The Comet Ping Pong 'Pizzagate' Gunman Shows Why Fake News Is More Dangerous Than Ever Melanie Ehrenkranz - Mic
go to original December 6, 2016

Bogus "Pizzagate" Conspiracy Leads to Man Shooting Up Restaurant (David Pakman Show)

On Sunday, 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch walked into Washington, D.C.'s Comet Ping Pong pizza shop carrying an AR-15 assault rifle. He reportedly pointed the weapon at employees and fired it at least once in the store. An employee fled the store and contacted police, and Welch was arrested less than an hour later. Police found two other weapons — a Colt .38 handgun and a shotgun, one of which was in Welch's car.

Welch, of Salisbury, North Carolina, was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. But even scarier than the attack was the reason he was there: to "self-investigate" a right-wing election conspiracy called Pizzagate.

Pizzagate is an alt-right conspiracy theory falsely alleging that Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief were hiding a child-sex ring in a Washington family restaurant called Comet Ping Pong.

The Pizzagate theory started after WikiLeaks published leaked election-related emails from Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta — one of which included correspondence with the owner of Comet Ping Pong regarding a fundraiser, the New York Times reported. From there, Trump supporters on the anarchic web forum 4chan began to spread the conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party and the pizza shop were running a child-sex ring. The false conspiracy theory grew as Pizzagate jumped from 4chan to Twitter to Reddit to Facebook. Reddit ended up banning all Pizzagate discussion.

According to the Washington Post, the restaurant's owner not only contacted the FBI and local police, but also reached out to Facebook and other social media companies to try to get the fake news stories removed from their platforms.

...Pizzagate shows just how dangerous internet delusions can be if left to snowball without guardianship. When conspiracy theories and misinformation online don't stay confined to their digital parameters, they can lead to real-life violence.

Read the rest at Mic

Related: Pizzagate Finds Its End as Trump Fires Son of the Man He Hired for National Security Adviser (Mexico Star)

Related: Pope Francis Compares Consumption of Fake News to Eating Feces (Newsweek)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!