He's Going to Prison for Twitter Trolling. That's Not Justice | Hacker News Reader

He's Going to Prison for Twitter Trolling. That's Not Justice

reason.com

15 pointsdaoboy20 comments

I don't see the problem. Clearly he was trying to disenfranchise voters, what mechanism he used isn't all that relevant. You don't mess with the machinery of democracy and if you do I'm all for having the book thrown at you. Preferably a hardcover.

If this were true, half of cable news personalities and newspaper publishers would be in jail, on both sides.

They get away with it because the news is now considered 'entertainment' or 'opinion'.

That doesn't make it right.

Then you likely will feel that Kristina Wong should also be arrested, tried, and imprisoned for her own tweet: "Hey Trump Supporters! Skip poll lines at #Election2016 and TEXT in your vote! Text votes are legit. Or vote tomorrow on Super Wednesday!"

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/795999059987173377

Yes, that seems like the same thing. Of course if she posted as a comedian rather than using an alias that was an influential voice in politics that might change the dynamics.

Indeed I do. I don't think anybody should mess with other people's ability to vote, even when joking, though, when clearly joking it's going to be much harder to argue that it is interfering with the elections. But it's similar to joking about bombs to customs people. Which is also why I think gerrymandering shouldn't be legal because it effectively disenfranchises people and why I think convicts and ex-convicts should also be able to vote. Everybody of voting age should be able to vote and anybody interfering with that should be penalized swiftly.

Now do a side-by-side comparison of the two situations - one an extended planned campaign with fake text messaging accounts etc, the other a spontaneous day-of joke by someone whose political affiliations were open and not concealed.

Unfortunately for Mackey and his defenders, juries are actually kinda good at understanding context.

"a spontaneous day-of joke by someone whose political affiliations were open and not concealed."

Spontaneous? Look at the tweet and the elaborate preparations that went into preparing for it, replete with hat and campaign paraphernalia.

Political affiliations open and not concealed: she identifies explicitly as a Trump supporter and is clearly targeting Chinese-Americans, some of whom may not have been familiar with the U.S. voting calendar.

Here is her carefully prepared script that she reads:

"Hey everybody, this is Kristina Wong. I'm coming out, I'm a Trump supporter. I just want to remind all my fellow Chinese Americans for Trump, and people of color for Trump, to vote for Trump on Wednesday, November 9th. Really important day, we're going to show this country who is boss, and that's are man, Donald Trump. Don't forget to vote Donald Trump on November 9th. "

In my opinion, this tweet crossed a line and was aiming at influencing the election among Chinese-American voters. However, it is not surprising that the Justice Department chose not to indict her. As a supporter of the ruling party, she is apparently invulnerable. Indeed the tweet is still up.

The fact that she's a full time professional comedian and virtually all her tweets are jokes is the context you're claiming to be unaware of an incapable of discerning.

I miss any humor in her appealing, in full republican regalia, to "my fellow Chinese Americans for Trump, and people of color for Trump, to vote for Trump on Wednesday, November 9th."

Is the humor that "wink wink, these idiot C-A Trump voters are so off-the-boat clueless that they might just believe this misinformation. ha, ha. After all if they're so brainless as to vote for that guy, they'll believe anything, yuck, yuck, what dummies!" ?

Or is it, "See, clever me, what I'm doing here -- in my gd brilliant postmodern manner -- is to simultaneously convey election disinformation while hiding behind a fig leaf defense of cutting edge parody of a clueless Trump voter, yuck yuck, they'll never be able to say a word, cause I have poc privilege and everyone knows it, jokes on them, aren't I just so cool" ?

Or...? I'm really struggling to see the comedy, so do let me know.

No, I don't think you are really struggling. I think you're just choosing to ignore the clearly stated context and keep repeating your original point in increasingly whiny language.

"The clearly stated context?" Surely, it's her own words, in her own voice:

You claimed: "virtually all her tweets are jokes is the context'.

I asked you to explain the joke in this case and provided two plausible possibilities, both of which I did not find to be comedic but merely sarcastically contemptuous, and asked your own explanation lest I had missed something. You chose to evade my simple request.

Still waiting. Surely explaining something as transparent as a tweet's humorous thrust should be easy?

Its a common theme used online in posts and memes for years, about voting dates moved, vote by sending text, vote by calling a number, voting places moved, all fake.

He wasn't even the only one to do this joke online, a quick twitter search showed both sides promoting the same fake scenarios. This was also popular genre of meme on facebook.

The case also proved nobody was affected by the joke, and the his joke was censored by twitter. Also twitter didnt remove others jokes using the same voting meme style.

So we have a joke, nobody fell for, nobody should fall for, and somehow, only the Government didn't realize it was a historical common joke....

Saying he was trying to disenfranchise the public, is a real stretch. Jokes with this same genre have been around since the turn of the century.

His account was just a meme account, just like the bee or onion. Saying his post was taken as fact semes unlikely.

They had to use a KKK law about voter intimidation to persecute him, and they referenced his conservative postings and anti-Hillary viewpoint as proof he was a "bad dude".

There are a couple of key oversights in your post which explain the difference: they showed that thousands of people did try to follow his advice to vote by text message, and he misrepresented himself as speaking on behalf of the Clinton campaign. That crosses a key legal line and if you tried to impersonate the Trump campaign you’d get the same stronger reaction.

Secondly, you’re wrong that Twitter didn’t remove other instances of that joke. They removed lots of election misinformation but the difference is that Democrats, along with most mainstream Republicans, didn’t feel that was unfair and make a big stink about it. A private company has every right to say that they have rules about use of their private property and not spreading election misinformation at least used to be a pretty uncontroversial policy.

This article has a good point. While it is obvious that the man had a clear goal of tricking people into not voting, the judge should have considered that what he was doing could have been funny to people online and acquitted him. It is in the very DNA of our society that no law can be made that interferes with anything that a citizen might plain get a kick out of doing.

It is a dark day when we only look at people’s goals, actions and outcomes and ignore the epic lulz that were had.

Trolling isn't protected speech. Wilfully deceiving people to trick them out of voting is in fact illegal, even if they're stupid and naive about internet culture. Rehashing the specious arguments in this article that already failed to convince a jury is just culture war bait.

Anyway, why doesn't Mackey just look at the funny side? After all it's objectively hilarious that his tweets were so bad he has to stay in actual jail for 7 months. Trololololo!

A fine or a warning would be well past sufficient for a first time offense. I don't find unnecessarily imprisoning people particularly amusing, personally.

Nah... we have enough get free out of jail cards and unbelievable plea deals. He wanted like many other people to manipulate the election, the very fabric of our democracy, that wasn't a Boaty McBoatface poll.

Sure, if he'd pled guilty. If he hadn't offered such a bullshit defense he'd be long over it by now; instead he spun it out in the justice system for 7 years, wasting everyone's time, so he can think about that for 7 months. I am fine with him doing some time, I think we're too soft on fraud and that's why we have so much of it.

I don't find unnecessarily imprisoning people particularly amusing, personally.

Oh, now it's serious business? Too bad.

He has entered the Find Out stage of the process.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com