
OAN Staff Lillian Mann
4:20 PM – Thursday, September 3, 2026
Democratic Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has reportedly granted roughly 200 social media influencers special access to City Hall news and videos through Signal — a messaging app, according to a new report.
Signal includes a disappearing-messages setting that automatically deletes texts after a set time. Because it is unknown if Mayor Mamdani’s (D-N.Y.) group uses this feature, critics are questioning whether the administration is following city rules about keeping public records.
According to an August report from Columbia Journalism Review, influencers receive city information through an encrypted Signal chat named “NYC Creators Announcements.”
The Signal chat reportedly grew out of Creators4Zohran — a group that backed Mamdani’s 2025 mayoral campaign, making him the first socialist mayor of United States’ most populous city.
When asked whether the use of Signal could potentially violate city laws, Mamdani insisted that his office will “strive to fully comply with all legal requirements.”



