Sen. Doug Jones on Thursday called for a federal probe into allegations that online disinformation tactics were used against his opponent during last year’s Alabama special election, which Jones narrowly won over Republican Roy Moore.
Jones (D-Ala.) compared the tactics to those deployed by Russia during and after the 2016 election.
“What is obvious now is that we have focused so much on Russia that we haven’t focused on the fact that people in this country could take the same playbook and do the same damn thing,”
The allegations stem from news reports, first in The Washington Post on Tuesday, in which researcher Jonathon Morgan acknowledged creating a misleading Facebook page targeting conservative voters in Alabama and also buying retweets to test his ability to provide “lift” for social media messages. Politico first reported on Jones’s comments.
.. Morgan told The Post that he created a Facebook page for conservatives because he was hoping to mimic existing disinformation operations