Founding of Government 2.0 Hampton launched
Government 2.0 Radio in March 2009 featuring an interview with
Web 2.0 pioneer
Tim O'Reilly. Hampton gained publicity for use of
Twitter and
Facebook in a 2009 campaign for the CA-10 seat to replace Rep.
Ellen Tauscher in the House of Representatives. Hampton's campaign used collaborative editing, a form of
crowdsourcing, to draft an anti-drug war policy statement.
2009 congressional campaign On March 18, 2009, Representative
Ellen Tauscher (CA-10) was nominated by President
Barack Obama to serve as
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Hampton announced his candidacy for the subsequent
special election to fill the seat, receiving national attention for being the first congressional candidate to announce their campaign launch on Twitter. During the campaign, Hampton prioritized support for
single-payer healthcare,
auditing the
Federal Reserve, increased funding for
public education, and capping interest rates. On foreign policy, Hampton stressed his support for removing U.S. troops from
Afghanistan and
Iraq. During the campaign, Hampton was supported by former chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party Matthew Rothschild and
Matt Gonzalez, the former president of the
San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Hampton was defeated by
John Garamendi, the former
Lieutenant Governor of California.
Post-campaign work After his Congressional campaign, Hampton began working as Chief Organizer and Vice President of Business Development at
NationBuilder, a Los Angeles tech startup specializing in content management and digital organizing, and which served clients such as California Governor
Jerry Brown and Los Angeles Mayor
Eric Garcetti. In 2015, Hampton left NationBuilder and founded a consulting firm, The Adriel Hampton Group. Also in 2015, he co-founded and served as President of Pinpoint Predictive, a San Francisco startup pioneering predictive personality advertising. Adriel's consulting firm specializes in digital advertising and community building. Hampton's clients have included phone and email append provider Accurate Append, mobile canvassing app Ecanvasser, and the activist toolset Do Gooder. He is an adviser to VoterCircle.
The Really Online Lefty League PAC and opposition to Facebook The Really Online Lefty League (TROLL) is a political action committee (PAC) formed by Hampton. The rollout of the PAC, created in collaboration with the Institute for Progressive Memetics, included a fake advertisement for the
Green New Deal. The PAC gained recognition for launching an advertisement describing
conservative Senator
Lindsey Graham as being in favor of Green New Deal legislation to highlight the issues stemming from Facebook's political advertising policies. Zuckerberg replied that they probably would not. In 2019, TROLL was noted for putting up digital billboards along the
Interstate 15 in Utah as well as in other states with a photo of Zuckerberg and President
Donald Trump with the caption "Trump - Zuckerberg 2020" in order to raise awareness to the potential impact of Facebook's advertising policies in assisting Trump's
reelection bid. In 2020, Hampton and TROLL released a YouTube ad against Congressman
Ken Calvert in the election for
California's 42nd congressional district.
2022 gubernatorial campaign On October 29, 2019, Hampton announced he was
running for governor of California in order to run fake Facebook ads. Stating that "we have some pretty serious issues of corporations now basically running society and I think Facebook is the grossest example of that", Hampton pledged that his gubernatorial campaign would serve to highlight issues stemming from the platform. A spokesperson for Facebook has since responded to his candidacy, stating that "[Hampton] has made clear he registered as a candidate to get around our policies, so his content, including ads, will continue to be eligible for third-party
fact-checking." Despite Facebook's statement, Hampton successfully ran and promoted additional fake ads as a candidate, including one that suggested
Sean Hannity was replacing
Mike Pence as Donald Trump's running mate, and another where
Mitch McConnell appeared to publicly support impeachment of Trump. In a 2019 editorial, the Los Angeles Times' Jon Healy wrote that Hampton "may be the most interesting gubernatorial candidate in the country at the moment" because of Hampton's targeting of Facebook as a source of political misinformation. Hampton has stated that climate change played a major role in his decision to run for governor, arguing that incumbent
Gavin Newsom is tied too closely to the
Pacific Gas and Electric Company. == References ==