2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumfake news story about Hillary & Podesta led to headline: This Pizzeria Is Not a Child-Trafficking S
What makes people so stupid? Has to be HATE!!
TWEET
Alexandra Erin ?@alexandraerin 5h5 hours ago
There's a short, straight line between existence of Gamergate and the fact that NYT has to run this headline.
This Pizzeria Is Not a Child-Trafficking Site
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html?ribbon-ad-idx=10&src=trending&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Trending&pgtype=article
By CECILIA KANG
NOV. 21, 2016
Photo
James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong, at his restaurant in Washington, D.C. Fake news websites have called it the home base of a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton and John D. Podesta. Credit Chad Bartlett for The New York Times
WASHINGTON Days before the presidential election, James Alefantis, owner of a local pizza restaurant called Comet Ping Pong, noticed an unusual spike in the number of his Instagram followers.
Within hours, menacing messages like were on to you began appearing in his Instagram feed. In the ensuing days, hundreds of death threats one read I will kill you personally started arriving via texts, Facebook and Twitter. All of them alleged something that made Mr. Alefantiss jaw drop: that Comet Ping Pong was the home base of a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief, John D. Podesta.
When Mr. Alefantis discovered that his employees were getting similar abusive messages, he looked online to unravel the accusations. He found dozens of made-up articles about Mrs. Clinton kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the restaurants back rooms. The articles appeared on Facebook and on websites such as The New Nationalist and The Vigilant Citizen, with one headline blaring: Pizzagate: How 4Chan Uncovered the Sick World of Washingtons Occult Elite.
None of it was true. While Mr. Alefantis has some prominent Democratic friends in Washington and was a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, he has never met her, does not sell or abuse children, and is not being investigated by law enforcement for any of these claims. He and his 40 employees had unwittingly become real people caught in the middle of a storm of fake news.
From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, weve come under constant assault, said Mr. Alefantis, 42, who was once in a relationship with David Brock, a provocative former right-wing journalist who became an outspoken advocate for Mrs. Clinton...................
The article included one of the VILE tweets *********
SHEET IDIOT!!
https://twitter.com/TradSierraHotel/status/800211990195081217
Skye
?@TradSierraHotel
I won't stop tweeting about #PizzaGate until I know for a fact that there aren't children in danger being covered up by the US government
meow2u3
(24,768 posts)"Fake news" is a euphemism that conceals the vicious reality of the pack of lies being peddled. Let's start calling it what it is--propaganda!
elleng
(131,063 posts)Recall cheney?
Call it what it is: LIES.