“Georgia special election tweets traced to one source”

Politico:

With Georgia’s special House election going down to the wire, it’s no shock that Twitter is saturated with Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel. But what is surprising is just how much of the traffic traces to a single, identifiable source.

Accounts related to one entrepreneurial Trump supporter, Robert Shelton, a.k.a. @RobertsRooms, have flooded hashtags about the GA-06 election with anti-Ossoff and pro-Handel messaging….

Shelton, via Twitter, confirmed his network is working to promote Handel, but said it is a strictly personal project. He did not respond to questions about whether, or how much, he paid Twitter users to put out his messages.

“The only affiliation we or I have with Karen’s campaign is that I live in District 06 and prefer her to Jon,” Shelton wrote. The Handel campaign emphasized they have no ties.

“We have not contracted with Robert and he has no affiliation with this campaign,” said Kate Constantini, campaign spokeswoman for Handel.

Shelton said he has worked for other campaigns after the 2016 presidential election, including the New York City mayoral campaign of Michel Faulkner, who pivoted to run for NYC Comptroller in late May.

Shelton pitches his social media marketing to “America 1st” political candidates. In one promo, he boasts of having “Social Media WARRIORS In EVERY TOWN Across EVERY STATE” with a network to 5 million Twitter followers, and lists “in-house meme creation” among his services. One post indicates that he pays “retweeters.”

Share this: