Democracy Restored, a Texas-based watchdog organization, has submitted a letter to the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board requesting an investigation of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration. The letter, dated Friday and obtained by The Center Square, focuses on staff communications with social media influencers through the Signal messaging application.
The complaint cites an August investigative report in the Columbia Journalism Review. That report stated that Emilia Rowland, the administration’s director of New Media and Cultural Communications, established an official Signal account and invited a “curated list” of influencers. “The purpose of the official Signal chat was clear — to relay talking points to more than 200 social media influencers. In fact, that is what occurred,” Democracy Restored Director Houston Keene wrote in the letter.
“At bottom, however, is the fact that taxpayer money is being spent on campaigns involving influencers with almost no knowledge of how or why,” the letter further states. It also asserts that “the ethical and conflicts-of-interest implications presented by the Mayor’s office’s use of this Signal chat are undeniable.”
Democracy Restored, which describes itself as a nonpartisan government watchdog, additionally alleges that the communications conflict with New York’s Freedom of Information Law. The law treats electronic messages as records that must be retained.
The complaint notes that Signal’s “disappearing messages and unobtainable information” can prevent those communications from being preserved as public records.
In September, the City Council held an oversight hearing at which members questioned administration officials about the influencer outreach. Participants raised concerns regarding the use of the application in connection with public information and messaging.
According to Keene, the mayor’s office has largely resisted the council’s inquiry and has supplied limited information about the Signal account since the hearing.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who took office in January, has previously stated that he sees no wrongdoing in the use of Signal. He has noted that prior mayoral administrations and city agencies have employed the application for various communications. He has also denied that the city paid influencers for interviews with him.
Ramzi Kassem, chief counsel to the mayor, told reporters in September that the administration took “immediate corrective action” after reports that staff members were deleting messages. The steps included training to ensure that the disappearing-messages function is disabled when Signal is used for official communication.
In an interview accompanying the complaint, Keene said the administration has not yet accounted for the expenditure of taxpayer funds on the influencer effort and has set aside the question of deleted records. “What the mayor was basically doing was astroturfing public support for his agenda by getting social media influencers to promote his government agenda and goals. We believe there are serious ethical and conflict of interest issues involved here, and that there is very good cause for the conflict of interest board to get involved,” he said.
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