Pizzagate: The Complete Story

In early 2016, WikiLeaks released thousands of hacked emails from Clinton 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta. When online sleuths discovered a handful of emails containing incomprehensible cheese pizza references, floodgates opened as observers realized that in dark web pedophile communities, "cheese pizza" functions as shorthand for "child porn." Before long, a global phenomenon erupted that would cause a frenzy in media outlets, drawing scrutiny from politicians and journalists worldwide.
But publishing on Aceloewgold.com, a little-known finance and alt-news opinion blog, an obscure blogger calling themselves Ace of Swords wasn't ready to dismiss it all as fake news. Equally, Ace rejected the fanatical and conspiratorial Alex Jonesian approach to processing the phenomenon.
From 4Chan to the New York Times, all the way to a real-life shooting at a pizza joint in Washington, D.C. that became the dramatic climax of the controversy, this is Ace's report. Read it and draw your own conclusions. Whatever you believe, one thing is for sure: the intersection of politics, journalism, conspiracy theory culture, and the world wide web just doesn't get any stranger than Pizzagate.
Whether it was a conservative fake news hoax, an example of how conspiracy theories can harm real people, or a genuine case of ritual child abuse in the highest centers of power, you'll see how it unfolded and what it-and the reaction to it-reveals about the 21st-century cultural zeitgeist.