Social media, while an excellent platform for actual reliable news sources to provide key information to the publics they are hoping to reach, is also an equally perfect platform for fake news, rumours, and conspiracy theories to be placed upon by those without reliable sources and whose stories may or may not be news at all...but, in fact, nothing but opinion. News flash: real news is not opinion based. Real news is based upon cold, hard fact and is as unbiased as possible, thus providing as little of the writer's opinion as possible. But, of course, what do I know. If it's on the internet, it absolutely must be true...right?
Reddit is a website focusing on "social news aggregation" and discussions, as well as many subthreads ("subreddits") containing anything from cat videos to anti-jokes. From what I've seen and what I've learned over the past few days about some of these subreddits, they're pretty much jokes themselves. But, believable ones. So believable that even The New York Times themselves, had to investigate some of the information that users were claiming to be true.
One of these things? Pizzagate. Heard of it? Probably a variation, but probably not by this title. This theory contributed to a huge upset not only because it put allegations upon former candidate Hillary Clinton, but it also jeopardized the reputation of a local neighbourhood pizza business called 'Comet Ping Pong' located in Washington, D.C.
The story of "Pizzagate" is that Clinton was allegedly using Comet Ping Pong as the headquarters for her child-sex trafficking ring. Why in the world would people decide that a pizza joint was the center for this offense? Well, apparently after the email scandal was leaked, it was a swarm to decipher what was meant within these emails. One word caught users' attentions: pizza. Obviously it must be code for something, right? And thus the users of Reddit ran with it, and the child-trafficking story was embodied, little details being added as they were thought up. Thus inspiring it's own subreddit entitled r/Pizzagate. After that was created, the amateur Internet investigators assembled, trying to pinpoint every aspect of this "scandal." Hence why Comet was randomly decided as the center. It got so out of hand, that the owner of the pizzeria, James Alefantis, and some of his employees were receiving anonymous death threats and warnings due to these false accusations. This progressed far enough that the D.C. police department had officers keeping close watch on the business.
While all this was going on, it should be noted that Reddit does not just delete conspiracy theories. Obviously, otherwise 3/4 of the site would be abolished. But, they did begin to keep a closer eye on that particular subreddit as the attention grew. R/Pizzagate eventually was shut down. Not because of the threats, but because users began posting people's personal information online; people who the "Internet investigators" decided were pedophiles, who were involved with Clinton and the alleged trafficking at Comet. This "evidence" also included photographs of Alefantis, his employees, his personal friends, as well as photos of their children.
To counter this banned r/Pizzagate, users turned their concerns to another popular subreddit entitled: r/The_Donald. They complained that the ban was due to censorship. To which another mistake was made by Reddit CEO, Steve Huffman. Huffman decided to abuse his moderator power and change any user comment that he felt was critical of himself, therefore feeding into the whole censoring ordeal. Huffman did apologize for his wrongdoing: "...as the CEO, I shouldn’t play such games, and it’s all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won’t do this again.”
But honestly, back to the nitty gritty...Pizzagate didn't just throw shade at Clinton, but it really dampened an innocent neighborhood pizzeria. Alefantis handled the situation well, by getting multiple social media platforms, news media, police, and FBI involvement, but this was a situation that he never should have been dealing with in the first place. Before you post something, be sure you know the facts and aren't just throwing names out there for the hell of it...because you never know just who you could be hurting. Pizzagate could've been way worse that it was; someone could have actually gotten hurt instead of just threatened. Think before posting because once that "send" button is hit, it's out there for anyone and everyone to see. Fake news just isn't worth the trouble.
