Progressive Democrats used a second bogus Facebook page to wage a campaign of disinformation against former Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore in the run-up to 2018 midterm election, the New York Times reported Monday.
Weeks after revealing a Facebook page and Twitter campaign that sought to portray Moore’s campaign as supported by Russian bots, the Times reported that out-of-state donors funded an effort called “Project Birmingham,” which created a Facebook page that called for a statewide ban on alcohol.
The “Dry Alabama” page and an associated Twitter account expressed support for Moore against Democrat Doug Jones. The tactics, the Times noted, were similar to those carried out by Russian operatives seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election, and the goal was to pull business-minded Republicans away from Moore.
The Democratic operatives, posing as prohibitionists, also compared allegations of sexual misconduct thrown at Moore to the risks of alcohol consumption. Two of the operatives defended the “false flag” campaign.
“If you don’t do it, you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back,” consultant Matt Osborne told the Times. “You have a moral imperative to do this — to do whatever it takes.”
The Times said it could not find evidence that Jones knew about the projects, and Jones has called for a federal investigation.
Beth Becker, a social media professional who handled Facebook ad spending for the Dry Alabama page told the Times a nondisclosure agreement prohibited her from saying much about the project.
“I don’t think anything this group did crossed any lines,” she said.
The group Investing in Us put $100,000 toward the Dry Alabama campaign and the first-reported campaign, respectively, according to the Times.
Osborne claimed Dry Alabama content was viewed 4.6 million times on Facebook and that videos published to the page were watched 430,000 times.
Jones, a Democrat, narrowly won the U.S. Senate seat in the deeply red state.
