16 ms·

Somewhat off topic and not condoning the editing of comments (I probably will condone the closing of boards once I know more) but: What the hell is a pizzagate

Somewhat off topic and not condoning the editing of comments (I probably will condone the closing of boards once I know more) but: What the hell is a pizzagate? I saw it mentioned a few times while reading the mess that is the reddit detectiving for Assange but never saw a clear description. And now it is apparently a pro-Trump thing too? What was the logic behind calling him a pedophile for that?

jonathankoren 10y ago
Pizzagate is about Hillary Clinton and John Podesta running a pedophile ring out of a Washington DC pizza parlor. Yup. No word on if John Podesta is also conducting satanic ceremonies as well. Seriously. I can't even say that without snickering. Makes you miss the days when Hillary Clinton was just decorating the White House Christmas Tree with crack pipes doesn't it?[0] [0] http://libertynews.com/2015/06/flashback-flotus-hillarys-x-rated-white-house-christmas-tree/ http://libertynews.com/2015/06/flashback-flotus-hillarys-x-r...
- suby 10y ago
  The thing about the satanic ritial claim is that it makes sense if you view it as a method of discrediting the victim / story. If someone is molested and the perpetrators also conduct a whacky satanic ritual during the act, the victim is going to have a hell of a hard time being believed if they come forth. Hell, we see it in this thread with people dismissing the whole thing based on that alone. Don't get me wrong, I think the evidence for it is a stretch, but there is some objectively weird stuff in the emails that do not make sense if taken literally.
  - toss1941 10y ago
    Perfectly reasonable view of things if you ask me. I remember watching this thing spawn in real time during the release of Podesta's emails. There were 4 things IMHO that made this into a big deal for the_donald: 1) #SpiritCooking, 2) the "Pizza Related Map", 3) Bill Clinton's alleged trips to "pedo island without the secret service", and 4) Some have interpreted Joe Biden's interaction with children as creepy. Then, people started looking at old emails in a whole new light and realized there appeared to be coded messages involving children in them. That's kind of where I stopped tracking personally because the signal to noise ratio is pretty low.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    Jesus Christ, this is gets at exactly the Pizzagate fake news phenomena. Right here. This very thread and the other thread. The reason why people dismiss this as crazy talk, is because there's literally no evidence for this ever happening, and every time these types of allegations has been brought up before, they've been completely discredited. Your proposition hinges on replacing the the axiom that extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, with extraordinary claims are more plausible to mundane ones. Satanic child abuse is an old moral panic from the 1980s, of which nothing ever existed. Seriously, they're all discredited. Some even involved people claiming preschool teachers were fucking literal demons while riding on brooms.[0] I toss out a joke about the completely discredited claim that Podesta is a warlock because of a mention of world famous artist Marina Abramović.[1] But of course, the fault is on me, because this is HN, and of course it's going to be treated as gospel. But hell, what do I know. I'm contemplating ascending to the Aetheral plane because I've been listening to backmaksed Judas Priest[2] and playing Dungeons and Dragons[3]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satanic_ritual_abuse_allegations#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satanic_ritual_abuse_a... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/04/no-john-podesta-didnt-drink-bodily-fluids-at-a-secret-satanist-dinner/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backmasking#Subliminal_persuasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backmasking#Subliminal_persuas... [3] https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp
- makomk 10y ago
  Part of the reason we're getting conspiracy theories like this is probably that John Podesta conducting satanic ceremonies is kind of plausible. He (or his brother, I forget) is friends with an artist who likes to carry out elaborate ceremonies involving blood and bodily fluids, and helps fund her work (possibly stuff that's less intentionally controversial, though). While that's technically not satanic, the need to qualify the kind of blood magic he's linked to makes it hard to have a sense of what's realistic anymore.
Lazare 10y ago
This is going to sound hard to believe, but... ...based on zero evidence, a bunch of alt-right types decided that a pizza shop in Washington was somehow the center of some sort of bizarre satanic pedophilia cult/ring/thing, and that further that Clinton was somehow involved. It evolved into some sort of weird meme/circlejerk/echo chamber/witchhunt/circus, centered around /r/pizzagate, complete with doxxing, stalking, physical protesters outside the shop, trending twitter hashtags, all sorts of madness Unsurprisingly, the sub was banned. And if you choose to ban a sub focused around uncovering (I can't believe I'm writing this) Clinton's pedophile sex ring, then obviously this is because you yourself are a pedophile (and probably a Clinton supporter, which is probably worse). Why else would you help coverup Clinton's satanic pedophile sex cult? (If you're curious, the original spark behind all this is Wikileak's release of John Podesta's emails. In them he mentioned eating pizza there. Which is clearly code for child abuse, and Podesta is sort of close to Clinton, so Podesta eating pizza is literally Clinton abusing children. No, I'm not making this up, and yes, that's the sum total of the evidence behind this. Literally, the whole thing is based on the supposition that it's so unlikely that Podesta likes pizza that it must be a codeword for child abuse, because obviously child abuse is much more understandable than liking pizza, or something.)
- thinline 10y ago
  Like I said in the other comment, nothing to see.
- CmdrSprinkles 10y ago
  ... ... ... Jesus Hubert Christ I think Reddit managed to out-detective the folk who accused a victim of being a terrorist. Thanks, I guess. That, in a way that horrifies me due to what it means about my brain, makes sense now.
  - OberstKrueger 10y ago
    If you're referring to the missing guy who they thought was part of the Boston Marathon bombing, that was also reddit.
thinline 10y ago
You will be told it's just fake news. Move along, nothing to see. As to calling spez that, I suppose it's just the angry response at the r/pizzagate subreddit being removed.
redthrowaway 10y ago
Here's their primer on the subject: http://archive.is/4Uzg8 http://archive.is/4Uzg8 It's...reaching.
- shimon_e 10y ago
  Ton of source material. OP can't argue on no basis. Maybe false basis but not no basis. I haven't look at the source material for more than 30 seconds - so I can't be any judge of it.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - DavidWanjiru 10y ago
    "Ton of source material...but I haven't looked at any of it for more than 30 seconds so I can't be any judge of it," Isn't that like saying, "There may or may not have been an earthquake. Tons of seismometers around, but I haven't looked at the readings so I can't say."?
  - JshWright 10y ago
    'Volume' is not a useful metric... Tons of newspaper clippings on a schizophrenic's bedroom wall do not prove a conspiracy...
    - shimon_e 10y ago
      Thus my point you need to claim false basis if you have reviewed the source material and determined it is false. You can't claim no basis if you are just going to ignore what the other side is presenting.
Velchronus 10y ago
Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory that spawned from the Podesta email leaks that cover a pedophile ring that involves several government officials. There's a decent amount of circumstantial evidence for it, but I personally still think a bit of a stretch.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Is it possible that this is all a misunderstanding based on some odd subculture's redefinition of the term "circumstantial evidence"?
  - DanBC 10y ago
    The "evil paedophile elites are kidnapping children to abuse them" (alternatively, CPS kidnap children to sell for adoption) conspiracy theory has existed for a long time. Six years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh-dNAby174 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh-dNAby174 Four years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LyzuVUweU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LyzuVUweU Eight years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_C75RO6LL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_C75RO6LL4 Once the conspiracy theory exists you're going to get a mix of people who really believe it finding subreddits to share "proof"; trolls who like the lulz; people who don't know and don't care but who hate that politician and will share anything negative about them; and baffled people on the outside who can't tell the difference and can't understand how anyone can think that politicians order children for abuse by email.
    - patrickg_zill 10y ago
      Who is Clement Freud? Who is Cyril Smith? What was the Dutroux affair? Who is Jimmy Savile? What was the Franklin cover up? Every case has to be considered on its own merits, of course.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        I'm not sure anyone is arguing that child sex exploitation is something that doesn't happen at all.
homero 10y ago
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html?0p19G=c&referer=https://www.google.com/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-t...
theWatcher37 10y ago
Here's a reposted "summary" story with various links. Warning, it's a rabbit hole. I'm not saying any of this is correct but it's pretty weird stuff. https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1428957 https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1428957
- Melk 10y ago
  Voat is the most biased source there is to learn about pizzagate. http://www.snopes.com/pizzagate-conspiracy/ http://www.snopes.com/pizzagate-conspiracy/
  - ryanSrich 10y ago
    I don't think you understand how Voat works.
    - siidooloo 10y ago
      Does it work by being a giant circlejerk?
    - anothermoron 10y ago
      An he even manage to link to snopes after crying about so-called voat bias wow...
  - tothepixel 10y ago
    Snopes is probably the only more biased link that you could have posted.
MK999 10y ago
Podesta has some messages where he uses code words. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/32795 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/32795 That's why people started digging around in the first place.
- SticksAndBreaks 10y ago
  Conspiracy is hard work- eating, sleeping, those conspirators are superman/woman who can do without. If Conspirators hold you capable of everything, its sort of flattering - in a darth Vader, Astmatic sort of way..
  - MK999 10y ago
    Why does a handkerchief have a map on it that's pizza related? It's a coded message. The only thing that can be debated at this point is if / how to decode the message. I don't believe someone could make a good faith argument saying that it's not an encoded message.
    - givinguflac 10y ago
      This is what gets me as well. Yes it all sounds crazy and a bit of a reach, but what in the hell is a pizza related map on a handkerchief, seriously?
      - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
        Doesn't sound too out of line for gift shop kitsch to me. "Old timey map featuring famous longstanding business" is definitely a pattern I've seen in promotional artwork.
        CmdrSprinkles 10y ago
        God help them if they ever visit Chicago...
    - weaksauce 10y ago
ryanSrich 10y ago
I can't really tell if this is still meme status or troll status, but here's an image explaining some of the...uh...finer points of their argument https://i.sli.mg/Xy1alv.jpg https://i.sli.mg/Xy1alv.jpg
- krapp 10y ago
  It's propaganda status, intended to implicate Democrats in general, and Hillary Clinton by proxy, as being pedophiles, and to poison the well of Clinton support for the recent election. Linking liberals and Democrats with pedophilia has been a staple of American right-wing activism for years.
tootie 10y ago
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this... Spez was in the wrong, but I don't blame him one bit. Trolling that sub with disinformation seems like fair play.
- toss1941 10y ago
  Not following all the pizza stuff, but it seemed to me that /r/politics had a lot more misinformation in it during the election than any other subreddit including the_donald.
  - tootie 10y ago
    Disinformation isn't the same as misinformation. A sub as big as /r/politics has a ton of noise but the conspiracy stuff was kept pretty well under control. You can't say the same for a sub that hosted a fawning AMA with Alex Jones.
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13029136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13029136 and marked it off-topic.
- hyperpape 10y ago
  Goddamnit, dang, this may be the worst administrative decision I've ever seen on HN. How is it not relevant backstory that pizzagate is the most batshit crazy conspiracy theory imaginable? It is absolutely relevant this was in response to people who have given every indication that they cannot be reasoned with.

jonathankoren 10y ago

Pizzagate is about Hillary Clinton and John Podesta running a pedophile ring out of a Washington DC pizza parlor. Yup. No word on if John Podesta is also conducting satanic ceremonies as well. Seriously. I can't even say that without snickering. Makes you miss the days when Hillary Clinton was just decorating the White House Christmas Tree with crack pipes doesn't it?[0] [0] http://libertynews.com/2015/06/flashback-flotus-hillarys-x-rated-white-house-christmas-tree/ http://libertynews.com/2015/06/flashback-flotus-hillarys-x-r...

suby 10y ago
The thing about the satanic ritial claim is that it makes sense if you view it as a method of discrediting the victim / story. If someone is molested and the perpetrators also conduct a whacky satanic ritual during the act, the victim is going to have a hell of a hard time being believed if they come forth. Hell, we see it in this thread with people dismissing the whole thing based on that alone. Don't get me wrong, I think the evidence for it is a stretch, but there is some objectively weird stuff in the emails that do not make sense if taken literally.
- toss1941 10y ago
  Perfectly reasonable view of things if you ask me. I remember watching this thing spawn in real time during the release of Podesta's emails. There were 4 things IMHO that made this into a big deal for the_donald: 1) #SpiritCooking, 2) the "Pizza Related Map", 3) Bill Clinton's alleged trips to "pedo island without the secret service", and 4) Some have interpreted Joe Biden's interaction with children as creepy. Then, people started looking at old emails in a whole new light and realized there appeared to be coded messages involving children in them. That's kind of where I stopped tracking personally because the signal to noise ratio is pretty low.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  Jesus Christ, this is gets at exactly the Pizzagate fake news phenomena. Right here. This very thread and the other thread. The reason why people dismiss this as crazy talk, is because there's literally no evidence for this ever happening, and every time these types of allegations has been brought up before, they've been completely discredited. Your proposition hinges on replacing the the axiom that extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, with extraordinary claims are more plausible to mundane ones. Satanic child abuse is an old moral panic from the 1980s, of which nothing ever existed. Seriously, they're all discredited. Some even involved people claiming preschool teachers were fucking literal demons while riding on brooms.[0] I toss out a joke about the completely discredited claim that Podesta is a warlock because of a mention of world famous artist Marina Abramović.[1] But of course, the fault is on me, because this is HN, and of course it's going to be treated as gospel. But hell, what do I know. I'm contemplating ascending to the Aetheral plane because I've been listening to backmaksed Judas Priest[2] and playing Dungeons and Dragons[3]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satanic_ritual_abuse_allegations#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_satanic_ritual_abuse_a... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/04/no-john-podesta-didnt-drink-bodily-fluids-at-a-secret-satanist-dinner/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backmasking#Subliminal_persuasion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backmasking#Subliminal_persuas... [3] https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp
makomk 10y ago
Part of the reason we're getting conspiracy theories like this is probably that John Podesta conducting satanic ceremonies is kind of plausible. He (or his brother, I forget) is friends with an artist who likes to carry out elaborate ceremonies involving blood and bodily fluids, and helps fund her work (possibly stuff that's less intentionally controversial, though). While that's technically not satanic, the need to qualify the kind of blood magic he's linked to makes it hard to have a sense of what's realistic anymore.

Lazare 10y ago

This is going to sound hard to believe, but... ...based on zero evidence, a bunch of alt-right types decided that a pizza shop in Washington was somehow the center of some sort of bizarre satanic pedophilia cult/ring/thing, and that further that Clinton was somehow involved. It evolved into some sort of weird meme/circlejerk/echo chamber/witchhunt/circus, centered around /r/pizzagate, complete with doxxing, stalking, physical protesters outside the shop, trending twitter hashtags, all sorts of madness Unsurprisingly, the sub was banned. And if you choose to ban a sub focused around uncovering (I can't believe I'm writing this) Clinton's pedophile sex ring, then obviously this is because you yourself are a pedophile (and probably a Clinton supporter, which is probably worse). Why else would you help coverup Clinton's satanic pedophile sex cult? (If you're curious, the original spark behind all this is Wikileak's release of John Podesta's emails. In them he mentioned eating pizza there. Which is clearly code for child abuse, and Podesta is sort of close to Clinton, so Podesta eating pizza is literally Clinton abusing children. No, I'm not making this up, and yes, that's the sum total of the evidence behind this. Literally, the whole thing is based on the supposition that it's so unlikely that Podesta likes pizza that it must be a codeword for child abuse, because obviously child abuse is much more understandable than liking pizza, or something.)

thinline 10y ago
Like I said in the other comment, nothing to see.
CmdrSprinkles 10y ago
... ... ... Jesus Hubert Christ I think Reddit managed to out-detective the folk who accused a victim of being a terrorist. Thanks, I guess. That, in a way that horrifies me due to what it means about my brain, makes sense now.
- OberstKrueger 10y ago
  If you're referring to the missing guy who they thought was part of the Boston Marathon bombing, that was also reddit.

thinline 10y ago

You will be told it's just fake news. Move along, nothing to see. As to calling spez that, I suppose it's just the angry response at the r/pizzagate subreddit being removed.

redthrowaway 10y ago

Here's their primer on the subject: http://archive.is/4Uzg8 http://archive.is/4Uzg8 It's...reaching.

shimon_e 10y ago
Ton of source material. OP can't argue on no basis. Maybe false basis but not no basis. I haven't look at the source material for more than 30 seconds - so I can't be any judge of it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- DavidWanjiru 10y ago
  "Ton of source material...but I haven't looked at any of it for more than 30 seconds so I can't be any judge of it," Isn't that like saying, "There may or may not have been an earthquake. Tons of seismometers around, but I haven't looked at the readings so I can't say."?
- JshWright 10y ago
  'Volume' is not a useful metric... Tons of newspaper clippings on a schizophrenic's bedroom wall do not prove a conspiracy...
  - shimon_e 10y ago
    Thus my point you need to claim false basis if you have reviewed the source material and determined it is false. You can't claim no basis if you are just going to ignore what the other side is presenting.

Velchronus 10y ago

Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory that spawned from the Podesta email leaks that cover a pedophile ring that involves several government officials. There's a decent amount of circumstantial evidence for it, but I personally still think a bit of a stretch.

tptacek 10y ago
Is it possible that this is all a misunderstanding based on some odd subculture's redefinition of the term "circumstantial evidence"?
- DanBC 10y ago
  The "evil paedophile elites are kidnapping children to abuse them" (alternatively, CPS kidnap children to sell for adoption) conspiracy theory has existed for a long time. Six years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh-dNAby174 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh-dNAby174 Four years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LyzuVUweU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LyzuVUweU Eight years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_C75RO6LL4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_C75RO6LL4 Once the conspiracy theory exists you're going to get a mix of people who really believe it finding subreddits to share "proof"; trolls who like the lulz; people who don't know and don't care but who hate that politician and will share anything negative about them; and baffled people on the outside who can't tell the difference and can't understand how anyone can think that politicians order children for abuse by email.
  - patrickg_zill 10y ago
    Who is Clement Freud? Who is Cyril Smith? What was the Dutroux affair? Who is Jimmy Savile? What was the Franklin cover up? Every case has to be considered on its own merits, of course.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      I'm not sure anyone is arguing that child sex exploitation is something that doesn't happen at all.

homero 10y ago

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html?0p19G=c&referer=https://www.google.com/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-t...

theWatcher37 10y ago

Here's a reposted "summary" story with various links. Warning, it's a rabbit hole. I'm not saying any of this is correct but it's pretty weird stuff. https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1428957 https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/1428957

Melk 10y ago
Voat is the most biased source there is to learn about pizzagate. http://www.snopes.com/pizzagate-conspiracy/ http://www.snopes.com/pizzagate-conspiracy/
- ryanSrich 10y ago
  I don't think you understand how Voat works.
  - siidooloo 10y ago
    Does it work by being a giant circlejerk?
  - anothermoron 10y ago
    An he even manage to link to snopes after crying about so-called voat bias wow...
- tothepixel 10y ago
  Snopes is probably the only more biased link that you could have posted.

MK999 10y ago

Podesta has some messages where he uses code words. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/32795 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/32795 That's why people started digging around in the first place.

SticksAndBreaks 10y ago
Conspiracy is hard work- eating, sleeping, those conspirators are superman/woman who can do without. If Conspirators hold you capable of everything, its sort of flattering - in a darth Vader, Astmatic sort of way..
- MK999 10y ago
  Why does a handkerchief have a map on it that's pizza related? It's a coded message. The only thing that can be debated at this point is if / how to decode the message. I don't believe someone could make a good faith argument saying that it's not an encoded message.
  - givinguflac 10y ago
    This is what gets me as well. Yes it all sounds crazy and a bit of a reach, but what in the hell is a pizza related map on a handkerchief, seriously?
    - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
      Doesn't sound too out of line for gift shop kitsch to me. "Old timey map featuring famous longstanding business" is definitely a pattern I've seen in promotional artwork.
      - CmdrSprinkles 10y ago
        God help them if they ever visit Chicago...
  - weaksauce 10y ago

ryanSrich 10y ago

I can't really tell if this is still meme status or troll status, but here's an image explaining some of the...uh...finer points of their argument https://i.sli.mg/Xy1alv.jpg https://i.sli.mg/Xy1alv.jpg

krapp 10y ago
It's propaganda status, intended to implicate Democrats in general, and Hillary Clinton by proxy, as being pedophiles, and to poison the well of Clinton support for the recent election. Linking liberals and Democrats with pedophilia has been a staple of American right-wing activism for years.

tootie 10y ago

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this... Spez was in the wrong, but I don't blame him one bit. Trolling that sub with disinformation seems like fair play.

toss1941 10y ago
Not following all the pizza stuff, but it seemed to me that /r/politics had a lot more misinformation in it during the election than any other subreddit including the_donald.
- tootie 10y ago
  Disinformation isn't the same as misinformation. A sub as big as /r/politics has a ton of noise but the conspiracy stuff was kept pretty well under control. You can't say the same for a sub that hosted a fawning AMA with Alex Jones.

dang 10y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13029136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13029136 and marked it off-topic.

hyperpape 10y ago
Goddamnit, dang, this may be the worst administrative decision I've ever seen on HN. How is it not relevant backstory that pizzagate is the most batshit crazy conspiracy theory imaginable? It is absolutely relevant this was in response to people who have given every indication that they cannot be reasoned with.