A Texas-based government watchdog group has filed a complaint against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani over his administration’s use of taxpayer money on social media influencers in an effort to sway public support for his lefty agenda.
In a letter to the New York Conflicts of Interest Board on Friday, obtained exclusively by The Center Square, Democracy Restored Director Houston Keene called for an investigation into Mamdani’s staff use of Signal app accounts to communicate with social-media influencers, which he alleges is a violation of the city’s ethics and conflict of interest rules.
The complaint referenced a Columbia Journalism Review investigative report, published in August, that revealed how Mamdani’s director of New Media and Cultural Communications Emilia Rowland had created an official Signal account and invited a “curated list” of social-media influencers to propagate the mayor’s agenda.
“The purpose of the official Signal chat was clear — to relay talking points to more than 200 social media influencers,” Keene wrote to the board. “In fact, that is what occurred.”
The City Council held an oversight hearing in September where they peppered Mamdani administration officials with questions about the use of social media influencers. At the hearing, council members in good government groups raised concerns about use of the app to spread propaganda or conceal public information.