Comet Ping Pong Conspiracy Report

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After a man believed some fake news about Hillary Clinton trafficking children in the back of Comet Ping Pong, a popular pizza restaurant in DC, the man went to “Investigate” the restaurant and fired a few shots then surrendered to police officers (Page). Despite the first amendment allowing freedom of the press, there can be consequences of the press printing anything they want (Page). I think we should not change the first amendment however people need to be informed about fake news for our safety and security. The conspiracy theory called #pizzagate or #PodestaEmails believed that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was in charge of a child trafficking ring in the back of a popular pizza place in D.C. called Comet Ping Pong (Callum). This …show more content…

The emails were sent in 2008 but only were recently leaked (Samuelson). The emails only talk about a fundraiser for Obama and thanking John Posta for speaking at the fundraiser (Comet on Podesta. - WikiLeaks). Then this conspiracy spread on reddit and twitter under #pizzagate (Samuelson). It eventually spread to Facebook and even foreign news channels as far away as Saudi Arabia (Samuelson). Then Edgar Welch, father of two, who was raged by the articles on social media, took his AR-15 rifle and handgun to Commit Ping Pong to “Self Investigate” save the children “Rambo”-style (Page). Edgar fired a few shots and luckily no one was injured (Fake News Isn't Fake Anymore). The police later announced that “pizzagate” was just a conspiracy and threads on Reddit were shut down (Callum). I think that fake news like this are not ok because people can get hurt. The first Amendment protects the freedom of the press and there is not regulations about when the press is getting threatening (Page) .There are no restrictions from the law on independent websites like Reddit. I think we should not restrict the press because