On January 27, the Department of Justice announced that it had filed charges against Douglass Mackey, alias “Ricky Vaughn,” regarding allegations that he had interfered with the 2016 election. Mackey, a white nationalist who was eventually banned from Twitter, allegedly conspired to use social media to spread false information about voting in 2016 – specifically, claiming that people could text in their votes. Parts of the misinformation campaign appeared to target Black and Latino people. The complaint alleges that “at least 4,900” telephone numbers did just that.
Fox host Tucker Carlson ignored what Mackey’s actual charges claim and instead shouted that Mackey had merely “hurt [the] feelings” of liberals. Carlson said that Mackey’s arrest was proof that the First Amendment is “effectively suspended,” and he declared that “we are clearly living under some form of martial law at the moment.”
Carlson was flatly pushing lies. He either didn’t read the one-page Department of Justice press release explaining the charges of voter disinformation or decided to just flat-out lie given that his own network argues no reasonable viewer takes him seriously anyway. Mackey’s posts solicited people to text a specific number to vote, and there is evidence a large number of them did. There are no “meme” or “LOLz” exceptions for breaking the law. Continue reading.