A 33-year-old man who was a prolific spreader of hate and disinformation during Donald Trump's rise to the presidency under the pseudonym "Ricky Vaughn" is due to go on trial soon, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Jury selection began to today for the trial of Douglas Mackey, who was charged by the DOJ in 2021 with election interference, saying he conspired to spread “misinformation designed to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.” The charges are related to a 2016 stunt where he disseminated an online flyer featuring images of a Black person in front of an “African Americans for [Hillary Clinton]” sign, urging voters to text in their votes.
The DOJ says nearly 5,000 people fell for Mackey's play.
According to the SPLC, Mackey was an "influential figure in the so-called alt-right movement."
"Mackey’s posts helped launder overt white supremacist talking points into the mainstream of the conservative movement. MIT Media Lab listed him as the 107th most influential social media personality during the 2016 election, writes the SPLC's Michael Edison Hayden, adding that Mackey's social media activity mixed "benign news articles with more sinister fare, including links to the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer and racist and antisemitic memes."
Read the full report over at the SPLC's website.