A person logs in to the Twitter website which is now displaying the new logo for Twitter, in an office in central Londonm, July 24, 2023
A RIGHT-WING social media activist was sentenced to seven months in federal prison on Wednesday for spreading falsehoods via the social media site now known as X, in an effort to suppress Democratic turnout in the 2016 United States presidential election.
Douglass Mackey, who posted under the alias Ricky Vaughn, was convicted in March of the charge of conspiracy against rights after a trial in federal court in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors said that Mr Mackey, who had 58,000 followers on the platform, conspired with others between September and November of 2016 to post falsely state that supporters of Democrat Hillary Clinton could vote for her by text message or social media post.
In one post, Mr Mackey tweeted a photo of a woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” the tweet said. “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925.”
US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement that Mr Mackey “weaponised disinformation in a dangerous scheme to stop targeted groups, including black and brown people and women, from participating in our democracy.”
Issuing the sentence, Judge Ann M Donnelly said that Mr Mackey had been “one of the leading members” of a conspiracy that was “nothing short of an assault on our democracy.”
ROGER McKENZIE expounds on the motivation that drove him to write a book that anticipates a dawn of a new, fully liberated Africa – the land of his ancestors
While much attention is focused on Israel’s aggression, we cannot ignore the conflicts in Africa, stoked by Western imperialism and greed for natural resources, if we’re to understand the full picture of geopolitics today, argues ROGER McKENZIE
