Notorious Twitter troll and alternative right-wing figure Douglass Mackey, best known for his alter ego, Ricky Vaughn, was arrested on Wednesday on federal charges of electoral interference stemming from an alleged voter misinformation campaign during the 2016 election.
Mackey is accused of conspiring with others “to disseminate incorrect information designed to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote,” according to the newly opened criminal complaint.
The charges are a potentially tectonic shift in how the federal government tries to enforce laws against electoral interference. False allegations about elections on the internet and social media have been a major problem, with major platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, trying to limit their spread.
But there are few examples of publications on social media that were used as the basis for such criminal charges.
“I’ve never seen anything like this about information about social media accounts before,” said Chip Stewart, a professor of journalism at Texas Christian University, specializing in media law and communications technology.
Outside of electoral misinformation, Mackey was a well-known figure in the alt-right movement and a prolific poster of anti-Semitic content. Banned from Twitter for “targeted harassment” in 2016, Mackey opened several new Twitter accounts to avoid ongoing bans. His true identity was revealed by The Huffington Post in 2018.
An analysis by the MIT Media Lab determined that Mackey is among the top 150 influencers in the 2016 presidential election. Mackey was 107, ranked higher than NBC News and the Drudge Report.
Mackey is accused of using Twitter to deceive voters and get them to vote via text. Mackey was involved in several direct group messages, including one with the name “War Room”, in which dozens of individuals shared ideas on how to influence the election, according to federal prosecutors. In these group conversations, Mackey and others created, refined and shared memes and hashtags designed to misinform potential voters. The group created several memes falsely suggesting that celebrities supported former President Donald Trump’s candidacy. Another campaign broke out in the meme “Draft our Daughters”, which falsely suggested that Hillary Clinton supported the qualification of women for recruitment.
In September 2016, Mackey’s groups started creating memes that deceived potential voters about how they could vote, creating memes that falsely claimed supporters could vote by posting on Facebook or Twitter or voting via text message. According to the complaint, 4,900 unique phone numbers sent text messages of their votes to the number provided.
“There is no place in public speaking for lies and misinformation to defraud citizens of their right to vote,” said US prosecutor Seth DuCharme in a press release announcing the charges. “With Mackey’s arrest, we have notified that those who want to subvert the democratic process in this way cannot rely on the mantle of anonymity of the Internet to escape responsibility for their crimes. They will be investigated, arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. “
Mackey was arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida, and will appear by videoconference.
Stewart said the federal government will need to prove that Mackey’s actions “amount to ‘undermining’ or ‘oppressing’ voting rights.”
“I just don’t know if people who try to text a vote will undermine or oppress their right to vote,” he said. “They certainly seem to have evidence that they intended to suppress the vote, particularly among black voters, which may be enough for a conviction.”
Jason Abbruzzese contributed.