{"id":164627,"date":"2021-01-28T01:35:22","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T22:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/twitter-troll-charged-over-2016-us-election-scam\/"},"modified":"2021-01-28T01:35:22","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T22:35:22","slug":"twitter-troll-charged-over-2016-us-election-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/twitter-troll-charged-over-2016-us-election-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"#Twitter troll charged over 2016 US election scam"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Twitter<\/a> troll charged over 2016 US election scam<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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A right-wing social media influencer was charged on Wednesday with spreading disinformation online that may have prevented thousands of Hillary Clinton supporters from voting in the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n

Douglass Mackey, 31, is accused of publishing memes on Twitter that falsely claimed Democratic voters could cast ballots by sending a text message to a specific phone number.<\/p>\n

New York prosecutors claim that messages from at least 4,900 different phones were sent to the number in a vain attempt to cast votes for one of the candidates.<\/p>\n

The prosecutors did not say which candidate but it is clear it is Clinton, who lost to Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

They say he got the idea from a message that falsely informed voters in Britain’s Brexit referendum that they could cast their vote to remain in the European Union via text.<\/p>\n

Mackey’s alleged actions “amounted to nothing short of vote theft,” William Sweeney of the FBI’s New York office said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Mackey was arrested in West Palm Beach, Florida on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

US government prosecutors at the Brooklyn-based Eastern District of New York have charged Mackey with conspiracy against rights. He faces up to ten years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n

Investigators say that Mackey’s Twitter account, which was under the pseudonym Ricky Vaughn, had 58,000 followers. It published anti-Semitic and white nationalist posts. <\/p>\n

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/a>’s Media Lab ranked Mackey as the 107th most important online influencer, bigger than some major news<\/a> sites, going into the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

Numerous studies have suggested that orchestrated fake news campaigns helped sway some voters a little over four years ago.\n <\/p>\n\n

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How Twitter takes votes away from Trump but not from Republicans<\/a>\n <\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n Twitter troll charged over 2016 US election scam (2021, January 27)
\n retrieved 27 January 2021
\n from https:\/\/techxplore.com\/news\/2021-01-twitter-troll-election-scam.html<\/p>\n

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\n part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n