anything but keep our heads down and focus on positive interviews for our client."
Lively is not the first high-profile woman to be smeared
The crisis management team that represented Baldoni amid his alleged smear campaign against Lively is linked to several other embattled Hollywood stars.
Ms Nathan and her firm, The Agency Group PR (TAG PR), have reportedly represented the rapper Drake, who was this year accused of having sex with underage girls — a claim he denies.
The firm also reportedly worked with rapper Travis Scott after a crowd crush at his concert in 2021 resulted in 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries.
On its website, the agency says it "redefines the rules of reputation management," with "years of success behind some of the most noteworthy, high-profile crisis and litigation events in recent history".
TAG PR was also hired by Depp in 2022 when he sued his ex-wife Heard for defamation after she described herself as "a public figure representing domestic abuse".
The jury may have found that both Depp and Heard defamed each other.
But in the court of public opinion, she was deemed a psychopathic manipulator who sought to destroy her ex-husband by accusing him of domestic violence and sexual assault.
After the trial, investigative reporter Alexi Mostrous spent a year looking into the origins of the online hate against Heard.
In his podcast, Mostrous presents evidence that much of it was manufactured.
An analysis of 1 million anti-Amber tweets found that more than half of them were "inauthentic", much of them spewed out by bot networks in Thailand and Spain.
The source of the alleged smear campaign was never clear, but days after Lively filed her complaint against the firm, Heard released a statement of support.
"Social media is the absolute personification of the classic saying 'A lie travels halfway around the world before truth can get its boots on'," Amber Heard said in a statement to NBC News.
"I saw this firsthand and up close. It's as horrifying as it is destructive."
The PR firm hit back at Heard's statement through Baldoni's lawyer.
"TAG PR must be the most powerful group of publicists the world has ever seen for it to be able to completely change the perception of both Amber Heard and Blake Lively," Bryan Freedman said.
"The only correlation between both individuals was that for decades every move they have made has been out there for everyone to see, widely filmed and documented for the public to make up their own minds — which they did, organically."
The real emotional cost of online smear campaigns
Sometimes, an astroturfing campaign's sole intent is not to sell a product, or help a celebrity's cause, but simply to harm its high-profile target.
In 2020, the Duchess of Sussex described the level of online trolling she received as "almost unsurvivable".
In the same year, she and her husband, Prince Harry, "stepped back" as working members of the British royal family, instead choosing to settle in California.
Their reasons for doing so were complex, but the couple told Oprah Winfrey they felt unsupported in the face of so much racist and misogynistic bullying online.
In 2021, an investigation by Bot Sentinel, a crowdfunded site that tracks disinformation and targeted harassment online, concluded that most of the online hate faced by Meghan began as astroturfing.
"Our research found that a relatively small number of single-purpose anti-Meghan and Harry accounts created and disseminated most of the hateful content on Twitter," Bot Sentinel wrote in their report.
"However, the primary accounts had assistance that allowed their content to be repackaged and shared by accounts with a considerable following."
An analysis of 114,000 tweets found that 70 per cent of them were driven by the same 83 accounts, which coordinated their campaign with a level of sophistication unlike anything Bot Sentinel had seen before.
"There's no motive," Bot Sentinel CEO Christopher Bouzy told BuzzFeed News.
"Are these people who hate her? Is it racism? Are they trying to hurt [Harry and Meghan's] credibility? Your guess is as good as ours."
For those who believe they are victims of astroturfing, it may come as cold comfort that much of the vitriol they experienced was fuelled by bots or bad-faith actors.
In the end, those fake posts still enter the feeds of genuine social media users, and may influence the way they see the world.
Heard has given up on acting and moved to Spain, while Meghan said her ordeal had a severe impact on her mental health.
In her court filing, Lively said her experiences caused "severe emotional distress" to her family, and cost her business opportunities.
"I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted," she said.
