FROM MACKEY TO MUSK: Biggest Russian Propaganda Superspreader Is Now World’s Most Famous Billionaire
From “Ricky Vaughn” in 2016 to Elon Musk in 2024, the biggest superspreader of Russian mind-terrorism is now one of the world’s wealthiest men
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“Why is it so hard for people to believe that billionaire supervillains are real? What, we’ll accept them on our screens in a cartoon Hollywood film, but not in real life?”—High Fidelity for Bette Dangerous
L to R: Douglass Mackey, Mackey’s avatar ‘Ricky Vaughn’, Hitler, Putin, Musk, Tump, Mogilevich — Image courtesy High Fidelity
On January 5, 2024, I wrote:
DIGITAL GUERRILLA — The Curious Case of Douglass Mackey, Russian Propaganda Superspreader
A closer look at the orbit of convicted felon Douglass Mackey, a superspreader of Russian-intelligence lies during the lead up to the 2016 US election and beyond
The Crime Scene
Twitter 2016 is a crime scene. The chalk outline around the decaying corpse is an ominous warning — metaphorical yellow tape serves as an attempt to keep people out. But I go in — probing the bombed out traces of memetic warfare. And navigating my way between the mounds of deleted tweets and suspended accounts, I forensically piece together the carcass of 2016 — an election stolen by Kremlin-sponsored attacks facilitated by misogynistic white nationalists — superspreaders of GRU lies.
I start pulling at threads, one at a time, because criminal propagandists reveal their crimes through projection. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones’ InfoWars, Dinesh D’Souza, Don Jr. and Glenn Greenwald are each defending Douglass Mackey, a convicted felon just sentenced to seven-months in prison for his role in a conspiracy to interfere with the 2016 election. He targeted people of color to vote for Hillary Clinton with ‘vote by text’ memes — and thousands of people contacted the line.
Voting by text isn’t a thing, but election interference is.
According to the FBI, Douglass Mackey, who went by the pseudonym “Ricky Vaughn” in multiple accounts, was previously convicted of the charge of Conspiracy Against Rights at trial by a federal jury in Brooklyn.
I had reported on Douglass Mackey, superspreader of Russian-intelligence lies during the run up to the 2016 election and beyond. In threads and investigations, I noted how he was a prolific tweeter of GRU propaganda from Prigozhin’s troll farm, and he wasn’t alone — Mike Flynn and Don Jr. also tweeted Russian state-sponsored lies from the St. Petersburg operation — Ten_GOP.
But the cabal of Russian fanboys simping for Mackey is a loud confession. They are trying to make the MAGA cult members believe that Mackey is going to prison for making Hillary memes.
Number one, that shows an overt downplaying of memetic warfare — trolling is a cheap way to destroy people and countries.
It’s guerrilla warfare in cyberspace and memes are the weapons.
Number two, why are they so worried? What are they trying to hide?
That opening to my first Digital Guerrilla report would grow into my 2016 Election Attack Series: The Greatest Crime In US History:
As I was reading Gal Suburban’s post today on Twitter, I realized that low-rent characters like Douglass Mackey have been replaced by billionaire provocateurs like Elon Musk, and how exactly did that happen and why.
Here’s Gal’s post:
The ODNI released a report detailing the intelligence community's knowledge of potential foreign influence operations in the post-election period, leading up to Inauguration Day.
Recently, the DOJ indicted Russian agents Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva for running covert influence campaigns using American proxies and propagandists. There's allegedly hundreds of influencers involved in this anti-American project.
ODNI's report specifically states that Russian actors will at least conduct information operations denigrating US democracy through Inauguration Day. Those operations include: information operations, cyber operations, and potentially physical threats or violence.
It would seem crucial to protecting the public from being swept up in hysteria and chaos for the federal government to name the Americans doing the bidding of our adversaries attempting to discredit democracy.
#InformThePublic #NameThemAll
As you know, I have reported heavily on the RT indictment, which revealed Americans paid by the Russians, and I have also been urging our leaders to release the names of the 600 US-based pro-Russian professors, veterans, comedians, influencers, reporters, bloggers, businessmen, think tank analysts, and politicians:
For a refresher, here are those reports:
And here is the report where Justin Trudeau named Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson as being paid by the Russians:
‘DESTABILIZING DEMOCRACIES’: Canadian PM Names Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson as Paid By Russia
And here is the Foreign Minister of Lithuania using better words for our dilemma:
So today, as I reflected on Gal’s words, I realized the real October surprise is that low-rent lurkers like Douglass Mackey have been replaced by billionaire supervillains like Elon Musk.
“The only difference between Mackey and Musk is tens of thousands of dollars versus the billions Musk has extracted.”—High Fidelity for Bette Dangerous
I reflected on how members of the intelligentsia still try to downplay the danger of Musk — nothing to see there but a “clown,” just look away — when in fact, High Fidelity was correct when he said two years ago that Elon Musk was going to turn Twitter into a “$44-billion dollar psyops cannon.” And Jim Stewartson was correct when he said: “What all of this means is not that ‘it’s a bummer that Twitter is dying,’ it’s that Musk is providing the largest on-ramp for brainwashing, for coercive propaganda in history. That’s why this is so dangerous.”
And Fiona Hill was correct when she said Musk was passing messages for Putin, and geopolitical analyst Dr. Michael Mackay was correct when he said:
“Elon Musk is turning Twitter into VKontakte, the Russian information warfare outlet disguised as a social media platform.”
You can refresh on my original Unmusked report, which is the first in a series offering empirical evidence on how Elon Musk became a superspreader of Russian propaganda.
It’s very clear to me now why the extremist agitators on the right were so, well, agitated when Douglass Mackey got pinched and Pavel Durov got pinched, and now Tommy Robinson just got pinched, it’s because the jig is up.
“Covert influence activities are not journalism”.—US State Department
Shit-posting for Russia is not journalism. In some cases, it is actual treason.
I look forward to seeing if the United States is actually up for prosecuting traitors working for the fascist Russian mafia state and other authoritarian regimes.
Let’s don’t allow Trump to round-up 15 million of our neighbors. But do let’s consider deporting the immigrant oligarchs from South Africa, who are bleeding the wealth and dignity from the US, while clearly serving the objectives of Vladimir Putin, the head of the hydra of the new axis of evil.
As HiFi said:
“America needs to come to grips with the fact that the mythology of wealth equalling distinction has been weaponized against our country, bringing us to the brink of extinction.
“Why is it so hard for people to believe that billionaire supervillains are real? What, we’ll accept them on our screens in a cartoon Hollywood film, but not in real life?”—High Fidelity for Bette Dangerous
Why else would Musk still allow Tenet content on Twitter after the RT indictment by the US Justice Department? Or why would he still boost and platform US-based influencers paid by Russia? Curious, innit?
Why else would Peter Thiel and JD Vance allow RT and Tenet ‘influencers’ still on their Rumble platform, even after the banning of RT and after YouTube took down Tenet content? Curious and curiouser.
Clearly, we know what needs to happen next.
We vote in the prosecutor, and prosecute traitors.
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
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you are so good at what you do thank you