AI Anderson Cooper? | Musk promotes Pizzagate

Pizzagate conspiracy still false, despite Musk’s endorsement

NO: There is no truth to the conspiratorial claim that a child-sex trafficking ring was ever operated out of Comet Ping Pong, a pizza shop in Washington, D.C. YES: James Meek, a veteran reporter for ABC News, pleaded guilty to transportation and possession of child pornography in July 2023. NO: Meek was not a “Pizzagate expert” and was not involved with the network’s investigations into the debunked conspiracy theory. YES: The Pizzagate conspiracy theory — which is a precursor to QAnon conspiracy theories — was widely debunked by reporting from dozens of reputable, standards-based news and fact-checking organizations. YES: A fabricated New York post headline that falsely labeled Meek as the “journalist who ‘debunked’ Pizzagate” was circulated on social media in August 2023.

NewsLit takeaway: Purveyors of misinformation frequently fabricate false claims to spread and support false narratives, or to draw well-established facts into question. While those individual claims are often swiftly debunked, their underlying messages often persist on social media as they get repeated in new memes and posts. A piece of impostor content involving a fictional NY Post headline about the “journalist who debunked Pizzagate” being arrested for child pornography was debunked in August 2023, for example, but it was repurposed into a meme that was eventually shared by Elon Musk, the owner of X — whose account also has the most followers (164.5 million) on the platform.

Disinformation often contains a seed of truth, which can lend it a veneer of plausibility and bring it attention in pursuit of some other agenda. In this case, an ABC News reporter was truly arrested for possessing and transporting child pornography. But this fact has no bearing on the provably false and implausible nature of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. No number of endorsements or provocations from high-profile public figures can change that.

Fake headline pushes false Ukraine-Hamas connection

NO: This is not a screenshot of an actual Washington Post headline or article. YES: The doctored screenshot is a piece of impostor content.

NewsLit takeaway: Purveyors of disinformation often try to gain widespread acceptance of false narratives by creating and spreading a variety of claims that repeat the same general falsehoods. While there’s no evidence that Ukraine is supplying weapons to the militant group Hamas, several social media posts have advanced this false pro-Russian narrative, which can trick people into assuming that there must be at least some truth to it.

Impostor content like this fake headline frequently circulates via doctored screenshots. When you come across sensational headlines shared as screenshots — without an accompanying link — it’s always a good idea to search for the article on the news outlet’s website to confirm that it’s authentic. Another red flag? Reuters pointed out that Christopher Moltisanti, similar to the name that appears in the byline, is a character from the HBO show The Sopranos.