After the first “Operation Gridlock” protests over stay-at-home orders on April 15, there was another wave of protests on April 19. These protests were planned as Facebook events, seemingly appearing overnight.
There was a small protest outside the Colorado State Capitol in Denver, and protesters were both staying inside cars and out marching. The original Facebook event was hosted by a Colorado Libertarian Party page, Libertarian candidate for Douglas County Commissioner Victoria Reynolds and a mysterious page called “Peace Love and Hippie Juice,” which was created the summer before the 2016 election and post heavily reposted jpegs of “inspirational hippie pictures.” However as of the morning of April 19, the two event pages and the Hippie Juice page no longer exist.
According to reporting by the Washington Post, Facebook groups that target Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York “appear to be the work of Ben Dorr, the political director of a group called ‘Minnesota Gun Rights,’ and his siblings, Christopher and Aaron.”
Over the past several days many domain names relating to protesting in different states have been purchased. A domain name can be registered by anyone from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) usually through a service such as SquareSpace or GoDaddy. Many domains redirect to other sites in an attempt to increase traffic from a wide variety of internet searches.
A domain name made for Minnesota, “reopenmn.com” redirects to a page from the “Minnesota Gun Rights” group. One made for Iowa, “reopeniowa.com” and one made for Pennsylvania, “reopenpa.com” redirects to websites of the “Iowa Gun owners” and the “Pennsylvania Firearms Association.” Although they are for different states and have different names, these three websites look almost identical, and the domains were registered all within five hours of each other.
https://action.minnesotagunrights.org/
https://action.iowagunowners.org/
https://action.pennsylvaniafirearmsassociation.org/
The three organizations list no office spaces on their websites, only a P.O. box or shipping store location to receive mail.
The domain names referencing the reopening of 23 different states, including Colorado’s, were all registered within a minute of each other at 7:53 a.m. MDT on April 17. The domain names for 14 other states and the District of Columbia were registered within the 10 p.m. hour the night before. All of these domains were purchased using a proxy service offered by godaddy.com, meaning the owners identities are not in the IANA database. All states’ protest websites domain data can be found here.
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, “astroturfing” is “organized activity that is intended to create a false impression of a widespread, spontaneously arising, grassroots movement in support of or in opposition to something (such as a political policy) but that is in reality initiated and controlled by a concealed group or organization.”
As of publication, it is impossible to be certain what groups, if any, are behind the rapid growth in quarantine protesting Facebook pages and websites. However, the original Michigan protest came under fire for being organized by the “Michigan Freedom Fund,” a group who has received advice and financial support from the family of Education Secretary Betsy Devos. A connection that led Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer to say, “I think it’s really inappropriate for a sitting member of the United States President’s cabinet to be waging political attacks on any governor.”
Despite the presence of individuals protesting stay at home orders, a recent poll by Quinnipiac University found that 81 percent of U.S adults support a national stay-at-home order.
