LinkedIn Inc. founder Reid Hoffman today apologized for funding a company that ran a “misinformation campaign” against a Republican candidate that involved the use of fake Russian bots.

The campaign was run by a company called American Engagement Technologies through a project called New Knowledge. That project used social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to boost support for Democrat Doug Jones by pretending that rival Republican Roy Moore was backed by Russians during a special election in Alabama in 2017.

As detailed by The New York Times Dec. 19, New Knowledge set up thousands of fake accounts with Russian-sounding names and had them follow Moore on social media. Although ultimately Moore won the election, his being followed by so-called Russian-bots gained widespread attention at the time.

But as it turned out, the whole thing was fake. “We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” an internal report from AET obtained by the Times stated.

Reid involvement with the story is that he donated $750,000 to AET, making him one of the firm’s largest contributors. “I categorically disavow the use of misinformation to sway an election,” Reid wrote on Medium today. “In fact, I have deliberately funded multiple organizations trying to re-establish civic, truth-focused discourse in the US. I would not have knowingly funded a project planning to use such tactics, and would have refused to invest in any organization that I knew might conduct such a project. ”

Nevertheless, he added, “I do have an apology to make and have learned a lesson here.”

Although Reid has supported calls for an inquiry into the false-flag operation, it may be a matter closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

As several political commentators have pointed out, the fact that an American lobbying firm funded by a tech billionaire was running a false-flag operation in which it created fake Russian bots now casts a shadow on previous and future allegations, even those that have been largely proven, of Russian interference in U.S. elections.

Photo: jdlasica/Flickr