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False statements of fact have always enjoyed reduced 1st amendment protection. Black-letter law says that deliberately sharing false information about voting procedures is a crime. There is no "it was a meme" exception in the law, and there shouldn't be.
This was a fairly simple case of "Don't do the crime if you won't do the time."
Free speech doesn't protect YOU PEOPLE because of reasons, but it's a terrible precedent if YOUR GUY does something that impacts OUR free speech. Heard it before. But, as I said, the Devil has now turned tail.
Black letter law -- constitutional, thus higher than the one used -- says "Congress shall make no law ...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". There's no exception for "sharing false information about voting procedures" in there, nor should there be. This is exactly a case of someone being convicted for a tweet the regime found to be Not Funny.
Are you saying the 1st amendment means that there shouldn't be laws against perjury, commercial fraud, defamation etc?
Or are you saying that telling lies about voting procedures in order to influence an election is less serious than those things?
I'm saying what I said. Perjury -- the real sort, not the 18 USC 1001 trap -- is easily distinguishable by the fact that you make an oath or affirmation before some sort of official, or are filling out some clearly official document which warns you of perjury. Defamation is generally a civil matter and criminal defamation laws can easily run afoul of the First Amendment as well. Commercial fraud is a harder to distinguish, but once you've reached finding an exception for "text to vote" memes, there's not much left.
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