James Alefantis, owner of a Washington pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong, began receiving more and more followers on Instagram just before the Presidential election, and was soon being sent threatening messages along the lines of “We’re on to you.” Soon, he had been sent hundreds of “I will kill you”-type death threats on Facebook, Twitter, as text messages, everywhere. Every one of these slanderers accused Alefantis of harbouring a paedophilic child abuse ring in his restaurant headed by Hillary Clinton and John D. Podesta (chief of her campaign).
Clinton pizzeria paedophilia ring scandal branded ‘Pizzagate’
Alefantis’ staff members were receiving similar messages, and he took to the web to figure out what was going on, and uncovered a long list of articles reporting completely fabricated news of Comet Ping Pong being a base where Clinton had taken kidnapped children to molest and sell them, labelling the incident “Pizzagate.”
This was all false. Alefantis was outraged to discover this was being spread around the internet. He’s a Democrat and a Hillary supporter, but he has never met her, and he certainly doesn’t abuse children. No law enforcement agency is looking into Alefantis or his establishment. But the death threats are very real.
Photos of employees’ children being used in fake news
Alefantis says he and his employees are “being terrorised” and “under constant assault,” as photos of their own children were being used as evidence of the supposed paedophilia ring. Alefantis believes that his relationships with prominent Democrats such as Clinton advocate David Brock have contributed to his being targeted.
The Alefantis story is the latest in a long string of false news stories that have spread across the web recently, sparking a debate that some fake news could have influenced voters and led to the wrong candidate being elected when perhaps Hillary Clinton should have been. Obama calls this fake news “active misinformation,” and Mark Zuckerberg has promised to develop technology to keep it out of Facebook feeds.
‘It’s endless.’
Alefantis has gotten in touch with the FBI and the Washington police, who are on his side, and he has asked social media sites to take down all such articles about Clinton with regards to Pizzagate from their sites, and describes the onslaught of hate as “endless.”
