Douglass Mackey, the social media influencer known as "Ricky Vaughn," was sentenced Wednesday to seven months in prison for falsely assuring supporters of Hillary Clinton they could cast their vote in the 2016 presidential election through text messages or social media posts.
Mackey was prosecuted under the Ku Klux Klan Act that was enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to efforts by the KKK to prevent recently emancepated Blacks from voting.
Mackey was 26 years old in 2015 when he began posting on Twitter under the pseudonym "Ricky Vaughn," amassing 51,000 followers on Twitter and ranking among the "most influential voices" posting about the 2016 presidential election, according to a list compiled by M.I.T.
Federal prosecutors in New York said Mackey was intent on originating hashtags designed to "cause as much chaos as possible" by creating "controversy … for the sole purpose of disparaging Hillary Clinton."
At 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2016, Mackey published the first tweet that falsely announced that people could register their vote by texting on their phones, according to trial testimony. Additional tweets followed.
This is insane. He was trolling idiots. Even if their your idiots, even if he disgusts you, wait until the next GOP administration goes after the leftist trolls who also posted similar stuff, or even much more beign posts.
The bar is set, and it will only go lower. This will not end with the only the suffering of those you dislike.
This is a bad, really really bad, precedent to be set.
Can't wait for all of your outrage posts when @randygdub is sent to Gitmo by President Boebert.
Giving people false information about how to vote is not trolling. It's election interference and voter manipulation.
The DOJ was not even able to provide a SINGLE EXAMPLE of anyone who didn't vote by ballot because of this morons trolling.
The precedent is now set at ZERO victims.
I'm baffled at how you cannot see now the right can, and will, use this to go after leftists on social media.
"You should let criminal acts go unpunished so your side can do them too" is certainly a hot take
"Let's not criminalize trolling, because it won't stop with this guy, and the right is a lot more vindictive" would be a more adept description of my point
"It's okay to commit crimes as long as the victims are stupid."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URY9By2phRU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uvko_k4qTg
Nah, there's some things you can't joke about, misinformation around voting is one of them.
That's fine if that is your moral position, but we're talking about a legal precedent here. Like I said, see how much restraint the next GOP administration shows to left-wing trolls.
Oh he was "just trolling"?
Double the sentence. Immature twat.
Memes are violence. End them at all costs.
I bet you supported the Patriot Act.
The patriot act has nothing about punishing dumbasses for being trolling twats. Try again.
Unintended consequences. It's like you think I care about this one guy, I don't. I care about this NEW power and how it will absolutely be ABUSED by the next Republican DOJ.
ZERO proven victims.
So he's convicted on the NEW precedent that memes cause criminal harm, even if that harm can't be proven with a single victim.
Gee. Can't see how that could possibly go wrong.
You know what's not a protected class? Being trans.
Do you think a GOP attorney general might go after makers of pro-trans memes? What memes do you think President MTG or Boebert would send her attorney general after?
Or do you think this will only get used against "bad guy meme makers"?
Tampering with elections is illegal. How are you this dense?
Look, I'm sure this guy is a complete douche. But the DOJ just gained a whole lot more power by using a KKK era law to criminalize memes.
Illegal memes, and the DOJ was not even required to provide a single victim. Think about, or don't.
I bet you'd probably be happy if Jonathan Swift had been locked up as well. After all, cannibalism is illegal.