Wednesday Mar 13, 2024

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

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

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