Pizzagate still isn’t real (2024)

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Pizzagate still isn’t real (1)

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Instagram posts

stated on July 8, 2023 in an Instagram post:

The Wall Street Journal reporting proves that “Pizzagate” is real.

Pizzagate still isn’t real (3)

Pizzagate still isn’t real (4)
  • National
  • Technology
  • Instagram posts

By Samantha Putterman July 11, 2023

If Your Time is short

  • The Wall Street Journal didn’t confirm that the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory is real. The newspaper recently reported that Instagram allowed a network of accounts that commission and purchase underage-sex content to connect with one another and promote their content. Some of these accounts use emojis as code language, including an image for "cheese pizza."

  • One of The Wall Street Journal’s reporters dismissed the claims.

  • The Pizzagate conspiracy theory — which claims that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and those around her, ran a child sex-trafficking ring in a Washington, D.C., pizzeria’s basement — remains baseless.

See the sources for this fact-check

Did The Wall Street Journal’s reporting prove that the widely discredited "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory is real?

Not even close. But that’s not what some social media users are claiming.

"‘Pizzagate Is Real’: WSJ Uncovers Massive Pedophile Ring on Instagram Using ‘Pizza Code Words,’" reads a screenshot of a July 8 headline on Instagram.

"WE WERE RIGHT AGAIN. A massive pedophile ring involving high-ranking officials has been uncovered on Instagram by Wall Street Journal reporters this week," says the post caption.

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Sign up for PolitiFact texts

The headline comes from a June 9 story on a website called "The People’s Voice." The story author, Sean Adl-Tabatabai, has been linked to misinformation websites.

The Wall Street Journal, along with researchers from Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, investigated Instagram’s algorithm and reported June 7 that the platform allowed a network of accounts that commission and purchase underage-sex content to connect with one another and promote their content. The article details how the researchers and reporters found that Instagram let people search explicit hashtags and that certain emojis functioned as a kind of code language, including one for "cheese pizza" — a shorthand for child pornography.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, acknowledged problems within its enforcement operation and told the Journal that it was setting up an internal task force. Meta also said it has removed 27 pedophile networks over the last two years.

But just because some of the accounts were using a pizza emoji as code for pedophile activity doesn’t mean the Journal reporting is proof that the widely discredited Pizzagate conspiracy theory is real. And the post’s claim that the reporting showed that "high-ranking officials" were involved is inaccurate.

To recap, the Pizzagate conspiracy theory emerged in October 2016 and falsely claimed that a Washington, D.C. pizzeria was a front for a basement child sex-trafficking ring run by former Democratic presidential nominee and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her then-campaign manager, John Podesta.

Then and now, no evidence supports the idea that Clinton, or others around her, are sex-trafficking children.

Featured Fact-check

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X posts

stated on September 20, 2024 in an X post

First lady Jill Biden led a Cabinet meeting for President Joe Biden and her signature appears on presidential stationery.

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Jeff Horowitz, one of The Wall Street Journal reporters who wrote the June 7 story, tweeted to address claims that the article confirmed that Pizzagate is real.

"My best understanding is QAnon actually popularized the idea of ‘cheese pizza’ as an extremely lazy in-group code, thereby launching it on social media," Horowitz tweeted June 8. "So congratulations: QAnon popularized an emoji that did, for a while, help lead people to actually bad stuff. Per talking to (former) Meta (employees), the reason the pizzagate term carried a warning label was that adherents of the conspiracy theory themselves posted illegal content."

Yup, regret it already!

Now have pizzagate truthers insisting that I am now covering up for the pedophile network THAT WE WROTE ABOUT YESTERDAY by failing to acknowledge that "Cheese Pizza" got cited by urban dictionary in 2010.

— Jeff Horwitz (@JeffHorwitz) June 8, 2023

PolitiFact reached out to the newspaper for comment but did not y hear back.

We rate the claim that Wall Street Journal reporting proves that "Pizzagate" is real Pants on Fire!

RELATED: How Pizzagate went from fake news to a real problem for a D.C. business

Read About Our Process

The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter

Our Sources

Instagram post, June 8, 2023

The People’s Voice, ‘Pizzagate Is Real’: WSJ uncovers massive pedophile ring on Instagram using ‘pizza code words’, June 9, 2023

The Wall Street Journal, Instagram Connects Vast Pedophile Network, June 7, 2023

Twitter, Jeff Horowitz thread, June 8, 2023

PolitiFact, How Pizzagate went from fake news to a real problem for a D.C. business, Dec. 5, 2016

BuzzFeed, How The Bizarre Conspiracy Theory Behind "Pizzagate" Was Spread, Dec. 5, 2016

The Washington Post, What ‘cheese pizza’ means to the internet’s conspiracy-mongers, Dec. 9, 2016

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

More by Samantha Putterman

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X posts

stated on September 30, 2024 in an X post:

Photo shows President Joe Biden lounging on the beach "while towns all over America were being wiped out” by Hurricane Helene.

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Vote No on 3

stated on September 7, 2024 in a TV ad:

Florida’s Amendment 3 is “the monopoly amendment.”

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Vote No on 4

stated on September 10, 2024 in a TV ad:

“Unlike other amendments, Amendment 4 has no definitions. … Without definitions these words can mean almost anything.”

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Social Media

stated on September 21, 2024 in a video:

Sen. JD Vance admitted he has a ‘rent-a-dog’ from the Trump campaign to make him “seem like a dog person.”

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X posts

stated on September 20, 2024 in an X post:

First lady Jill Biden led a Cabinet meeting for President Joe Biden and her signature appears on presidential stationery.

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Tim Walz

stated on September 14, 2024 in a speech:

“In Project 2025, you’re going to have to register with a new federal agency when you get pregnant.”

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Yes on 4

stated on September 10, 2024 in a TV ad:

Florida’s six-week abortion law has “no real exceptions. Not for her health. Not even for rape.”

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Kamala Harris

stated on August 28, 2024 in an ad:

Project 2025 would defund K-12 schools.

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Elizabeth Warren

stated on August 25, 2024 in an interview:

“JD Vance actually sent a letter last year to the Department of Justice saying, ‘enforce the Comstock Act.’”

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Rick Scott

stated on August 28, 2024 in a post on X:

“This month alone, more than 16,000 non-citizens have been removed from the voter rolls in 3 states.”

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Debbie Mucarsel-Powell

stated on August 7, 2024 in un anuncio de radio de campaña:

El senador Rick Scott no apoya las excepciones al aborto.

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Debbie Mucarsel-Powell

stated on August 7, 2024 in an ad:

Sen. Rick Scott does not support abortion exceptions.

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Donald Trump

stated on August 8, 2024 in a press conference:

Says his Jan. 6, 2021, speech on the White House Ellipse drew the “same number of people,” as the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

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Ron DeSantis

stated on August 6, 2024 in an X post:

“In 2021, Minnesotans were roughly five times more likely to move to Florida than vice versa” because they were “fleeing” the state under Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.

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No, The Wall Street Journal didn’t confirm that ‘Pizzagate is real’

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    Instagram posts

    stated on October 18, 2024 in an Instagram post:

    As part of his “charitable donations,” in 1990 Donald Trump “chartered a private plane to get Nelson Mandela to America when the U.S. government wouldn't help."

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    Facebook posts

    stated on October 17, 2024 in Facebook posts:

    There was an Oct. 17, 2024, hospital update about the health of Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales.

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    Donald Trump

    stated on September 20, 2024 in a 2024 campaign ad:

    Kamala Harris “supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens.”

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    Mike Rogers

    stated on October 14, 2024 in a debate:

    “About 400,000 manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan will go away with EV mandates.”

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    Threads posts

    stated on October 11, 2024 in a Threads post:

    The northern lights are proof of the sky “glowing with chemicals” sprayed in the sky.

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    Threads posts

    stated on October 10, 2024 in a photo:

    “Trump's convictions have all been overturned and he is getting his $500,000,000.00 back!”

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    Viral image

    stated on October 15, 2024 in a Threads post:

    Photo shows Vice President Kamala Harris and Sean “Diddy” Combs.

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    Facebook posts

    stated on October 10, 2024 in a Facebook post:

    “Elon Musk takes over Taylor Swift’s X account, causing her to lose 7 million followers and $100 million in brand deals.”

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    Ruben Gallego

    stated on October 9, 2024 in a debate:

    Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake “was against” the child tax credit expansion “when the bill was on the floor.”

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    Instagram posts

    stated on October 16, 2024 in an Instagram post:

    Vice President Kamala Harris commented on President Joe Biden’s “mental fitness,” saying, “he’s not stable” and “we should all be concerned.”

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