The "evil paedophile elites are kidnapping children to abuse them" (alternatively, CPS kidnap children to sell for adoption) conspiracy theory has existed for a long time.
Once the conspiracy theory exists you're going to get a mix of people who really believe it finding subreddits to share "proof"; trolls who like the lulz; people who don't know and don't care but who hate that politician and will share anything negative about them; and baffled people on the outside who can't tell the difference and can't understand how anyone can think that politicians order children for abuse by email.
Those historic scandals don't stop misreporting today, see the coconut shell reported by police and media as being a skull fragment -- even after it had been tested.
The sad fact is that child abuse is fantastically common, and by devoting so much time to bogus bullshit we're failing to protect children who are being harmed right now, mostly by their relatives.
From my observation and IMHO, pedophiles do make use of networks of people to find additional kids to abuse; sometimes it is via a social network with lax supervision (trust by regular people of a predator), and sometimes, an actual group of pedophiles participating.
Of course 2 or more people participating in certain acts, or even assisting a pedophile means "conspiracy".
In PizzaGate, I am keeping an open mind, and not scoffing; mainly due to some rather weird Instagram pictures and comments that used to be publicly available, that were linked to Comet Ping Pong and/or the owner. They were quite... unusual.
Hasn't this Instagram stuff been debunked by the NYT? Whatever you might think of their political leanings, the NYT isn't covering up a pedophilia conspiracy in the service of the campaign manager of a candidate who just lost the election. Why would I trust people who actively cheerlead Putinist fakenews over the NYT's own fact checkers?
You should look for the archived Instagram pages of his and make up your own mind.
Neither NYT article that I found, directly address what the innocuous meanings of hash tags like #killroom (with pic of enclosed windowless room) and #chickenlover (pic while holding a young boy) are. Like I said, I found this unusual.
Snopes has not "debunked" anything. Once, the couple who run the Snopes blog were good at investigating urban legends and such. In recent years they have gotten more political and more obvious in their selective coverage to fit an agenda.
Note, I am 100% against harassing the guy and his business, but you cannot deny his instagram had the pictures on it. Does that justify a barrage of internet hate and accusations of criminality? No. But lying about Instagram pictures being faked when they weren't is also not helpful.
More 'fake' instagram posts tied to comet ping pong that make the conspiracy nuts raise their eyebrows:
Surprisingly, I'm quite comfortable with my decision to trust the New York Times' investigative reporting team (which is what Snopes links to regarding this Instagram matter) over "archive.is" links created by Reddit and 4chan.
This is an edited screenshot of your post [0] with my personal user style applied. This is an archive.is link of your post [1]. Feel free to edit or delete this post. The edited screenshot should not and cannot be trusted to be valid. The archive link, on the other hand, can be trusted to have been a 3rd party 'screenshot' of your post at the time the archive was taken.
Unless you are suggesting archive.is is a malicious actor or has any known cases of editing or changing archives made using its service. To my knowledge, there is no evidence or reason to believe either accusation.
The archive.is links are not "created" by 4chan or Reddit users. The links are created by request of the service. It shouldn't matter who requests the service as long as the service is reliable.
If the NYT investigative report team claims the archive.is links are doctored - I'd lose my faith in the NYT's ability to investigate as they have clearly failed in their duty.
I regret even giving the slightest impression that the credibility of the insane "pizzagate" theory could be buttressed by the Instagram photos in question, fake or not.
Random Instagram photos aren't evidence. They're ridiculous speculation, and those who peddle these ludicrous theories should be ashamed of the real damage this is causing to innocent people's livelihoods. The Washington Post called the allegations "absurd on their face and detached from any gossamer thread of fact" [1].
I frankly cannot believe we are even debating this here.
Six years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh-dNAby174
Four years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5LyzuVUweU
Eight years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_C75RO6LL4
Once the conspiracy theory exists you're going to get a mix of people who really believe it finding subreddits to share "proof"; trolls who like the lulz; people who don't know and don't care but who hate that politician and will share anything negative about them; and baffled people on the outside who can't tell the difference and can't understand how anyone can think that politicians order children for abuse by email.