This is actually a fairly common practice. It's called "astroturfing."

A while back, this got some notoriety during a labor dispute somewhere (Las Vegas, I think). Labor organizers wanted to picket a company, but they couldn't find enough union members who wanted to do it. So, they hired homeless and other unemployed people - at less than the minimum wage - to picket the company for them.

Onward and upward,
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