Pennsylvania State Representative Jesse White, an opponent of fracking, has been accused of using Internet sock-puppet accounts to attack fracking proponents under false names.
A report by KDKA, a CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh, found that the sock-puppet accounts have the same IP address as comments left by Rep. White. Janice Gibbs, a grandmother who receives no money from the gas industry, was one of the individuals attacked by White. She was shocked but not surprised by KDKA’s investigation. “I kind of feel violated a little bit,” she told reporters.
When confronted, Rep. White blamed the confusion on the “propaganda wing of the natural gas industry” and then declined to comment further.
Rep. White has numerous clips on You Tube discussing fracking. In this clip, he states that shale gas has defined his tenure as a State Representative. In this clip posted on his own You Tube account, White suggests that Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection reports on water testing are intentionally incomplete.