In an effort to oppose the growing right-wing protest campaign against Stay At Home and Shelter in Place orders in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Michael Murphy ’76 came up with a plan to buy remaining website URLs following the naming conventions of other protest groups in an attempt to keep them from organizing.

A Reddit user exploring the growing protest campaigns and looking for the sponsoring groups, found that Murphy held many of the URLs and posted to the online community that the movement was funded by an astroturfing campaign. The Reddit user didn’t name Murphy, but told people how to find him through an internet search. Since then, Murphy has faced growing harassment from liberal-leaning activists for an effort he deemed was progressive and acting against the right-wing protest movement.

Murphy spoke with Mother Jones about what’s happening and his hopes for the URLs he bought. Of the confusion about his motives, he says:

“Liberals think I’m trying to support all these nut cases. I’m trying to stop them,” Murphy said, describing himself as an “old hippie,” who runs an “ecological, environmentally friendly businesses”—an architectural salvage and antiques retailer.

Read more on the Mother Jones website.

Photo: An anti-shutdown protest in Harrisburg, Pa. AP Photo/Matt Rourke