Twitter owner Elon Musk recently replied to a Tweet which is below:
That had no material impact on the election.
What prison sentences were given out to those who suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop information? That *did* have a material impact on the election.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 18, 2023
Douglass Mackey was sentenced on Wednesday to seven months in prison after he was found guilty of using social media to spread misinformation about voting in the 2016 election.
It has been noted that Mackey, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, had shared to his tens of thousands of followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, deceptive memes directed at supporters of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The memes falsely instructed voters days before the election that they could cast ballots digitally via text.
Prosecutors also uncovered private direct messages between Mackey and others in which they “discussed and agreed on the coordinated dissemination through their public Twitter accounts of misinformation intended variously to provoke, mislead, and, in some cases, deceive voters in the 2016 presidential election,” according to court filings.
Mackey, who operated online under the alias “Ricky Vaughn,” was convicted in March of one charge of conspiring with others to interfere with the rights of U.S. citizens to vote.
“This groundbreaking prosecution demonstrates our commitment to prosecuting those who commit crimes that threaten our democracy and seek to deprive people of their constitutional right to vote,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement after the sentence was delivered.
The sentencing decision is a win for prosecutors, who sought six to 12 months for Mackey, according to a court document.
