This Pizzeria Is Not a Child-Trafficking Site
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
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Meta: I love this sentence. Is there a term/understanding of how digital culture navigates all the shit we think and talk about online?
We know that reddit has a "reply archetype culture" that is unique to reddit, HN has its own, other sites have theirs - but between HN and Reddit - they basically have the best pulse on the understanding of how people reply to whatever info they are sharing/receiving...
If we climb a bit higher, who is the thought-leader in understanding the modes of and presentations of how humans communicate/participate/comment in a world where we have such extensive access to information and can comment/teach/interact/criticize/etc a VAST array of topics with SMEs in most areas and garner the research of tons of people on a single topic with just a few moments online?
Truly the information age - but do we have an agreed upon lexicon of how to describe such matters?
But now with a number of comments insinuating that somehow this story is invalid because it's reported by NYT, and NYT is the real fake news, is baffling and infuriating. I think the NYT may have some problems, but blithely and falsely reporting that a presidential candidate is running a child sex ring out of a pizza parlor isn't one of them.
The internet is basically slandering a certain network of people in DC but few really care because the whole network seems to benefit from rampant influence peddling. I mean we're talking about David Brock's former partner--he may be innocent, of course, but Brock is hardly a bystander in the internet wars.
I think it's a mistake to see these people only as victims--they're associated with pretty vicious propagandists, big power-brokers, and the like... Being the (brief) target of the hivemind almost has a poetic justice to it.
It will go away if they don't feed the trolls.
(I'm not myself on the right but watching it unfold this election was fascinating.)
Not saying that I believe any of the claims about Alefantis (I just have a fascination with conspiracy theories), but defgeneric is correct IMO to say that this is not solely a product of the alt-right.
EDIT: Here are the profiles of the reddit users that currently have the top 5 submissions on r/pizzagate (excluding one brand new throwaway account). I looked through them a bit, but you tell me.
https://www.reddit.com/user/JackeyWhip
https://www.reddit.com/user/Truth_Bomb_69
https://www.reddit.com/user/bloodfist45
https://www.reddit.com/user/conspExec
https://www.reddit.com/user/iamkats
The first user just posts about Dota all the time. The second has only a few posts. As far as I can see only the last user has posts in r/The_Donald and seems to fit the bill of being alt-right.
Other false stories are reinforced in other echo chambers, some of which - anti-vaxxers, for example - are considered left wing.
I guess the comments about the new right being technocrats may be true.
Why do you think the comments are representative of the "new right"? I don't know that they are not, but I haven't seen much evidence that they are.
My instinct --- based on the apparent assumptions of a universal morality and the horrified reactions to the 'provocative' art --- is that a sizable number of the posters are religious and socially conservative, traits I associate more with the "old right" than the "new right".
More generally, I don't think a "right"/"left" split is the right lens to view this with. What sort of insight do you think it provides?
Will they ban r/conspiracy too? I'll delete my reddit account instantly and never visit the site again if they do.
https://web.archive.org/web/20161122173600/https://www.reddi...
If you knowingly post and spread damaging fake information (deliberately engineered to accuse people of child molestation) on the internet, you have committed a crime, and you should be subject to both civil and criminal action.
You are responsible for the things you write online. This is no different from "yelling 'FIRE!' in a crowded theatre."
What you're missing here is that they genuinely believe it to be true. As incredible as that may seem to you and me, that is the reality of it.
I've actually been lurking in r/pizzagate since the start, watching in horror and fascination as people convince themselves of the most outrageous things. But they're convincing themselves, and they do actually believe.
The issue here would seem likely to meet the standard for public concern.
I've also been a lurker, and I thought it was a joke at the start--and it probably was--but watching it bootstrap itself was fascinating.
Bill Clinton really did ride on a child sex trafficker's private jet 26 times, and really went to his private island where underage girls have alleged that they were enslaved. It's also true that underaged-sexter Anthony Weiner's computer had all of Clinton's emails on it. It's true that the Podestas are close friends with Dennis Hastert and Tony mentioned post-conviction that he's "stayed in touch with denny Hastert [...] all these years". It's true that Hillary and Cheryl Mills emailed repeatedly back and forth about child trafficker Laura Silsby, with Mills referring to her only as "Laura", and that Bill Clinton traveled to Haiti and brokered a short prison term for Silsby and the release of the other "missionaries" involved.
So, while "pizzagate" in itself may be totally false, rumors like this would not exist if the US did not consistently invite human garbage into its highest political office.
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/n_7912/ :
Epstein likes to tell people that he's a loner, a man who's never touched alcohol or drugs, and one whose nightlife is far from energetic. And yet if you talk to Donald Trump, a different Epstein emerges. "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,'' Trump booms from a speakerphone. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/12/donald-trump...
How do you know that?
The line between art and perversion depends entirely on the mindset of the audience. Is Anne Geddes a child pornographer? With the right spin, she could be. http://www.annegeddes.com/
Stop "frantically trying to get the word out" and call the FBI if you think this is so important.
Honestly, what you're going on about here is worrying on so many levels. It's like the parent busted at Wal-Mart for "pedophilia" simply because he was a proud parent that had taken a picture of their newborn taking a bath. This is something people have done for generations, but when framed the right way it can sound awfully sinister.
If they were actually running a pedophile ring don't you think this would be entirely on the darknet where actual pedophile sites live?
The effect was ... incredible.
A dubious claim, indeed, but I can believe a lawyer would send such letters.
Eventually there's going to be either social or legal precedents which get set over this kind of thing.
Someone is probably going to have to get killed over this kind of thing. One of the True Believer nutjobs is going to do more than just phone up a death threat and will actually kill someone, or commit a mass-shooting over one of these.
I'd like to think that this will eventually become self-regulating and the issue is simply that the Internet hasn't been around long enough for society to learn to deal with it.
However, I fear I'm being too naive and that the fundamental problem is that humans on-average have pretty crappy bullshit filters. Since charming sociopaths have been able to take advantage of those flaws for thousands of years, I don't see that changing suddenly because the Internet appeared.
The result is likely to be that we're going to get laws that restrict free speech and attempt to regulate the damage that internet trolls can do.
> All of them alleged something that made Mr. Alefantis’s jaw drop: that Comet Ping Pong was the home base of a child abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton ...
I've heard of this story before, and I can't remember a version of it that had Hillary Clinton in that role.
I don't think making up facts for extra effect really helps debunk a story.
For a traditional-valued person who thinks that participating in #SpiritCooking performance art is immoral, it's not much of a stretch to believe that the participants would also abuse children.
For those of us who are familiar with liberal culture and gay culture, Tony Podesta's art and James Alefantis' instagram feed seems harmless. For people with more traditional values, it's incredibly weird and degenerate.
If you're curious to read more about the pizza/pedophile theory (which I think is nonsense, by the way), see reddit.com/r/pizzagate.
But the optics just don't work out. Performance Art is almost always weird even for most liberal people. It appeals to a very small percentage of the world. As a politician, you don't want to be associated with that - at least not in public
For people with "traditional values," anyone that is not "normal" is a "pervert" and once you've crossed the line into pervert territory anything that could qualify you as a pervert is equally acceptable. This is why you get people stating that transwomen/transmen are also pedophiles... every single one of them. Why? Being a transwoman or a transman makes you a pervert, and once you're a pervert you're equally likely to engage in anal sex as you are to rape a child (according to their logic) because perverts don't see any difference between the two.
Anyway, I think you're right, it was the art of Tony Podesta and Alefantis that triggered a lot of people over. There was that one article about Podesta's collection mentioning the art photos of naked teens in his house where they took glee in the fact they shocked guests. Having been around art people a lot, I certainly understand the desire to provoke. Sometimes people will get provoked. You get different reactions outside the bubble.
Here's a non-art example that I thought was culturally interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5b1qtf/comet_pi...
Jake Sullivan is going to New Haven for the day, and comments that he'll be "eating some pizza". Hillary Clinton chimes in and says "Have a slice for me!". So the question on Reddit is "WHO THE FUCK ACTUALLY CARES TO LET SOMEONE KNOW THEY ARE GOING TO EAT PIZZA..."?
And then a couple other people on Reddit answer, well, actually, New Haven is well known within certain circles for its excellent pizza, and actually it's fairly common for "hipsters" to "gush" about it with their friends. But I don't doubt that for many this sort of enthusiasm for the perfect slice is so foreign that "pedophilia" would in fact be a more believable explanation than "foodie".
Also, the lack of a common culture leads to using the least common denominator, like pizza, when looking for a point of connection. This is of course very foreign to people who are still somewhat part of the organic culture of traditional America.
Between the left's nearly blind hatred of Trump and the right's nearly blind hatred of Clinton I have to wonder who or what benefits from such a divided populace.
Hillary: Yale Law grad, partner, First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State
Trump: born rich, businessman with 3500 lawsuits against him, settled fraud charges for $25M, 4 bankruptcies, misogynist, ...
These are not the same.
Yes, I'm on the left but my hatred of Trump is not blind. Nor is my admiration of Hillary (I voted for Bernie). Trump is an embarrassment to America and that division you correctly point out has been created over decades by right wing media.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cx1p9w_UsAAaB0L.jpg
https://www.yelp.com/biz/comet-ping-pong-washington
I was just going to say, "Seems like this is new since that one dentist killed the famous lion", but I guess these alerts started at around that time: http://www.thesempost.com/yelp-adds-new-active-cleanup-alert...
Meanwhile, Google seems to be putting in little effort to block the brigading of its place reviews: http://i.imgur.com/e6uCqan.png
"He found dozens of made-up articles about Mrs. Clinton kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the restaurant’s back rooms."
There are no articles that claim Mrs. Clinton has been doing this. Not dozens - zero.
"While Mr. Alefantis has some prominent Democratic friends in Washington"
Yeah, and the Titanic was just a boat. Alefantis was named one of the Top 50 Influential People in Washington D.C. by GQ magazine. Because he is. The article mentions this later.
"was a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, he has never met her,"
This is highly unlikely. Not only has he visited the White House hundreds of times, he received a personally signed letter from Hillary Clinton for catering at a fundraiser at John Podesta's house. He displayed this letter on his Instagram, along with many images of children that raise plenty of red flags. Why not link to these and let readers decide for themselves?
"Amanda Kleinman, whose band, Heavy Breathing, has performed there several times, deleted her Twitter account after the abusive comments became overwhelming."
Perhaps the author could link to some of Amanda Kleinman's videos which contain single frame images of torture, famous pedophiles and child exploitation images?
"His customers include some high-powered locals, such as Tony Podesta, the brother of John Podesta, whom Mr. Alefantis knows casually."
Casually? Then why are there photos of them together at functions at Comet Ping Pong? John Podesta's emails have conversations which are highly disturbing to the casual reader. Why not show us some examples to see what the fuss is?
At this stage, all evidence for there being a pedo ring operating out of Washington D.C (with Comet Ping Pong playing a major role) is only circumstantial. But there is a LOT of it, literally hundreds of data points.
I agree completely with your complaints about the NYT article: it's terrible reporting, and essentially a PR release. Personally, I'm bothered most by the failure to mention that Alefantis is listed in GQ's Top 50 Influential People in DC, and the implication that he's a powerless pizza store owner. But I don't think the problem is that it's not "factual", rather it's being selective about which facts to mention so as to persuade the reader in a particular direction.
Why not link to these and let readers decide for themselves?
I'm pretty sure that the author believes that "nothing to see here" is the correct conclusion, and fears that the readers, not understanding the situation as well as she does, will reach the wrong conclusions. I'd guess the author has personal connections to some of the people involved, and is confident in her judgement that the accusations are false. This is essentially the definition of 'elitism', but the author's logic is likely correct.
At this stage, all evidence for there being a pedo ring operating out of Washington D.C (with Comet Ping Pong playing a major role) is only circumstantial. But there is a LOT of it, literally hundreds of data points.
Not only circumstantial, but really flimsy. While it might strike people as unfathomable that their government officials could actually be preoccupied with finding the best 'cheese pizza', this really isn't evidence that 'cheese pizza' equals 'child pornography'. One could argue that it's consistent with the behavior of a ring of pedophiles, but unless you've started with the conclusion that you are probably dealing with pedophiles, even 100 similar data points still don't add up to a likelihood that approaches the chance of a false positive.
So what's the solution? I have no idea.
She was confident in her judgement that the UVA Rape On Campus story that disgraced Rolling Stone was true as well. It wasn't. Oops.
> Not only circumstantial, but really flimsy.
Decide for yourself then:
James Alefantis posts suggestive pictures of children on his Instagram AND He makes lewd comments about them AND Many of his friends do too AND Some of those friends are into weird things like making child-sized coffins AND There's FBI-confirmed pedophile codes and symbols everywhere AND Alefantis knows John Podesta WHO is into Spirit Cooking with Marina Abramovic AND Podesta hangs disturbing child abuse-style art on his wall AND He likes artists who produce disturbing images of abuse AND His emails have masonic images hidden in the attachments AS WELL AS Pictures of children with notes saying "Happy Birthday John" AND contacts of his mail him with messages promising "entertainment" from the young children in the pool AND He and his brother look EXACTLY like the photofits of two men who abducted Madeleine McCann in 2007 AND they were connected to the McCanns through a mutual friend who lived nearby AND ....
I haven't even started with Hillary yet.
> but unless you've started with the conclusion that you are probably dealing with pedophiles, even 100 similar data points still don't add up to a likelihood that approaches the chance of a false positive.
This is not statistics. It's deduction. Given all of these facts, which hypothesis best fits them?
Then she was wrong there, and she could be wrong here too. But I think the greater commonality between the cases is that the "very difficult to believe events" turned out in the end to be false.
Decide for yourself then
I did. I read the thread, I watched the birthday video, and I read some of the suggestive emails (I even quoted one in a different comment here). I'm sure I've missed a lot, but my conclusion from the parts that I saw was that it's still extremely unlikely that Podesta is involved in pedophilia, and quite unlikely that any of the other named parties close to him are either.
This is not statistics. It's deduction. Given all of these facts, which hypothesis best fits them?
I think the most likely explanation is that the supposed points of evidence are misunderstandings due to massive cultural differences. In particular, I think the correlation between all the points of evidence you raise and the actual behavior of pedophiles is very low, and the conjunction of 100 such points is still overwhelmed by one's prior beliefs. Section 17 of Scott Alexander's recent article trying to explain why accusing Trump of being racist is counterproductive is relevant to this point: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/11/16/you-are-still-crying-wo...
But we'll see. I could be wrong. I still have (barely) enough faith in the world to believe that if Reddit's interpretation is true, the truth will eventually come out.
The cases have literally nothing to do with each other. That Cecilia Kang has authored falsehoods about both changes nothing about the facts of either.
> but my conclusion from the parts that I saw was that it's still extremely unlikely that Podesta is involved in pedophilia, and quite unlikely that any of the other named parties close to him are either.
It's easy to just scratch the surface and conclude that there's nothing to see here.
> I think the most likely explanation is that the supposed points of evidence are misunderstandings due to massive cultural differences. In particular, I think the correlation between all the points of evidence you raise and the actual behavior of pedophiles is very low, and the conjunction of 100 such points is still overwhelmed by one's prior beliefs.
Except that the pedophile ring theory explains every single data point perfectly. Your theory doesn't explain anything.
> I still have (barely) enough faith in the world to believe that if Reddit's interpretation is true, the truth will eventually come out.
I hoped I was wrong. I don't think I am :(
Jokes aside, anything can be explained by massive cultural differences. Taking more wives, marrying underaged girls can be considered civilized so long as there are enough people backing it up.
We can't always do that on the web, but some sites def. are more trustworthy than others... I generally don't trust CNN/Fox/MSNBC either as they are so tempered by opinions lately... and I use aggregators to get equal sides of an argument. Seems to me American's were a lot more intelligent when the news was required to play opinions from both sides of an issue... Sad that Reagan killed that little law.
I'm perfectly capapable of considering the pros and cons of a candidate and making a judgement about their ability to lead the country in a direction I think is desired thank you. It's amazing to me that everyone living in a "coastal citidel" is still so absolutely flabbergasted that 2016 went to the Republicans.
The people that voted for Trump are not like you. If everyone wants to hold on to the narrative that they were a bunch of racicists motivated by fake Facebook posts or Russia then so be it. That type of thinking lost 2016 and it will lose 2020 also.
For example, here's an example of the sort of email they felt might be 'coded' pedophilia:
With enormous gratitude to Advance Man Extraordinaire Haber, I am popping up again to share our excitement about the Reprise of Our Gang’s visit to the farm in Lovettsville. And I thought I’d share a couple more notes: We plan to heat the pool, so a swim is a possibility. Bonnie will be Uber Service to transport Ruby, Emerson, and Maeve Luzzatto (11, 9, and almost 7) so you’ll have some further entertainment, and they will be in that pool for sure. And with the forecast showing prospects of some sun, and a cooler temp of lower 60s, I suggest you bring sweaters of whatever attire will enable us to use our outdoor table with a pergola overhead so we dine al fresco (and ideally not al-CHILLo).
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/10052
While I'm almost certain that a message sent to a listserv talking about transporting "Ruby, Emerson, and Maeve Luzzatto (11, 9, and almost 7) so you’ll have some further entertainment" is just a way of encouraging people to bring their own children of similar age by pointing out that there will be other kids attending, I can see that the odd phrasing might raise suspicion in some contexts. One of those contexts would be finding out that some of the people involved in the email chain are "friends of friends" of people who in fact have been convicted of child molestation, and it seems possible that this is indeed the case. At the least, it seems to be something they believe they have found.
Anyway, if you want to dive into it to see for yourself, here's an summary of some of the 'evidence' they dug up: https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5da0kp/comet_pin...
I don't know what to think either, but the response amongst otherwise intelligent people on this is pretty weird, in both the positive and negative case directions.
Times: please don't feed the trolls.
Not sure how Comet fits in. Maybe Podesta ordered from them for the many 'pizza parties' referenced in his emails, with lines like 'i don't like hair on my pizza.'
Combination of strange references to 'pizza' in the emails, the logos, the utter distrust of establishment politicians (especially those connected to Hillary), fuelled by ongoing theories about so-called elites' child trafficking rings (Epstein).
What makes so sure about this? These claims are so nonsensical that it could be “what they wanted the reddit conspiracy hive-mind to believe”.
Citation needed that people think the NYTimes is lying (as opposed to selectively reporting). I don't dispute some conservatives believe the NYTimes is lying.
But then, weirdness != criminality.
If you come to DC, by all means buy some food from there, but then throw it in the garbage and I'll happily treat you to a much better dinner.
Done and done. Saw a bunch of happy customers posting pictures of their kids having a blast at a family restaurant...all captioned with misleading and, occasionally, vile captions.
Remember 2003, Iraq war, WMDs? That took thousands of dollars out of your pocket.
Let's agree on one thing here. Spreading false information is unhelpful.
The way twitter/4chan/facebook work is that it's basically a streaming tube of recency, where content gets pushed through it and everyone is forced to look at the top of the heap, ie the newest memes.
If you actually had a graph the size of your network, and the font size of the comments/content your friends' post actually reflect their voice in context of the whole network (e.g. smaller), maybe you'd see it less as a spotlight and more as background noise.
I surely did not have good enough ideas for a writing, but this pizzagate thing seems to be one terrifying answer to that inquiry.
Just that in this case the damage is very concentrated and it seems to affect only on a few group of people.
It's not misogyny. Check.
It's not bigotry. Check.
We get it. There are disenfranchised folks in the US that feel under-represented and even targeted/blamed etc.
But this, this nonsense, is beyond the pale. You got your president elect. Worst case, thousands will pay the price in rights, access to services or the ability to live in a democratic society, free from the challenges (life threatening or otherwise) that they sought splice from.
It's a small business. Parents, customers with children, sullied by this insane, malicious group of alt right sociopaths who make up The_Donald and other locations. To justify or support this shit obliterates any legitimate credibility, however remote, they may have had.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-ele...
That is, after all, the standard that we hold Muslims to. As well as the standard we hold progressives to when anarchists try to turn peaceful protests into riots.
The party of personal responsibility is often quick to hold groups accountable for the actions of individuals.
Are these people really investigating though? What they are doing is posting threats, lies and rumours on social media sites under the guise of "we just don't want children to be raped." Nobody that posts:
> I won't stop tweeting about #PizzaGate until I know for a fact that there aren't children in danger being covered up by the US government
is "investigating" anything unless you count "making Twitter posts that contain the #PizzaGate hashtag" as an investigation.
You're also missing that many of these people are starting with the conclusion that child molestation is going on, and they are just looking for evidence of what they "know" is happening. That's not an investigation. That's a witch hunt.
> Worst case, thousands will pay the price in rights, access to services or the ability to live in a democratic society, free from the challenges (life threatening or otherwise) that they sought splice from.
I'm not sure what your point is?
This is what the voting populace wanted so clearly there is a desire on the part of many of the Republicans, Trump supporters and protest voters for this to happen.
To further allow this type of witch-hunt bullshit continue is throwing salt on a wound that will not in any way help with those impacted by this election and it's fallout.
People on the "left" will see this type of activity and continue to paint the "right" with the same generalizations that the right is adamant is not their true fight/cause etc.
The "right" should be denouncing this immediately and disavowing these types of actions if there is any hope of bridging the divide.
Unless, of course, there is no interest in doing that at all.
The biggest divide in America is between the capitalist class and the working class. It can only be bridged by a reverse wealth transfer that's been accumulating since the anti-trust laws were weakened and unions gelded.
I mean, the right calls for denouncing the post-election riots, the left calls for denouncing this BS. Both point at the other and say "this is why we can't cooperate!" after neither happens.
So goes partisan politics.
Also: it's called "alt right" because it's politically radioactive and the GOP wants nothing to do with it.
"There are just so many pieces that almost neatly fit together - it's gross. Too many coincidences to just hand-wave away.
More context: https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/
Their reaction to this article specifically: https://www.reddit.com/r/pizzagate/comments/5e8lg7/the_nyt_j....
Insane ramblings of paint-huffers? Or people who maybe saw something they shouldn't?"
They deleted their comment - I guess they were getting too many downvotes. But I created this account to reply, so screw it:
How can anyone ever disprove a conspiracy theory like that? It's impossible.
I saw in passing an interview with someone who thought that Hillary was ordering child abuse victims using "Pizza" as a code word. I never actually realized it was a serious accusation.
"False news" isn't the issue. It's people are completely unable to evaluate how likely something is in any meaningful way if that person is on the opposite side of politics.
Indeed, you cannot. To even address it directly gives it credence and power. It is so absolutely asininely absurd as to warrant complete disregard.
It's extremely rare that we'd edit a comment but I don't think you have property rights over this one, so I'm going to redact the username you put in there and ask you not to do this again.
HN threads are collaborations; comments aren't just individual property. Active threads develop quickly in response to existing posts, and editing/deleting earlier comments removes context that the later ones are based on. The longer the time window, the more likely that later comments will get invalidated and/or history rewritten. So we need an edit window that's long enough for people to refine their comment or have second thoughts about it, but brief enough not to pull the rug out from others.
We're happy to delete comments or sometimes even edit them after the fact if people have a good reason for needing that (e.g. they're worried about getting in trouble from something they posted). But we only do that in response to specific requests about specific links. We don't delete history wholesale.
The goal was to get the most electoral votes, and Trump (for better or worse) followed a strategy that allowed him to obtain more than Hillary. Had the goal at the start of the election been to win the most votes in total, then the strategy followed by both sides would have been massively different. We really can't say one way or the other who would have won the popular vote in such a scenario.
People need to rip this band aid off already. Hillary lost, and it's her own fault.
The Yale Law grad is at fault for losing to that barbarian? Wrong again. The minority of the voting public, who believe they are victims- are at fault. And the USA is the one that will end up losing.
Also why is NYTimes at liberty to decide whats real and fake news ? Agree or disagree, their political analysis leans heavily left.
Just because someone says something crazy on the internet doesn't mean that the person being accused is automatically guilty until they take the time out of their life to disprove said thing, it's the exact opposite.
In any event, most of the stuff I read is less "omg guys this is totally 100% correct" and more "this is a seriously strange and disturbing set of coincidences" mixed with a lot of memeing circlejerk.
And after things like
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/corey-feldman-elijah-w...
and things like Jeffrey Epstein and the whole Jimmy Savile thing, I'm just not sure anymore of ANYTHING. Honestly, the fact that the NY times feels the need to publish an article debunking it is a (very very tiny) shove towards it being true.
I've seen it firsthand constantly the last few months on my FB feed. When ~50% of the electorate gets their news from Facebook only and it is 99% nonsense conspiracy theories not rooted in reality, the NYT and others have had a reality check that they should start calling out this nonsensical crap since so many people are gullible and actually are swayed by it.
At best Its a weak attempt to defend the place, at worst its an example of a real news story that is being called fake to suppress opposition. Which is IMO what this whole fake news thing is really about.
The left's playbook is so one dimensional - always smear the messenger, never debate the message.
If there was a story here backed up by facts it would be covered by the NYT.
Conspiracy websites, 4chan, Reddit and Twitter detectives are not in fact based in reality when it comes to this story.
If they don't want to do that they shouldn't title their article "Fact Check". If I see "Fact Check" I expect a piece that will engage the conspiracy theory in detail and debunk it piece by piece. Something like Snopes does, for example.
Saying "this is fake news, just trust me" is not a fact check, it's an opinion piece.
This is a perfectly valid fact check.
Claim: EdiX is a crazy pedophile
Fact-check: This is just random speculation and there is no evidence.
By your standards an actual fact-check would need to cite testimony from your (ex-)partner(s)/spouse(s), a psychological evaluation, maybe some videos of you not being a pedophile around children. Utterly ridiculous.
Well it's the newspaper of New York, so it's hardly surprising.
You deny it? That's exactly what a child molester would say!
You have proof you are not? All lies obviously. This is a major coverup and a conspiracy!
It's things like these that sometimes make me question the democratic system. These people aren't fit to vote.
Presumably this is why the poster you responded to is questioning the democratic system, so you haven't really presented a counterargument here.
Regardless of this and to put focus on those that publish this nonsense, of course there should be real consequences and liabilities for the outlets of these insane stories.
Fake news is a problem but trusting corporate media is not a solution.
We're at the point where NYT could publish a video of someone confessing to murder with a weapon in their hand and someone would comment "typical corporate media shills".
Where are the stories about independent media getting a scoop? Publishing a story the corporate media ignore or would prefer to ignore? Exposing corporate media errors or misquoted sources?
Corporate media (usually) tells the truth, but only part of the truth, and in so doing they attempt to skew public opinion. In this case, they'd like to skew public opinion toward distrust of independent media.
This seems like an interesting and informative story to me. Threads for any NYT story are going to get really tedious if they all get a "they got Trump wrong so why should I listen?" comment attached.
There is no coherent suggestion.
What he and his cohort is doing is yelling 'Lugenpresse' into every discussion on the topic they can find.
Spamming what would be intelligent discussions with such nonsense is a new thing.
Getting dozens of calls threatening to kill you, having your kid's pictures reposted all over the internet, and getting doxed are not how I would describe "a crusade against fake news". This is hardly new. Swatting, gamergate, etc are all manifestations of similar things. Why are you so dismissive?
Internet mobs are easy to rile up and difficult to control. Each individual participating only takes one minor action (for example calling and yelling at the other party one time) but the victims of the abuse suffer a massive torrent of hate and slander with basically no recourse. People get fired because their employer doesn't want to deal with the harassment or bad press.
For a long time a simple accusation was enough to get the mob going. Now you don't even need that much, just some conspiracy-mongering and a few likes on Facebook and you too can send a mob after anyone for no reason at all!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/europe/tim-hunt-nobe...
They aren't opposed to Internet mobs, just those that don't fit their agenda.
The mob that harassed the pizza shop owner was riled up by a totally false and horrific, incredibly libelous lie.
It was also false, horrific and libellous, and he did lose his job over it. Just because the stick used to beat people with was misogyny instead of cheese pizza, doesn't make the act of spreading false information any less despicable.
Edit: BTW, the fact that our media is now staffed by people who are utterly unable to separate their subjective experience from objective reality should seriously worry you. It should also make you reconsider anything you've heard about what's going on in culture wars online and offline, because I guarantee you, the people covering it do not have the statistical and digital literacy to accurately gauge the size and nature of things.
> Well, now that the dust has cleared and the story has faded from the American press, there’s a postscript that amounts to: “Never mind.” It turns out that, just as Hunt has claimed, the 72-year-old scientist’s comments during a luncheon at a science journalism conference in Korea in June were an awkward self-deprecating joke—greeted with laughter (not the reported “stony silence”) by a mostly female audience. The “Tim Hunt, misogynist scientist” narrative has been falling apart piece by piece over the past month; last week, it was finished off by a snippet of audio recorded by a female attendee and made public by The Times. Now, attention should turn to the real scandal: irresponsible journalism magnified by social media frenzy.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/07/22/sexist_...
Are you suggesting the mob that attacked Tim Hunt was justified?
> In Tim Hunt's case, Tim Hunt actually said the things that were the cause of other people's ire.
As a joke, which (we know from a recording and the reports of other attendees) was well received by the audience in general, save one reporter who saw an opportunity to profit by misrepresenting his remarks.
> Perhaps you can argue that NYT's opinion pages were one sided, but at least they are explicitly labeled as opinion.
One discussion was, the article linked above was not. It claimed quite seriously that Tim Hunt said "female scientists should be segregated from male colleagues".
> The mob that harassed the pizza shop owner was riled up by a totally false and horrific, incredibly libelous lie.
As was the mob that harassed Tim Hunt. The much bigger lie that he was some sort of chauvinist keeping women out of science.
A lie that was exposed by the many women who worked with him and defended him.
I hope, though, that most people would feel the same anger and disappointment that I feel over being misled whether or not it agrees with their views, instead of doubling down on false information in the hopes that spreading it further somehow makes it more real.
Yelp seems to have cleaned it up by now, but Google Places definitely hasn't. Was interesting to see how much offense people will take at something minor like this, and how far people will go - like making up a 2 paragraph story and attaching a picture of a rat in food that they found on Google. Lots of "normal" people making up stories that were completely fictional, because they felt driven to punish a business (that they had never visited) for this.