New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s Office of New Media may be novel, but City Council members raised some familiar complaints about it at an oversight hearing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Council members blasted the administration for not sending officials who could answer questions about its communications with influencers to the hearing, arguing that their absence made it impossible to get answers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The hearing, held by the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation, was convened in response to reports that the Mayor\u2019s Office of New Media was using the encrypted messaging app Signal to relay talking points to more than 200 social media influencers. The news, first outlined in the Columbia Journalism Review<\/a> late last month, ignited a firestorm around the practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n Responses to the story ranged from outright accusations that the Mamdani administration was peddling propaganda to more measured concerns about how the use of a platform like Signal doesn\u2019t encourage transparency. The fact that the app allows users to set messages to automatically delete is one such concern, potentially hindering the city\u2019s document retention policy and its ability to comply with the Freedom of Information Law.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the crux of council members\u2019 ire at Tuesday’s oversight hearing was the absence of Emilia Rowland, director of the Office of New Media and Cultural Communications, and that of any other officials from the communications office. Despite being the person best equipped to answer questions about the Signal group and the administration\u2019s communication with influencers \u2013\u00a0given she leads the office and has overseen the group chat \u2013\u00a0Rowland declined an invitation to testify at the hearing. The two city officials who did attend, Tascha Van Auken, commissioner of the mayor\u2019s Office of Mass Engagement, and Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, commissioner for the Department of Records and Information Services, were unable to answer specifics about the office\u2019s budget, what social media influencers have been contacted and whether said communications violated city rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe panel that was sent here was sent missing crucial components, crucial parts of the administration who could talk in more detail about the very topic of the hearing we\u2019re looking to address,\u201d City Council Minority Leader David Carr said. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly disappointing and outright ridiculous that we\u2019re having a hearing on a very important topic, a topic that was clearly defined, and no one who is able to talk about the meat and potatoes of this issue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Frustrations spanned the political aisle.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs everyone knows, I have a great respect for this administration, so it upsets me that they have me agreeing with Council Member Carr,\u201d Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a progressive Democrat, said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to say except the right people should be here.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams added that while he\u2019s not sure that the Mamdani administration did anything wrong, Rowland\u2019s absence did nothing to quell the concerns that have arisen.<\/p>\n Asked at an unrelated press conference on Tuesday about the oversight hearing, Mamdani reiterated that his administration took \u201ccorrective action\u201d to ensure they are in compliance with the city\u2019s record-keeping laws after concerns about the Signal chat were raised.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m confident in the testimony that our administration is providing today, that it will be sufficient in answering the council’s questions,\u201d he added, referencing frustrations about who did and didn\u2019t testify.<\/p>\n City officials\u2019 decision to skip<\/a> an oversight hearing on the city\u2019s rollout of the pied-\u00e0-terre tax last month drew similar criticism from council members.\u00a0<\/p>\n