Pizzagate

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Comet Ping Pong, Washington, DC
Comet Ping Pong, Washington, DC

Under the slogan Pizza gate in 2016 were fake news on 4chan and Reddit to the American presidential campaign spread, which in a pizzeria in Washington, DC a child porn ring agiere, the candidate in Hillary Clinton was involved. It is a conspiracy theory and smear campaign .

prehistory

The owner of the Pizzeria Comet Ping Pong , James Alefantis, was in email contact with John Podesta , Clinton's campaign manager. When strangers illegally accessed Podesta's emails and published them via WikiLeaks , users of the 4Chan website thought they recognized code words for “girls” and “orgy” in everyday gastronomic words such as “pizza” and “orgy”, as pedophiles use them on the Internet would. The conspiracy theory was constructed around the content of the emails as well as photos on Alefantis' Instagram account that Clinton was at the center of a child pornography that was operating out of the cellar of the pizzeria. Even President Barack Obama and Lady Gaga were involved in these crimes. Furthermore, John Podesta and his brother Tony, who worked as a lobbyist , were falsely linked to the McCann criminal case by means of phantom images .

Dissemination through social media

This conspiracy theory was propagated by human users on Twitter, including bots, as well as Reddit and 4chan . According to the news channel CNN , millions of people had already heard of this "crazy conspiracy theory" in early December 2016.

Pedophile symbol according to the FBI

The false accusation was also based on the logo of another pizzeria on the same block of Comet Ping Pong. Their logo would resemble a pedophile symbol documented by the FBI in 2007.

The right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was with his website Infowars on the spread of these fake news involved. On March 24, 2017, Jones apologized on his website to the owners and employees of the pizzeria for his comments, which were based on an "incorrect narrative". According to Rolling Stone , many of those who spread the speculation on social media are said to have ties to Donald Trump's election campaign or ties to Russia.

The conspiracy theory picked up on a moral panic of the 1980s when the American public was troubled by several sensationalist reports of alleged mass ritual violence associated with satanist sects .

Attack on the pizzeria

On December 4, 2016, a man armed with an AR-15 rifle broke into the pizzeria in order to free the children allegedly held and abused in the basement. He fired two shots at a door lock and a computer. After the attacker found nothing and determined that there is no basement, he was arrested without resistance. Nobody got hurt. The shooter was sentenced to four years in prison and $ 5,744 in damages to the pizzeria on June 22, 2017.

consequences

Michael G. Flynn, the son of Trump's interim National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn , has been fired from Trump's transition team for spreading falsehoods about Pizzagate on Twitter. However, before him, his father had also spread this conspiracy theory on social media without any consequences for him.

Another pizzeria in Washington, DC and another in New York were named in the affair , leading to threatening phone calls there. YouTube videos also had a widespread effect .

International

The joke remark by Icelandic President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson that he would ban pineapples as a pizza topping, if he could, was also called "Pizzagate".

In April 2017, the German singer Xavier Naidoo mentioned the fake news approvingly in his song Marionetten . He won approval from various right-wing populists and right-wing extremists .

In an interview on June 24, 2020, Robbie Williams claimed that Pizzagate's theories had not been refuted.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Nina Rehfeld: Defamation Action “Pizzagate” - Lies rule in America , FAZ.NET of December 9, 2016
  2. ↑ Oliver Kühn: Man storms pizzeria over allegations of pedophilia , FAZ.NET from December 5, 2016
  3. ^ A b Gregor Aisch, John Huang and Cecilia Kang: Dissecting the #PizzaGate Conspiracy Theories . nytimes.com , December 10, 2016; accessed on January 2, 2017.
  4. ↑ Carolina Schwarz: Conspiracy Theory About Clinton. #Pizzagate continues . taz of December 8, 2016; Retrieved December 25, 2016.
  5. ^ Gregor Aisch, John Huang and Cecilia Kang: Dissecting the #PizzaGate Conspiracy Theories . nytimes.com , December 10, 2016; accessed on January 2, 2017.
  6. ↑ a b Lizzie Plaugic: As it spreads online and off, Pizzagate gets weirder and more dangerous , The Verge , December 7, 2016
  7. ↑ Matt Zapotosky: Why law enforcement can not get ahead of Pizza Gate and other online conspiracy theories. Washington Post , December 8, 2016; Amelia Tait: Pizzagate: How a 4Chan conspiracy went mainstream. The New Statesman , December 8, 2016
  8. ^ Brian Stelter: Fake news, real violence: 'Pizzagate' and the consequences of an Internet echo chamber. CNN.com , December 6, 2016.
  9. ↑ John Thomas Didymus: Hillary Clinton Did Not 'Personally Murder, Chop Up, Rape' Children neither has anyony produced photo evidence that she raped a 9 year old girl (debunked). Inquisitr.com, December 9, 2016; Rebecca Morin: Armed man arrested near DC pizzeria targeted by fake news. Politico , December 4, 2016.
  10. ↑ Alex Jones: "the Pizzagate narrative, as least as concerning Mr. Alefantis and Comet Ping Pong, we have subsequently determined was based upon what we now believe was an incorrect narrative." A Note to Our Listening, Viewing and Reading Audiences Concerning Pizzagate Coverage. Infowars.com, March 24, 2017, archived March 25, 2017, quoted by Paul Farhi: Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones backs off 'Pizzagate' claims. The Washington Post , March 24, 2017.
  11. ↑ Amanda Robb: Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal. Rolling Stone November 16, 2017.
  12. ^ Roger Lancaster: What the Pizzagate conspiracy theory borrows from a bogus satanic sex panic of the 1980s. The Washington Post , December 8, 2016.
  13. ↑ Frank Herrmann: How "Pizzagate" suddenly became real in Washington. Der Standard , December 9, 2016, accessed September 13, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Gunman storms pizzeria to "investigate" conspiracy theory . In: stern.de . December 5, 2016 ( stern.de [accessed May 31, 2017]).
  15. ↑ Amanda Robb: Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal . rollingstone.com , November 16, 2017; accessed on September 12, 2019.
  16. ↑ Grace Hauck: CNN: 'Pizzagate' shooter sentenced to 4 years in prison. CNN.com, June 22, 2017.
  17. ↑ sk: Trump throws conspiracy theorists from his team , December 7, 2016, accessed December 8, 2016
  18. ^ Matthew Rosenberg: Trump Adviser Has Pushed Clinton Conspiracy Theories , New York Times , December 5, 2016
  19. ↑ Paul Fontaine, “Pizzagate” Had No Effect On Support For President The Reykjavík Grapevine, February 27, 2017
  20. ↑ Leonie Feuerbach: Xavier Naidoo wrote a national citizen hymn . faz.net , May 3, 2017; accessed on May 8, 2017.
  21. ↑ Robbie Williams thinks "Pizzagate" has not been refuted . Spiegel Online , June 26, 2020; accessed on June 26, 2020