Florida Man Arrested Over 2016 Election Memes

A 31-year-old Florida man was arrested in West Palm Beach on Wednesday on federal charges that he conspired with several other people to use memes and social media platforms to trick Hillary Clinton voters into voting via text message, and that voting for Hillary would mean people’s daughters would be drafted to fight establishment resource wars under a Clinton presidency.

Douglass Mackey, a.k.a. “Ricky Vaughn,” faces up to 10 years in prison for ‘spreading election disinformation’ using several Twitter accounts, one of which had approximately 58,000 followers before Twitter suspended him on November 2, 2016.

According to the Biden Department of Justice:
 

“Starting in at least 2015, MACKEY participated in numerous Group DMs. These groups, which at times included dozens of individuals, and at times had overlapping membership, served as forums for the participants to share, among other things, their views concerning how best to influence the Election. Among other things, MACKEY and the members of these groups used the Group DMs to create, refine and share memes and hashtags that members of the groups would subsequently post and distribute.“

One of the memes featured a picture of a black woman accompanied by the text “Avoid the line. Vote from home. Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925. Vote for Hillary and be part of history.”