A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted a social media influencer for posting a meme supposedly spreading “disinformation” that the court deemed “conspiring” to commit voter suppression.
“A self-styled far-right propagandist from Florida was convicted Friday of charges alleging that he conspired to deprive individuals of their right to vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Douglass Mackey, 33, of West Palm Beach, Florida, was convicted in Brooklyn federal court before Judge Ann M. Donnelly after a one-week trial. On the internet, he was known as ‘Ricky Vaughn’.
In 2016, Mackey had about 58,000 Twitter followers and was ranked by the MIT Media Lab as the 107th-most important influencer of the then-upcoming presidential election, prosecutors said. He had described himself as an ‘American nationalist’ who regularly retweeted Trump and promoted conspiracy theories about voter fraud by Democrats.
Mackey, who was arrested in January 2021, could face up to 10 years in prison. His sentencing is set for August 16th.
U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a release that the jury rejected Mackey’s cynical attempt to use the First Amendment free speech protections to shield himself from criminal liability for a voter suppression scheme.
‘Today’s verdict proves that the defendant’s fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality’, he said.
The government alleged that from September 2016 to November 2016, Mackey conspired with several other internet influencers to spread fraudulent messages to Clinton supporters.
Prosecutors told jurors during the trial that Mackey urged supporters of then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to ‘vote’ via text message or social media, knowing that those endorsements were not legally valid votes”. -Associated Press
Oddly enough, self-described feminist “comedienne” and progressive activist Kristina Wong posted the very same meme online on election Day in 2016.
However, Kristina does not have to worry about being investigated by the federal government as she was on a campus comedy tour following the court ruling.
In light of the massive quantities of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election alone, it’s astonishing to see the lengths to which the political establishment will go to use the institutions and agencies of government against any and all proponents and sympathizers of the subdued populist opposition.