Monday Nov 11, 2024
Dangerous Memes (ft. Douglas Mackey)
Douglas Mackey (aka Ricky Vaughn) faces months in prison for tweeting satirical memes during the 2016 section. Josh and Timon talk to him about his case and what a Trump victory in 2024 means.
#DouglasMackey #RickyVaughn #Meme #Twitter #FreeSpeech #Censorship #Biden #FBI #Court #Justice
On January 26, 2021–six days after Joe Biden was inaugurated– eight FBI and other law enforcement agents showed up at Douglass Mackey’s home and arrested him on felony charges with a ten-year maximum sentence. His crime: posting a Twitter meme, which mocked Hillary Clinton supporters he posted almost five years earlier. Mackey had run the pro-Trump twitter account @RickyVaughn99. The government claimed his satirical posts joking about “texting to vote” constituted a conspiracy on "social media to spread disinformation relevant to the impending 2016 Presidential Election." Specifically, the government was concerned that "disinformation spread by these individuals often took the form of 'memes.'"
Despite living in Florida, Mackey was prosecuted in the Eastern District of New York before two liberal judges and was convicted. He was sentenced to seven months in federal prison on October 18, and ordered to report federal prison on January 8, 2024. He will appeal the case. Reversing this conviction is essential not just to protect his own freedom, but to prevent politically motivated suppression of free speech for all Americans.
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The American Reformer Podcast is hosted by Josh Abbotoy and Timon Cline, recorded remotely in the United States, and edited by Jared Cummings.
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