Fake Pizza News: Avoid the Noid? by John Hinderaker.

I’ve known for a while that liberals are trying to blame their electoral defeats on “fake news” propagated on Facebook and other venues. Having spent much of the last 14 years exposing fake news emanating from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS News, CNN, and so on, I wasn’t impressed and devoted zero time to the subject.

But now, the liberals really have something to talk about: a man inspired by “fake news” about Hillary Clinton drew a gun at a Washington pizza place. Which caused CNN — not to mention the Obama administration — to go nuclear.

Here’s CNN:

Fake news, real violence: ‘Pizzagate’ and the consequences of an Internet echo chamber, by Brian Selter.

Millions of people have read about a crazy conspiracy theory called “Pizzagate.” An untold number of them actually believe it.

One person apparently took matters into his own hands and showed up with guns to the pizza place that the conspiracy theorists say is at the center of the web.

No one was injured at Comet Ping Pong, the Washington restaurant, on Sunday afternoon, but the armed confrontation showed the offline, real-life consequences of online lies. …

“Pizzagate” spun up on 4chan, Reddit, Twitter and other web sites in the final days before the election. It was a made-up story incorporating fake leaks from “police sources” and misinterpreted Wikileaks emails.

Believers imagined a pedophilia ring supposedly being run out of the pizza shop that somehow involved Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta, among other Democrats.

Hinderaker comments:

I follow the news closely, and I never heard of “Pizzagate” until this evening.

I am strongly opposed to lies, online or elsewhere, but what conclusions can one draw from the actions of a single, evidently deranged individual? Actual personal injury has occurred as a result of lies about Donald Trump, which were spread much more widely than the little-known “Pizzagate.” …

The fake news about Trump was worse. … Are the Democrats trying to tell us that Hillary lost the election because someone circulated a rumor that she and her campaign manager were involved in a pedophile ring run out of a particular pizza shop in Washington, DC? I would gently suggest that the undisputed facts regarding Hillary’s incompetence, corruption and dishonesty are more than enough to explain her defeat.

So we have here a pizza-related “fake news” incident, the key aspect of which CNN fails to mention: Mr. Welch is, evidently, a paranoid schizophrenic. …

Mr. Welch may be a lunatic, but the Democrats are determined to make something of their “fake news” narrative, and apparently he is the best they can do. …

There really has been fake news — from the media:

We have been battling it for well over a decade. For an example of fake news — propagated in this case by the Washington Post, colluding with the Democratic Party — go here, here, here and here.