{"id":337451,"date":"2026-09-03T23:54:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T23:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/337451\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T23:54:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T23:54:19","slug":"nyc-council-to-grill-mamdani-admin-over-use-of-influencers-encrypted-messaging-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/337451\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC Council to grill Mamdani admin over use of influencers, encrypted messaging app"},"content":{"rendered":"

The City Council will soon hold a hearing on the Mamdani administration\u2019s use of a secret, encrypted messaging channel <\/a>to peddle positive coverage to nearly 200 social media influencers, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation, chaired by Manhattan lawmaker Gale Brewer, on Thursday scheduled the hearing for September 22.<\/p>\n

Queens Councilman Phil Wong will also introduce a bill to require more transparency from City Hall about the questionable practice.<\/p>\n

Influencer Nile Berry is seen in an Instagram post with Mayor Mamdani as part of the positive coverage garnered by the mayor Instagram\/urbanexplained<\/p>\n

Wong\u2019s bill, which was being worked on Thursday, could force influencers working on messaging campaigns with city agencies to clearly mark their posts and other videos as \u201cPaid for by NYC\u201d in some fashion.<\/p>\n

Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s use of influencers to push his administration\u2019s talking points was revealed this week in a bombshell Columbia Journalism Review <\/a>report.<\/p>\n

The study found that City Hall officials were communicating with 189 social media influencers <\/a>in a Signal app group chat named \u201cNYC Creators Announcements,\u201d where they sent \u201cdaily updates, talking points and clips that they can use in their posts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some influencers were even getting paid through contracts with city agencies \u201cfor work on particular messaging campaigns,\u201d the report found.<\/p>\n

Influencer Layla Taremi, who publicly supported the mayor during the election, is seen in another Instagram post. Instagram\/laydayallday<\/p>\n

Others said they were just happy to heap on fawning coverage of Mamdani because they supported his cause and it helped boost their followers, according to the report.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not known if the chat on Signal \u2014 a controversial encrypted messaging app when used by public officials \u2014 was set to auto-delete, which would run afoul of city record-keeping laws.<\/p>\n

City Hall has also refused to make public the list of influencers \u2014 which the report said spawned from the Creators4Zohran group convened during Mamdani\u2019s social media-savvy mayoral campaign \u2014 or what contracts they had reaped.<\/p>\n

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin speaks during an announcement of funding for 9\/11 educational programming in New York City on Thursday, September 3, 2026. ZUMAPRESS.com<\/p>\n

Part of Wong\u2019s bill would aim to uncover any potential payments to digital creators hidden from the public because they got hired as subcontractors.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Yorkers don\u2019t want their tax dollars going to grifting influencers from out of state who are paid to tell us everything here is great when we know damn well it isn\u2019t,\u201d Wong said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf City Hall has to pay people who don\u2019t even live here to sell New Yorkers on how wonderful New York is, that tells you everything you need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

But insiders told The Post in multiple conversations that shining a light on the Mamdani admin\u2019s use of unpaid influencers to provide glowing coverage would prove to be more difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Eric Adams did this, he would have his head handed to him on a platter,\u201d one councilmember raged, referring to Mamdani\u2019s predecessor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is everything so secretive? If it was really above board, they wouldn\u2019t be using Signal; they would make the contracts public, and not have the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) all saying that there doesn\u2019t need to be any oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City Council will soon hold a hearing on the Mamdani administration\u2019s use of a secret, encrypted messaging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[301,4686,57,9,56,63,65,64,58,82],"class_list":["post-337451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-city-council","tag-influencers","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-us-news","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}