Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration said Friday it took corrective action after learning that disappearing messages had been enabled in a Signal chat used by City Hall to communicate with social media influencers, a setting the mayor’s chief lawyer said staff should turn off when using the encrypted app.

The acknowledgment comes amid growing scrutiny of the administration’s use of Signal to communicate with a large network of content creators who receive City Hall talking points, videos, event invitations and opportunities to interview administration officials.

The New York Times reported on Friday that at least one influencer Signal channel run by a City Hall employee was set to automatically erase messages that employee sent to the group. The Times reported that the setting was changed after it began asking City Hall about the practice.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Mamdani’s Chief Counsel Ramzi Kassem said there is no blanket prohibition on City Hall employees using Signal or similar messaging applications. But employees generally must seek authorization before downloading apps that are not already installed on their devices, he said, and any approval comes with requirements intended to ensure compliance with city rules.

For Signal, Kassem said, that includes turning off its disappearing messages feature.

“We would authorize it, but specifying that you have to disable disappearing messages to remain in compliance,” Kassem said.

Kassem said City Hall learned about the issue through news reporting and then took “immediate corrective action.”

Asked later what that action entailed, he said the corrective actions included reminding staff to disable disappearing messages and that the administration would continue reviewing the matter to determine whether additional steps are necessary.

“We will continue to look into this matter to see if any other corrective actions need to be taken here and generally,” Kassem said.

The latest round of scrutiny followed a report earlier this week from the Columbia Journalism Review and Tow Center for Digital Journalism examining the Mamdani administration’s relationship with social media creators.

The report found that a Mayor’s Office employee runs a Signal group called NYC Creators Announcements with more than 200 influencers. Members interviewed for the report said City Hall sends the group talking points, video clips and other material and offers creators invitations to events and interviews with administration officials.

That prompted questions about whether communications taking place in the encrypted app were being preserved as government records.

After the report, City Hall told amNewYork Wednesday that Signal could be authorized for specific uses as long as employees followed record-retention requirements and the state Freedom of Information Law. Officials did not answer follow-up questions about whether the influencer group itself had been authorized or whether its messages were being preserved.

Grace Rauh, executive director of Citizens Union, said at the time that City Hall needed to make clear whether any messages had been destroyed. “The problem is that Signal allows messages to auto-delete, and the City Charter prohibits destroying records without an agency head’s approval,” Rauh said.

Under Section 1133 of the City Charter, city records generally cannot be destroyed or otherwise disposed of outside an approved records-disposal process. State Freedom of Information Law separately governs public access to government records.

The administration has not confirmed whether government records were actually lost as a result of the disappearing-message setting. City Hall has also not said whether Emilia Rowland, the Mayor’s Office employee identified as running the influencer Signal group, received the authorization Kassem said is required under City Hall policy before staff use apps such as Signal.

Mamdani defends collab with social media creators

Beyond the record-keeping concerns, Mamdani on Friday repeatedly defended his administration’s broader use of social media creators, arguing that City Hall should reach New Yorkers through the platforms and outlets they actually use.

He pointed to social media outreach about the city’s 2-K program and a Broadway ticket lottery for high school students as examples of information the administration wants to distribute as widely as possible.

“We should be engaging with our press corps as we do,” Mamdani said. “We should be engaging with anyone who a New Yorker might listen to or read.”

The mayor also emphasized that City Hall does not pay creators for interviews or engagements with him.

“City Hall has never paid a content creator or an influencer for an interview or an engagement with myself,” Mamdani said.

The CJR and Tow Center report said participation in the Signal group itself is unpaid, while some creators have separately received compensation for campaigns run by city agencies.

Asked Friday about concerns that influencers may have outside financial relationships or commercial interests, Mamdani continued to defend the outreach while stressing the importance of traditional journalism.

“The fourth estate journalists are a critical part of how we not only engage with the city that we love, but also how we are held to account by the city that we love,” he said.