Suffer the Children – Pizzagate, Wayfair & the Seeds of QAnon

Conspiracy Clearinghouse

EPISODE 106 | Suffer the Children – Pizzagate, Wayfair & the Seeds of QAnon

"Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism."

In the world of the internet, this is known as Poe’s Law, and it’s especially applicable to the weird narrative Gordian Knot known as Pizzagate. The adage applies not just to how absurd some beliefs are, but also to the arguments made by people who hold these beliefs. First formulated in 2005 by Nathan Poe, it builds on a 2001 quote by Alan Morgan called Alan’s 2nd Law of Newsgroups, which states, “Any sufficiently advanced troll is indistinguishable from a genuine kook.”

And that is certainly the case for the wild story that “a hipster-heavy pizza parlor” (as they put it on their website) in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington D.C. is not just a fun family place with pizza, ping pong and live music, but the nerve center for an diabolical child trafficking ring that operates out in the open because they are protected by highly-placed pedophiles in the Democratic party. As an article on Cracked.com puts it, “This is supported by lots of very stupid evidence”.

The stakes of the fake narrative are so high that it’s become more than just true believers review bombing the place. Workers have been harassed and, on December 4, 2016, a heavily armed man entered the restaurant and started firing guns.

The story of Pizzagate is the story of how the conspirasphere went from harmless kookery to being actually, physically dangerous.

TRIGGER WARNING: Some pretty disturbing things will be talked about in this episode, so if the subject of child sexual abuse and trafficking is deeply uncomfortable for you, perhaps you should not listen. I mean, it should be uncomfortable to anyone, but you know what I mean.

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SECTIONS

1. 03:11 - A note, pedophilia is a mental disorder, victims suffer for many years, how do we handle this problem?
2. 06:31 - How it all began: Hillary Clinton's emails, John Podesta, Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin; "Carmen Katz" makes allegations, "David Goldberg" shares and extends these
3. 08:46 - Side note: "Carmen Katz" is Cynthia Campbell, "David Goldberg" is an anti-Semitic fake profile; Amanda Rob finds Borce Pejcev in Macedonia, a fake news click bait ecosystem, it really all began with Doug Hagmann of Eerie, PA
4. 12:35 - Russian hackers Fancy Bear, APT28 and Sofacy use "spear phishing " attacks
5. 13:30 - Pedo codes on 4chan: pizza, cheese, hot dogs, dominos and handkerchief codes; Comet Ping Pong gets targeted
6. 16:30 - DumbScribblyUnctious see all sorts of things - murals, art, logos, musical acts and more; Pizzagaters talks of aliens, the Illuminati, Satanic rituals and Arun Rao; Susan Alefantis knew a pedophile, Tony "pasta obsession" Podesta knew Dennis Hastert, another pedophile, and also collects art (including some by Rachel Rose); Amanda Kleinman (Majestic Ape) of Heavy Breathing performs at Sasha Lord's birthday party and "secret pizza" is maybe mentioned, the film "Automatic At Sea", the Clinton Foundation in Haiti, Alex Jones issues a "bulletin"
7. 25:49 - #pizzagate soars, Comet Ping Pong gets hassled, Turkey's Erdoğan jumps on the story, InfoWars spearheads the narrative, fake images proliferate, artists and musicians also harassed, it might all have been coordinated; other businesses (especially pizza places) get targeted, like Roberta's in Brooklyn and East Side Pies in Austin, TX
8. 30:33 - Edgar Maddison Welch storms Comet Ping Pong with guns, InfoWars apologizes, then retracts the apology; white supremacist Jack Posobiec says Welch is a crisis actor; neo-Nazi pubs the Daily Stormer, the Right Stuff and Smoloko News continue the Pizzagate narrative
9. 35:07 - Canadian Andrew Richmond's ice cream shop Sweet Jesus gets the #PedoGate treatment
10. 36:15 - Portland, Oregon's Voodoo Donuts gets the same treatment thanks to talentless poet VeganMikey (Michael Whelan); #donutgate starts trending, building on a previous #donutgate when Ariana Grande and Ricky Alvarez licked food at Wolfee Donuts; Big League Politics's "research organization" Pedo Takedown Crew funds a coordinated harassment campaign and expand the narrative, adding tunnels, schools, and child-smiggling submarines
11. 41:35 - In England, recreational troll Oliver Redmond targets Paul Cheape's vape shop business
12. 43:32 - Mattress Firm gets targeted
13. 45:32 - Frazzledrip: a very nasty fake video (trigger warning - seriously, it's really nasty), QAnon terms "adrenochrome" and "spirit cooking" get added to the Pizzagate lexicon
14. 47:56 - PrincessPeach1987 kicks of the Wayfair affair, the now combined Pizzagate and QAnon make a LOT of noise, it's all nonsense and yet there were real consequences for real people, iMGSRC.ru and US Army Staff Sgt. Richard Ciccarella
15. 57:25 - Cybersteria and the very first QAnon 4chan post

• Music by Fanette Ronjat

More Info

• Pedophilia defined on Psychology Today
• Crimes against Children Research Center
• Facts and Stats About Child Sexual Abuse
• The possible long-term effects of experiencing child sexual abuse
• Long-term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse and Molestation on Helping Survivors
• A review of the long-term effects of child sexual abuse on the National Library of Medicine website
• Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis paper
• Sexuality of Offenders on the Zero Abuse Project
• Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation by Gregory Herek
• Everything You Need To Know About Pizzagate (Is Insane) on Cracked.com
• Pizzagate on RationalWiki
• Pizzagate: A slice of fake news on Reveal
• Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal in Rolling Stone
• Anthony Weiner breaks down after he's sentenced to 21 months for sexting on ABC News
• How The Bizarre Conspiracy Theory Behind "Pizzagate" Was Spread on BuzzFeed
• How Hackers Broke Into John Podesta and Colin Powell’s Gmail Accounts on Vice
• Comet Ping Pong - Pizzagate Summary by DumbScribblyUnctious
• How Pizzagate went from fake news to a real problem for a D.C. business on PolitiFact
• 'It's a form of addiction' - Tony Podesta's art addiction article in The Guardian
• Rachel Rose - Aubade: Grendel's Mother (live reading) video
• Pizzagate, the fake news conspiracy theory that led a gunman to DC’s Comet Ping Pong, explained on Vox
• Pizzagate gunman recorded video for daughters, said he's standing up for children on CBS News
• Death threats, abuse, then a gunman: 'Pizzagate' businesses relive ordeal in The Guardian
• Pizzagate: Gunman fires in restaurant at centre of conspiracy on BBC News
• What to Know About Pizzagate, the Fake News Story With Real Consequences in Time
• 'Pizzagate' gunman pleads guilty as conspiracy theorist apologizes over case
• Is Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria Home to a Child Abuse Ring Led by Hillary Clinton? on Snopes
• Dissecting the #PizzaGate Conspiracy Theories in the New York Times
• A Moral Panic for the Age of Trump: “Pizzagate” is the latest in a long line of child-sex-ring myths on Slate
• The PizzaGate Gunman's Paranoid Rescue Fantasy Comes from a Long American Tradition on Reason
• 'There's Nothing You Can Do': The Legacy of #Pizzagate on SPLC
• Secret message board drives 'pizzagate'-style harassment campaign of small businesses on NBC News
• When Nerds Attack - Gamergate, Elevatorgate & Sad Puppies episode
• Voodoo Donuts website
• Voodoo Doughnut Gets Sucked Into Outrageous Far-Right Conspiracy Theory on Eater
• Wolfee Donuts Pressing Charges Against Ariana Grande
• Donut-Gate on Ariana Grande fandom wiki
• Vegan Mikey - bad poet and troll
• #Donutgate: How one Oregon donut shop became the target of online conspiracy theorists on Salon
• Connecting the Dots Between Donutgate and Pizzagate
• Man jailed for falsely branding a businessman a ‘dirty paedophile’
• The Great Mattress Conspiracy: Why Are There So Many Mattress Firm Stores
• Why Are There So Many Mattress Stores?
• A wildly popular conspiracy theory about why there are so many Mattress Firm stores is starting to sound less crazy
• Mattress Firm responds to the wild conspiracy theory about its business that people are going crazy over
• The Mattress Firm Conspiracy: An Analysis
• The Mattress Firm Money Laundering Conspiracy Theory on Snopes
• What Is Frazzledrip? Fake Hillary Clinton Video Builds on Pizzagate Conspiracy Theory in Newsweek
• Frazzledrip: Is a Hillary Clinton 'Snuff Film' Circulating on the Dark Web? on Snopes
• Hush Supper Club
• Full Frazzledrip video (WARNING)
• Claims that pizza listings on Etsy are selling child pornography are baseless
• Reddit post that kicked off Wayfair conspiracy theories
• Outrageously Priced Wayfair Cabinets Lead to Human Trafficking Conspiracy
• Kids Shipped in Armoires? The Person Who Started the Wayfair Conspiracy Speaks in Newsweek
• Wayfair: The false conspiracy about a furniture firm and child trafficking on BBC News
• Baseless Wayfair child-trafficking theory spreads online on AP
• The bizarre story of how internet conspiracy theorists convinced themselves Wayfair is trafficking children on CBC News
• A US soldier working at Mar-a-Lago uploaded photos of an underage girl to a Russian website — a closer look at the site reveals a horrific underworld
• A US Army soldier who worked at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort uploaded photos of an underage girl to a Russian website, prosecutors say
• How a reporter found the true story behind a false story of sex trafficking
• Is Wayfair Trafficking Children Via Overpriced Items? on Snopes
• MISSING IN KANSAS: Anabel Wilson no longer missing
• How A QAnon Conspiracy Theory Involving A Wayfair Pillow Left A Metro Detroit Teen Struggling
• A girl falsely believed to be a victim of the fake Wayfair sex-trafficking ring says she had hives, lost sleep over the conspiracy theory
• A QAnon con: How the viral Wayfair sex trafficking lie hurt real kids
• Human Trafficking Rumors: Viral Stories That Do More Harm Than Good at the Polaris Project
• The Storm Is the New Pizzagate — Only Worse

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