[perching_aix]

No, it is score manipulation.

Astroturfing is a kind of manipulation where you mislead people about attribution, so that they associate what you say/do with a group or person of your choice.

For example, say that you really have an axe to grind with the programming language Rust, and are aware that people have a perception or would find it believable that its community is obnoxious, through being pedantic or overzealous.

What you could then do is join in on conversations and start talking as if you were a member of the Rust community, and act pedantic, overzealous, or otherwise obnoxious. Due to the pretense that you're a Rust user yourself, people would attribute this behavior to the Rust community, meaning you succeeded in boosting this negative perception.

Just an example of course.

[genewitch]

> so a bunch of people that have never been there flood the reviews.

quoting a definition:

The implication behind the use of the term is that instead of a "true" or "natural" grassroots effort behind the activity in question, there is a "fake" or "artificial" appearance of support. It is increasingly recognized as a problem in social media, e-commerce, and politics. Astroturfing can influence public opinion by flooding platforms like political blogs, news sites, and review websites with manipulated content. Some groups accused of astroturfing argue that they are legitimately helping citizen activists to make their voices heard.

even uses the same verbiage you did originally.

[perching_aix]

Thought about this some more. Even if most of the reviews were from people who never used the extension, this is not necessarily astroturfing, because the intent was not to mislead about the attribution of these reviews, unless we're assuming a conspiracy.

Regardless, this is a distinct claim from score manipulation, which unquestionably did occur.