{"id":1774,"date":"2023-12-01T08:37:12","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T13:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/?p=1774"},"modified":"2023-12-01T08:37:12","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T13:37:12","slug":"study-pizzagate-posts-on-x-spike-dramatically-after-elon-musk-boosted-the-conspiracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/2023\/12\/01\/study-pizzagate-posts-on-x-spike-dramatically-after-elon-musk-boosted-the-conspiracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: \u2018Pizzagate\u2019 Posts on X Spike Dramatically After Elon Musk Boosted the Conspiracy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new study from Montclair State University <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/11\/Everything-Old-is-Q-Again.pdf?\">shows that recent comments made by Elon Musk dramatically boosted online discussion about #Pizzagate<\/a>, a debunked conspiracy suggesting children were being trafficked through a D.C. pizzeria.<\/p>\n<p>The study was conducted by the Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication and the Global Center on Human Trafficking.<\/p>\n<h2>Highlights from the study on \u2018Pizzagate\u2019 on X include:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A 9,501.5% spike in Pizzagate posts on the X platform in the period after Musk\u2019s boosting of the conspiracy<\/li>\n<li>375,140 posts using the term Pizzagate<\/li>\n<li>81,536,652 total impressions generated by original posts referencing Pizzagate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Google Trends Analysis showed a similar increase in online search activity related to Pizzagate. The most liked, viewed and retweeted posts consistently supported the baseless Pizzagate conspiracy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Pizzagate conspiracy is an example of the sensational and fictitious presentation of human trafficking that makes solving the real problem of human trafficking so much more difficult,\u201d said Daniela Peterka-Benton, academic director of the Global Center on Human Trafficking and coordinator of the Trafficking Misinformation Network.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cParticularly concerning is that the Pizzagate conspiracy is foundational to QAnon. The QAnon conspiracy is based on a number of antisemitic tropes and elevating it online in the current context seems to be particularly irresponsible,\u201d said Bond Benton, associate professor of Public Relations in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University.<\/p>\n<p>The full study, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/11\/Everything-Old-is-Q-Again.pdf?\">\u201cEverything Old is Q Again,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0was conducted by Benton and Peterka-Benton from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/school-of-communication-and-media\/stratcomm\/?\">Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication<\/a>, located within the School of Communication and Media, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/?\">Global Center on Human Trafficking<\/a>, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>For media inquiries, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/newscenter\/contact-media-relations\/?\">contact the Media Relations team at Montclair State University.<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"news-lead\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The debunked conspiracy is foundational to QAnon, experts say, and a fictitious representation of human trafficking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":1775,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-center-for-human-trafficking","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1776,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions\/1776"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/human-trafficking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}