I still cannot believe this story is real. We have officially reached the point in America where citizens are being arrested for meme-making.

Douglass Mackey was found guilty by a New York court on charges of election interference yesterday. In 2016, Mackey jokingly posted a meme encouraging Democrats to vote for Hillary Clinton by text. Which is obviously not real.

The DOJ claimed this constituted election interference, even though they can't prove anyone was actually fooled by the meme. The phone number led to a real line, and some users didn't "immediately receive error messages," according to Law and Crime.

Mackey claimed he was just trying to make a viral meme and that several Hillary Clinton supporters had made similar jokes without getting prosecuted. But the prosecution argued Mackey worked with other meme makers in some type of conspiracy to make the memes as real as possible and "vaporize votes".

The Eastern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement, "Mackey has been found guilty by a jury of his peers of attempting to deprive individuals from exercising their sacred right to vote for the candidate of their choice in the 2016 Presidential Election. Today’s verdict proves that the defendant’s fraudulent actions crossed a line into criminality and flatly rejects his cynical attempt to use the constitutional right of free speech as a shield for his scheme to subvert the ballot box and suppress the vote.”

It was a JOKE.

Many Twitter users have since pointed out that this chick Kristina Wong did the exact same thing but, for Donald Trump voters. As far as we can tell, no charges have been brought against her.

Wong tweeted, "Hey Trump Supporters! Skip poll lines at Election 2016 and TEXT in your vote! Text votes are legit. Or vote tomorrow on Super Wednesday!"

Plus, these charges against Mackey weren't brought until after Joe Biden's inauguration - over four years after the meme in question was made. And now he faces a 10-year prison sentence. For a meme. He reportedly plans to appeal the decision, so here's to hoping it gets overturned.

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Lily is a Zoomer college dropout who somehow landed a writing gig here at LwC.com. In her spare time, she enjoys going for runs, touching grass, and occasionally tweeting tweets for fellow tweeters.

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