Undercover persuasion by tech industry lobbyists

Why pay for a golf trip, dinner or full-page ad when you can tweet for free? The influence peddlers of K Street have discovered the power of social networking on such Web sites as Twitter and Facebook. Using their own names without mentioning that they work in public relations or as lobbyists, employees of companies with interests in Washington are chattering online to shape opinions in hard-to-detect ways. Tweets, blogs and comments on news sites can draw big audiences and popular support for a variety of causes, from tech policy to health care and energy regulation. But they provide a shade of gray in the lobbying world, where enormous influence is being exercised with few rules of engagement about spending and disclosure. "It's a bit of a Wild West, because anyone can be anyone on the Web and it's harder to tell where the line between work and the person's non-work life is," said John Wonderlich, policy director at the Sunlight Foundation. "The whole enterprise of lobbying disclosure is hard to apply hard-and-fast standards to and hard to regulate. Add to that the way we interact socially through technology, which is changing the lines around our traditional roles."