NEW YORK (AP) – A self-styled far-right propagandist was arrested in Florida on Wednesday on charges of using social media to try to suppress Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, federal prosecutors said Wednesday .
In a criminal complaint, 31-year-old Douglass Mackey, known on the internet as ‘Ricky Vaughn’, is accused of anonymously conspiring with others at the end of 2016 to use Twitter and other social media to Deceiving Clinton supporters to vote via text instead of throwing. an actual ballot.
The alleged scheme “was nothing short of theft of votes”, said William Sweeney, head of the FBI office in New York City, where the charges were filed. “This is illegal behavior and contributes to the erosion of public confidence in our election processes.”
Prosecutors are expected to release Mackey on $ 50,000 release after an initial court appearance in West Palm Beach. A message to comment was left with his defender.
At the time of the alleged fraud, Mackey had 58,000 followers on Twitter and was considered a ‘significant influencer’ in the upcoming election that former President Donald Trump won, prosecutors said. He described himself as an “American nationalist” who regularly tweeted Trump again and promoted Democratic conspiracy theories about voter fraud.
The complaint accused Mackey of collaborating with four unnamed conspirators to spread disinformation, claiming that people could vote for Clinton by posting a specific hashtag on Twitter or Facebook, or by texting Clinton’s name to a fake text code. . One tweet he sent shows a photo of a black woman with a Clinton campaign urging people to ‘avoid the line’ and ‘vote from home’.
Prosecutors said the records were retweeted 175 times, and that there were at least 4,900 phone number responses using the fake text code, including some from people in New York.
In October 2016, Twitter suspended Mackey’s account for ‘participating in targeted abuse’, court documents read. Using another social messaging network, he wrote: “Do not worry, I will return to Twitter soon,” and used an employee to set up another account, the newspapers said.
Twitter has ‘worked closely with relevant authorities on the issue’, the company said in a statement.
If convicted of conspiracy charges, Mackey could face up to 10 years in prison.
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Associated Press author Amanda Seitz contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to show that the spelling of Mackey’s first name is Douglass, not Douglas.