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Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Slightly off topic but someone was convicted and faces ten years of prison for tweeting a meme about voting for Biden by a Facebook hashtag.

I've seen numerous instances of this meme appealing to supporters on both sides. Can't imagine someone on the other side getting thrown in jail for that. It's obviously inforced extremely subjectively, which is my point. Pretty wild that you can go to prison for such a long time for that.

I think in general this "election interference" is often used as a cover for politicians to exert pressure on social media and curtail speech. Often when you read about it it seems so clear cut (protect our democracy is the new protect the children). But govt forces often use it to censor.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/social-media-influencer...

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> Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to “vote” via text message or social media which, in reality, was legally invalid.

Tricking people into throwing away their vote by casting it through invalid methods is a lot more than "tweeting a meme."

The vote by text for someone I don't like thing is a meme. I've seen it 100 times in reddit. Do you think it was never tweeted by anyone else and widely disseminated? I think the platforms scrubbed the meme off the sites but I'm positive I've seen it on Reddit front page and Twitter a lot

(Dis)Information can be a crime. https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/safety-resources/sca...

So can numbers. What's your point? Do you think it's right to throw people in jail arbitrarily?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number

Crime is ok if its top text bottom text? Crime is ok if lots of people join in and crime with you?

More like “crime is OK if it is done by my people, and when the harms are to ‘other’ people”.

From your very own article you helpfully linked, it was found that he was spreading false information about (text) voting, causing anyone who didn't know better to become disenfranchised, a violation of their rights as an American citizen and absolutely prosecutable if you want a country based on laws, justice, and equality. Quoted from the article: "As proven at trial, between September 2016 and November 2016, Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to 'vote' via text message or social media which, in reality, was legally invalid."

The link you provided shows he didn't just tweet a meme about voting. Disenfranchising voters is a very serious crime in the US.

> for tweeting a meme about voting for Biden by a Facebook hashtag.

Gee, that's a funny way of saying "for deliberately and repeatedly trying to trick voters into mis-voting with a planned group-campaign of impersonation and fraudulent ads."

Just because "tweets" and "Facebook" and "hashtags" etc. are tools being used doesn't automatically make something pure and innocent: All the same elements could appear in a financial fraud/scam or a bloody tribal genocide.

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