Pizzagate is a debunked conspiracy theory
that went viral during the 2016 United States
presidential election cycle.
The conspiracy theory has been extensively
discredited and debunked by a wide array of
organizations, including the Metropolitan
Police Department of the District of Columbia.In
the fall of 2016, the personal email account
of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign
manager, was hacked in a spear-phishing attack,
and his emails were subsequently made public
by WikiLeaks.
Proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory
falsely claimed that the emails contained
coded messages referring to human trafficking
and connecting several U.S. restaurants and
high-ranking officials of the Democratic Party
with an alleged child sex ring involving the
Washington, D.C. restaurant Comet Ping Pong.Members
of the alt-right and other opponents of Clinton's
presidential campaign spread the conspiracy
theory on social media outlets such as 4chan
and Twitter.
A man from North Carolina traveled to Comet
Ping Pong to investigate this conspiracy,
during which he fired a rifle inside the restaurant.
In addition, the restaurant owner and staff
received death threats.
== Origins ==
=== 
Genesis ===
Rumors stirring in the NYPD that Huma's emails
point to a pedophila ring and @HillaryClinton
is at the center.
#GoHillary #PodestaEmails23 https://pic.twitter.com/gkEH5oL269
30 Oct 2016
This conspiracy theory emerged near the end
of the 2016 United States presidential election
cycle.
On October 30, 2016, a white supremacist Twitter
account that presented itself as belonging
to a Jewish lawyer in New York included a
display of a claim that the New York City
Police Department, which was searching emails
found on Anthony Weiner's laptop as part of
an investigation into his sexting scandals,
had discovered the existence of a pedophilia
ring linked to members of the Democratic Party.
Internet users reading John Podesta's emails
released by WikiLeaks in early November 2016
speculated that some words in Podesta's emails
were code words for pedophilia and human trafficking.
Proponents also claimed that the ring was
a meeting ground for Satanic ritual abuse.The
theory was then posted on the message board
Godlike Productions.
The following day, the story was repeated
on Your News Wire citing a 4chan post from
earlier that year.
The Your News Wire article was then spread
by pro-Trump websites, including SubjectPolitics.com,
which falsely claimed the New York Police
Department had raided Hillary Clinton's property.
The website Conservative Daily Post ran a
headline falsely stating that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation had confirmed that
story.
=== Spread on social media ===
Users on Twitter and 4chan searched the leaked
emails of John Podesta for food-related "code
words" that supposedly revealed the existence
of a sex trafficking operation.
For example, The New York Times reported that
the phrase "cheese pizza" was thought by a
poster to 4chan to be a code word for child
pornography since they had the same initials.
According to the BBC, the allegations spread
to "the mainstream internet" several days
before the 2016 U.S. presidential election,
after a Reddit user posted a Pizzagate "evidence"
document.
The original Reddit post, since removed some
time between November 4 and 21, alleged the
involvement of the Washington, D.C., business
Comet Ping Pong:
Everyone associated with the business is making
semi-overt, semi-tongue-in-cheek, and semi-sarcastic
inferences towards sex with minors.
The artists that work for and with the business
also generate nothing but cultish imagery
of disembodiment, blood, beheadings, sex,
and of course pizza.
The story was picked up by fake-news websites
such as Infowars.com, Planet Free Will and
the Vigilant Citizen, and has been promoted
by alt-right activists such as Mike Cernovich,
Brittany Pettibone, and Jack Posobiec.
Other promoters included David Seaman, former
writer for TheStreet.com, CBS46 anchor Ben
Swann, basketball player Andrew Bogut, and
Minecraft creator Markus Persson.
On December 30, as Bogut recovered from a
knee injury, members of /r/The Donald community
on Reddit promoted the false theory that his
injury was connected to mild support for Pizzagate.
Jonathan Albright, an assistant professor
of media analytics at Elon University, said
that a disproportionate number of tweets about
Pizzagate came from the Czech Republic, Cyprus,
and Vietnam, and that some of the most frequent
retweeters were bots.Members of the Reddit
community /r/The_Donald created the /r/pizzagate
subreddit to further develop the conspiracy
theory.
The sub was banned on November 23, 2016, for
violating Reddit's anti-doxing policy with
Reddit posting a notice that "We don't want
witchhunts on our site".
Users had posted personal details of people
connected to the alleged conspiracy.
After the ban on Reddit, the discussion was
moved to the v/pizzagate sub on Voat, a website
similar to Reddit.Some of Pizzagate's proponents,
including David Seaman and Michael G. Flynn
(Michael Flynn's son), have evolved the conspiracy
into a broader government conspiracy called
"Pedogate".
According to this theory, a "satanic cabal
of elites" of the New World Order operate
international child sex trafficking rings.
=== Turkish press reports ===
In Turkey, the allegations were reported by
pro-government newspapers (i.e., those supportive
of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan), such
as Sabah, A Haber, Yeni Şafak, Akşam and
Star.
The story appeared on Turkey's Ekşi Sözlük
and on the viral news network HaberSelf, where
anyone can post content.
These forums reposted images and allegations
directly from the since-deleted subreddit,
which were reprinted in full on the state-controlled
press.
Efe Sozeri, a columnist for The Daily Dot,
suggested government sources were pushing
this story in order to distract attraction
from a child abuse scandal in March 2016.
== Harassment of restaurant owners and employees
==
As Pizzagate spread, Comet Ping Pong received
hundreds of threats from the theory's believers.
The restaurant's owner, James Alefantis, told
The New York Times: "From this insane, fabricated
conspiracy theory, we've come under constant
assault.
I've done nothing for days but try to clean
this up and protect my staff and friends from
being terrorized."Some adherents identified
the Instagram account of Alefantis and pointed
to some of the photos posted there as evidence
of the conspiracy.
Many of the images shown were friends and
family who had liked Comet Ping Pong's page
on Facebook.
In some cases, imagery was taken from unrelated
websites and claimed to be Alefantis' own.
The restaurant's owners and staff were harassed
and threatened on social media websites, and
the owner received death threats.
The restaurant's Yelp page was locked by the
operators of the site citing reviews that
were "motivated more by the news coverage
itself than the reviewer's personal consumer
experience".Several bands who had performed
at the pizzeria also faced harassment.
For example, Amanda Kleinman of Heavy Breathing
deleted her Twitter account after receiving
negative comments connecting her and her band
to the conspiracy theory.
Another band, Sex Stains, had closed the comments
of their YouTube videos and addressed the
controversy in the description of their videos.
The artist Arrington de Dionyso, whose murals
are frequently displayed at the pizzeria,
described the campaign of harassment against
him in detail, and averred of the attacks
in general, "I think it's a very deliberate
assault, which will eventually be a coordinated
assault on all forms of free expression."
The affair has drawn comparisons with the
Gamergate controversy.
Pizzagate-related harassment of businesses
extended beyond Comet Ping Pong to include
other nearby D.C. businesses such as Besta
Pizza, three doors down from Comet; Little
Red Fox; the popular bookstore Politics and
Prose; and the French bistro Terasol.
The businesses received a high volume of threatening
and menacing telephone calls, including death
threats, and also experienced online harassment.
The co-owners of Little Red Fox and Terasol
filed police reports.Brooklyn restaurant Roberta's
was also pulled into the hoax, receiving harassing
phone calls, including a call from an unidentified
person telling an employee that she was "going
to bleed and be tortured".
The restaurant became involved after a since-removed
YouTube video used images from their social
media accounts to imply they were a part of
the hoax sex ring.
Others then spread the accusations on social
media, claiming the "Clinton family loves
Roberta's".East Side Pies, in Austin, Texas,
saw one of its delivery trucks vandalized
with an epithet, and was the target of online
harassment related to their supposed involvement
in Pizzagate, alleged connections to the Central
Intelligence Agency, and the Illuminati.The
Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated
Pizzagate-related threats in March 2017 as
part of a probe into possible Russian interference
in the 2016 United States elections.
== Comet Ping Pong shooting ==
On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch,
a 28-year-old man from Salisbury, North Carolina,
fired three shots in the restaurant with an
AR-15-style rifle, striking walls, a desk,
and a door.
Welch later told police that he had planned
to "self-investigate" the conspiracy theory.
Welch saw himself as the potential hero of
the story—a rescuer of children.
He surrendered after officers surrounded the
restaurant and was arrested without incident.
No one was injured.Welch told police he had
read online that the Comet restaurant was
harboring child sex slaves and that he wanted
to see for himself if they were there.
In an interview with The New York Times, Welch
later said that he regretted how he had handled
the situation but did not dismiss the conspiracy
theory, and rejected the description of it
as "fake news".
Some conspiracy theorists speculated that
the shooting was a staged attempt to discredit
their investigations.On December 13, 2016,
Welch was charged with one count of "interstate
transportation of a firearm with intent to
commit an offense" (a federal crime).
According to court documents, Welch attempted
to recruit friends three days before the attack
by urging them to watch a YouTube video about
the conspiracy.
He was subsequently charged with two additional
offenses, with the grand jury returning an
indictment charging Welch with assault with
a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm
during the commission of a crime.On March
24, 2017, following a plea agreement with
prosecutors, Welch pleaded guilty to the federal
charge of interstate transport of firearms
and the local District of Columbia charge
of assault with a dangerous weapon.
Welch also agreed to pay $5,744.33 for damages
to the restaurant.
U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson
sentenced Welch to four years in prison on
June 22, 2017; at the sentencing hearing,
Welch apologized for his conduct and said
that he had been "foolish and reckless."On
January 12, 2017, Yusif Lee Jones, a 52-year-old
man from Shreveport, Louisiana, pleaded guilty
in the U.S. District Court for the Western
District of Louisiana to making a threatening
phone call three days after Welch's attack,
to Besta Pizza, another pizzeria on the same
block as Comet Ping Pong.
He said that he threatened Besta to "save
the kids" and "finish what the other guy didn't."
== 
Debunking ==
The conspiracy theory has been widely discredited
and debunked.
It has been judged to be false after detailed
investigation by the fact-checking website
Snopes.com and The New York Times, and numerous
news organizations have debunked it as a conspiracy
theory, including the New York Observer, The
Washington Post, The Independent in London,
The Huffington Post, The Washington Times,
the Los Angeles Times, Fox News, CNN, and
the Miami Herald.
The Metropolitan Police Department of the
District of Columbia characterized the matter
as "fictitious".Much of the purported evidence
cited by the conspiracy theory's proponents
had been taken from entirely different sources
and made to appear as if they supported the
conspiracy.
Images of children of family and friends of
the pizzeria's staff were taken from social
media sites such as Instagram and claimed
to be photos of victims.
The Charlotte Observer noted the diverse group
of sources that had debunked the conspiracy
theory, pointing out this included the Fox
News Channel in addition to The New York Times.On
December 10, 2016, The New York Times published
an article that analyzed the claims that the
theory proposed.
They emphasized that:
Theorists linked the conspiracy to Comet Ping
Pong, through similarities between company
logos and symbols related to Satanism and
pedophilia.
However, The Times noted that similarities
were also found in the logos of a number of
unrelated companies, such as AOL, Time Warner,
and MSN.
Theorists claimed an underground network beneath
Comet Ping Pong; however, the restaurant actually
has no basement, and the picture used to support
this claim was taken from another facility.
Theorists claimed to have a picture of restaurant
owner Alefantis wearing a T-shirt endorsing
pedophilia.
However, the image was of another person,
and the shirt, which read "J' ❤ L'Enfant,"
was actually a reference to the L'Enfant Cafe-Bar
in DC, whose owner was pictured in the image,
and which itself is named after Pierre Charles
L'Enfant, designer of much of the layout of
Washington, D.C.
Theorists claimed John and Tony Podesta kidnapped
Madeleine McCann using police sketches that
were, in fact, two sketches of the same suspect
taken from the descriptions of two eyewitnesses.No
alleged victims have come forward and no physical
evidence has been found.
== Responses ==
In an interview with NPR on November 27, 2016,
Comet Ping Pong owner James Alefantis referred
to the conspiracy theory as "an insanely complicated,
made-up, fictional lie-based story" and a
"coordinated political attack".
Syndicated columnist Daniel Ruth wrote that
the conspiracy theorists' assertions were
"dangerous and damaging false allegations"
and that they were "repeatedly debunked, disproved
and dismissed".Despite the conspiracy theory
being debunked, it continued to spread on
social media, with over one million messages
using hashtag #Pizzagate on Twitter in November
2016.
Stefanie MacWilliams, who wrote an article
promoting the conspiracy on Planet Free Will,
was subsequently reported by the Toronto Star
as saying, "I really have no regrets and it's
honestly really grown our audience."
Pizzagate, she said, is "two worlds clashing.
People don't trust the mainstream media anymore,
but it's true that people shouldn't take the
alternative media as truth, either."On December
8, Hillary Clinton responded to the conspiracy
theory, speaking about the dangers of fake
news websites.
She said, "The epidemic of malicious fake
news and fake propaganda that flooded social
media over the past year, it's now clear that
so-called fake news can have real-world consequences."
=== 
Public opinion ===
A poll conducted by Public Policy Polling
on December 6–7, 2016, asked 1,224 U.S.
registered voters if they thought Hillary
Clinton was "connected to a child sex ring
being run out of a pizzeria in Washington
DC?"
The poll showed that 9% said that they did
believe she was connected, 72% said they did
not, and 19% were not sure.A poll of voters
conducted on December 17–20 by The Economist/YouGov
asked voters if they believed that, "Leaked
e-mails from the Clinton campaign talked about
pedophilia and human trafficking - 'Pizzagate'."
The results showed that 17% of Clinton voters
responded "true" while 82% responded "not
true"; and 46% of Trump voters responded "true"
while 53% responded "not true".
=== Alex Jones and InfoWars ===
After the Comet Ping Pong shooting, Alex Jones
backed off from the idea that the D.C. pizzeria
was the center of the conspiracy.
On December 4, Infowars.com uploaded a YouTube
video that linked Pizzagate to the November
13 death of a sex-worker-rights activist.
The video falsely claimed that she had been
investigating a link between the Clinton Foundation
and human trafficking in Haiti and it speculated
that she had been murdered in connection with
her investigation.
According to the activist's former employer,
her family and her friends, her death was
in fact a suicide and she was not investigating
the Clinton Foundation.
By December 14, Infowars had removed two out
of three of its Pizzagate-related videos.In
February 2017, Alefantis' lawyers sent Jones
a letter demanding an apology and retraction.
Under Texas law, Jones was given a month to
comply or be subject to a libel suit.
In March 2017, Alex Jones apologized to Alefantis
for promulgating the conspiracy theory, saying
"To my knowledge today, neither Mr. Alefantis,
nor his restaurant Comet Ping Pong, were involved
in any human trafficking as was part of the
theories about Pizzagate that were being written
about in many media outlets and which we commented
upon."
=== 
Michael T. Flynn and Michael Flynn Jr.
===
In November 2016, Michael T. Flynn, then on
President-Elect Donald Trump's transition
team and Trump's designate for National Security
Advisor, posted multiple tweets on Twitter
containing conspiratorial material regarding
Hillary Clinton alleging that Clinton's campaign
manager, John Podesta, drank the blood and
bodily fluids of other humans in Satanic rituals,
which Politico says "soon morphed into the
'#pizzagate' conspiracy theory involving Comet
Ping Pong".
On November 2, 2016, Flynn tweeted a link
to a story with unfounded accusations and
wrote, "U decide - NYPD Blows Whistle on New
Hillary Emails: Money Laundering, Sex Crimes
w Children, etc ... MUST READ!"
The tweet was shared by over 9,000 people,
but was deleted from Flynn's account sometime
between December 12–13, 2016.After the shooting
incident at Comet Ping Pong, Michael Flynn
Jr., Michael T. Flynn's son and also a member
of Trump's transition team, tweeted; "Until
#Pizzagate proven to be false, it'll remain
a story.
The left seems to forget #PodestaEmails and
the many 'coincidences' tied to it."
On December 6, 2016, Flynn Jr. was forced
out of Trump's transition team.
Spokesman Jason Miller did not identify the
reason for Flynn Jr.'s dismissal; however,
The New York Times reported that other officials
had confirmed it was related to the tweet.
== See also
