Pizzagate

In October 2016, WikiLeaks published thousands of emails hacked from the account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. Users of 4chan (/pol/) and Reddit (r/The_Donald, r/pizzagate) identified within these emails frequent references to foods (pizza, hot dogs, cheese, pasta, sauce) which they interpreted as a ‘pedophile code,’ each food item designating a type of victim or sexual activity. This interpretive framework was based on no credible source in criminology.

The Comet Ping Pong restaurant, a pizzeria in Washington D.C. whose owner James Alefantis is a friend of Podesta and former partner of David Brock (founder of Media Matters), became the primary target. Theorists alleged that the restaurant's basement (which does not have a basement) housed a child trafficking network. Alefantis’s Instagram accounts were scrutinized, and photos of children (restaurant patrons of the family-friendly establishment with a game room) were reinterpreted as ‘evidence.’

The theory spread virally on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube during the 2016 presidential campaign. The subreddit r/pizzagate was banned by Reddit on November 22, 2016. Conservative media figures such as Michael Flynn Jr. (son of General Michael Flynn), Jack Posobiec, and certain contributors to Infowars amplified the theory.

On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 years old, originally from North Carolina, entered the Comet Ping Pong restaurant armed with an AR-15 assault rifle to 'investigate' himself. He fired several shots (without causing any injuries), searched the premises without finding anything, and surrendered to the police. He was sentenced in June 2017 to 4 years in prison.

Investigations by the FBI, the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, and numerous fact-checking organizations (Snopes, PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, New York Times, Washington Post) unanimously concluded that there is no evidence supporting the theory. The alleged ‘food code’ does not appear in any criminology textbook or law enforcement report. The restaurant has no basement.

Pizzagate is considered a pivotal moment in the history of online disinformation and a direct precursor to QAnon, which adopts and expands the narrative of an elite pedocriminal network.