Employees quickly extinguished the blaze and nobody was injured. In March 2016, the personal email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, was hacked in a spear-phishing attack. These unfounded claims were based on 4chan users spotting recurring uses of the word ‘pizza’ in Clinton’s hacked emails (‘c.p’ meaning cheese pizza is sometimes used in paedophile chatrooms to denote explicit images of children.) Growing numbers of people have described seeing friends and family, who have never previously appeared paranoid or delusional, take a new and obsessive interest in politically oriented conspiracy theories, particularly QAnon. What these women in Daisy's life – and thousands like them – are speaking of is the powerful and dangerous far-right U.S conspiracy theory, QAnon, currently spreading like wildfire in the UK – where it now has the second largest following on the planet. Get the New Statesman’s Morning Call email. In April, Jessica Prim, an alleged QAnon devotee was arrested after driving to New York City with 18 knives allegedly to assassinate Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. [93] Spokesman Jason Miller did not identify the reason for his dismissal, however, The New York Times reported that other officials had confirmed it was related to the tweet. In some cases, imagery was taken from unrelated websites and purported to be Alefantis' own. [2] They emphasized that: No alleged victims have come forward and no physical evidence has been found. In a bowl, combine biscuit mix and water; mix well. [56] He was subsequently charged with two additional offenses, with the grand jury returning an indictment charging him with assault with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime. [38], 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". Facebook announced last Tuesday that it would begin removing all QAnon content on Facebook pages, groups, and on Instagram. He had dropped out of university repeatedly and been fired from several jobs. In a post on Reddit, he described himself as vulnerable and insecure. In fact, it has been considered such a threat to society that Facebook has now banned all forms of content related to it with the exception of posts from individual profiles, marking the social media network’s most dramatic escalation in the fight against misinformation and what they are calling “militarized social movements.” And yet, in encrypted groups like WhatsApp groups and Facebook Groups, the conspiracies continue to be shared. Why are we still fighting to feed the UK's vulnerable children? [48] He surrendered after officers surrounded the restaurant and was arrested without incident. Deeyah Khan speaks to GLAMOUR as she was in Alabama filming for her new programme, America’s War on Abortion. "[78], 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". [see also: The QAnon conspiracy theory is absurd but dangerous. [89] 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 conspiracy theory gained traction when Venezuelan YouTuber, Dross Rotzank, made a video about Bieber's music video and its alleged references to Pizzagate. According to the activist's former employer, family and friends, her death was in fact a suicide and she was not investigating the Clinton Foundation. When the time comes and all this gets exposed, it will change the world.”. This site uses cookies to improve your experience and deliver personalised advertising. [12] The theory has developed and become less partisan and political in nature, with less emphasis on Clinton and more on the alleged worldwide elite of child sex-traffickers. Why you should think twice before posting photos of your children on social media, As Jeremy Corbyn is suspended from the Labour Party over anti-Semitism & called 'part of the problem,' here are the best films, books & podcasts to educate yourself on anti-semitism and Judaism, Instagram and Facebook update nudity policy to help ensure all body types are treated fairly, 'I can’t buy period pads but I can buy alcohol?' [4] The restaurant's owners and staff were harassed and threatened on social media websites, and the owner received death threats. For the pizza-throwing incident at a 2004 association football game between, "savethechildren" redirects here. [12][13] The New York Times said in June 2020 that posts on the platform with the #PizzaGate hashtag were "viewed more than 82 million times in recent months", and Google searches for the term also increased in that time. “It’s been really stressing me out,” she says. Pizzagate, she said, is "two worlds clashing. [10] The sub was banned on November 23, 2016, for violating Reddit's anti-doxing policy after users posted personal details of people connected to the alleged conspiracy. The artists that work for and with the business also generate nothing but cultish imagery of disembodiment, blood, beheadings, sex, and of course pizza. “I was a prime candidate,” he wrote. that will have you checking over your shoulder, End child food poverty: Celebrities help raise £60,000 for school meals after Marcus Rashford's campaign is ignored by MPs, ITV's new film paints a picture of how fragile abortion rights are in Trump’s America, ThisWorks' calm-inducing sleep products are all on offer right now, These are all the amazing London restaurants where you can still eat out to help out in October. #GoHillary #PodestaEmails23", "How A Completely False Claim About Hillary Clinton Went From A Conspiracy Message Board To Big Right Wing Blogs", "What to Know About Pizzagate, the Fake News Story With Real Consequences", "The Consequences of 'Pizza Gate' are Real at Comet Ping Pong", "Evidence ridiculously thin for sensational claim of huge underground Clinton sex network", "Pizzagate: From rumor, to hashtag, to gunfire in D.C.", "This Is What It's Like to Read Fake News For Two Weeks", "CBS affiliate's 'big question': Why no law enforcement investigation of 'Pizzagate' allegations? ", "How I became a target of the alt-right What it's like to be targeted by Neo-Nazis and supporters of Donald Trump online and what I learned from it", "Artist Targeted by #Pizzagate Conspiracy Theory Speaks", "What Is Pizzagate? “I know that it is controversial, but there’s a lot out there that really does point to Trump working to expose this elite trafficking ring. US 2020 presidential election forecast model: will Donald Trump or Joe Biden win. As NBC's misinformation reporter Ben Collins explains, 4chan was for years a popular platform for paedophiles, who used the phrase “cheese pizza” as a back-worked acronym of … Users claiming to be Q have since made over 4,000 posts. When Emily informed him, for example, of the widely reported fact that the pizza restaurant in question had no basement, he asked her: “How would you actually know there wasn't? “But I don't know. Theorists claimed an underground network beneath Comet Ping Pong; the restaurant has no basement, however, and the picture used to support this claim was taken in another facility. Reddit released a statement afterwards, saying, "We don't want witchhunts on our site". Politicians must confront it], The Pizzagate conspiracy theory continues to draw in people with little or no experience of paranoid fantasies, radicalising them and exposing them to QAnon's broader beliefs. These ideas are made powerful, she thinks, by the grains of truth within them. Spread with pizza sauce; sprinkle with cheese. As the Guardian reported last month, QAnon has already demonstrably reached tens of thousands of British Facebook users, and led to at least 15 protests in the UK. “It's often a dozen posts a day on Facebook.”, For Emily, like many others who have watched friends and family members become convinced by conspiracy theories, the fear is that these strange, cultish ideas will take hold permanently. From the start of 2017 through January of 2020, the average number of weekly PizzaGate mentions, likes and shares on Facebook and Instagram was under 20,000". [13] This new iteration is less partisan; the majority of the (mostly teenage) promoters of the #PizzaGate hashtag on TikTok were not right-wing, and support the Black Lives Matter movement. Medium is an open platform where readers find dynamic thinking, and where expert and undiscovered voices can share their writing on any topic.
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