Funder decries anti-GOP group in Alabama race

Reid Hoffman, chairman and co-founder of LinkedIn Corp., speaks during the TechCrunch Disrupt 2018 conference in San Francisco on Sept. 6, 2018.
Reid Hoffman, chairman and co-founder of LinkedIn Corp., speaks during the TechCrunch Disrupt 2018 conference in San Francisco on Sept. 6, 2018.

Billionaire Reid Hoffman apologized Wednesday for funding a group linked to a "highly disturbing" effort that spread disinformation during last year's Alabama special election for U.S. Senate, but he said he was not aware that his money was being used for this purpose.

Hoffman's statement is his first acknowledgement of his ties to a campaign that adopted tactics similar to those deployed by Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential election. In Alabama, the Hoffman-funded group has been accused of using Facebook and Twitter to undermine support for Republican Roy Moore and boost Democrat Doug Jones, who narrowly won the race. Hoffman, an early Facebook investor and the co-founder of LinkedIn, expressed support for a federal investigation into what happened, echoing Jones' position from last week.

Hoffman named a group he funded, American Engagement Technologies, as being involved in the effort to spread disinformation targeting Moore. Hoffman invested $750,000 in the organization, some of which covered its work in Alabama, according to a person close to the matter but not authorized to discuss Hoffman's spending.

But the statement left key facts unaddressed, including a full accounting of everyone who crafted and executed the campaign.

The effort was the subject of a presentation in September to a group of liberal-leaning technology experts who met in downtown Washington to discuss electoral tactics, according to one of the attendees and documents from that meeting obtained by The Washington Post. This person spoke on the condition of anonymity because those at the gathering were required to sign nondisclosure agreements.

In his statement, Hoffman said, "I find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing. For that reason, I am embarrassed by my failure to track [American Engagement Technologies] -- the organization I did support -- more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject."

The head of American Engagement Technologies, Mikey Dickerson, a former official in President Barack Obama's administration and a Google engineer, has not responded to numerous requests for comment.

After Hillary Clinton's defeat in 2016, Hoffman emerged as one of the most active and deep-pocketed backers of new efforts to elect Democrats.

Along with donations to party candidates, Hoffman has spent millions of dollars on "dozens of organizations," he said Wednesday, including startups that seek to apply Silicon Valley's penchant for disruption to politics.

Hoffman's public apology comes after news reports on the effort, known as Project Birmingham, which involved the creation of misleading Facebook pages to persuade Alabama conservatives to vote for somebody other than Moore.

One Project Birmingham tactic was to create false online evidence that a network of Russian automated accounts, called bots, were supporting Moore. In his statement, Hoffman called this "the most disturbing aspect" of the disinformation effort. This and some other key details were first reported in The New York Times.

Hoffman's statement said American Engagement Technologies had provided funding for New Knowledge, a Texas-based research firm, whose CEO, Jonathon Morgan, has acknowledged using disinformation tactics on a small scale in the Alabama election for a research project. Morgan has repeatedly denied involvement in the broader effort described in news reports.

Morgan said Wednesday that he wasn't aware that the funding for the work in Alabama, which he portrayed as for research purposes, came from Hoffman.

"I can't object strongly enough to the characterization that we were trying to influence an election in any way," Morgan said.

Facebook suspended Morgan and other individuals on Saturday for violating its policies against "coordinated inauthentic" behavior during the 2017 Alabama election. Facebook said at the time its investigation is ongoing.

New Knowledge was lead author of one of two major reports for the Senate last week that showed Russian operatives took to nearly every major social media platform to stoke social and political unrest and push messages in support of then-candidate Donald Trump.

The revelations call into question the full scope of Hoffman's other political investments.

He pledged to review his full portfolio but showed no signs of an exit from upcoming elections.

"I proudly support aggressive campaigning -- both on the ground and digitally -- and that is why we've funded organizations that help expand civic engagement," Hoffman said.

"But I want to be unequivocal: There is absolutely no place in our democracy for manipulating facts or using falsehoods to gain political advantage."

A Section on 12/27/2018

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