The word consent can be used in many contexts, not only sexual. I see nothing odd about it.
Consensus is a different meaning. Going by how odd "a consensus" sounds I would simply assume the writer mixed both or misremembered, and I do not read further intent. Just my opinion.
Oh, I was the OP you are responding to. I don't like the words "manufacturing consent" to refer to astroturfing, mostly because of the link to sexual consent, but also because they lack precision (Chomsky's book talks a lot more about propaganda as a tool of "top-down" media rather than "bottom-up" media). A lot of other people who talk about the phenomenon also use "consensus" instead of "consent" when referring to specifically using social media this way.
