(Photo: Douglass Mackey, who the feds say went by the Twitter name Ricky Vaughan, was allegedly a prominent anonymous anti-Semite, racist and Trump-booster online before the 2016 election. Credit: NY Daily News)
BREAKING: Right-Wing Twitter Influencer Convicted
Of Voter Deception
U.S. Dept of Justice, March 31, 2023
NEW YORK — 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. A New York federal jury on Friday convicted a right-wing
Twitter influencer of scheming to interfere in the 2016 election by circulating
memes targeting Hillary Clinton supporters representing that they could vote
via text.
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. The government alleged that from September 2016 to
November 2016, Mackey conspired with several other internet influencers to
spread fraudulent messages to Clinton supporters. https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/social-media-influencer-douglass-mackey-convicted-election-interference-2016
