Pizzagate Truthers Are Feuding With Flat-Earth Theorists

Arguments happen all the time on the internet, but the latest feud that has captured people’s attention: Pizzagate Truthers vs. Flat Earth Truthers. Conspiracy theorists have waged war on one another, with Pizzagate theorists particularly angry about being associated with Flat Earthers.

For those unfamiliar, Pizzagaters believe that Hillary Clinton has been using pizza restaurants across the United States as fronts for a massive child trafficking ring. The conspiracy came to a head in December when an armed man fired an assault rifle inside Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington D.C. believed by theorists to be one of Clinton’s major fronts. A number of outlets have debunked any validity to Pizzagate. The Flat Earth theory is exactly what sounds like — it still has a rather large following even including rapper B.o.B.

Writer and internet personality Sarah Nyberg tweeted about the feud over the weekend, which appears to have started when prominent Pizzagate truther David Seaman began calling out Flat Earth disinformation.

In his YouTube video upload from February 2 titled “Flat Earth ‘Theory,’ Antarctica Alien Reclamation Zone: FAKE NEWS?,” he purports that there are plenty of scientific methods that show the Earth is round. He says at around 1:45, “So Flat Earth theory is some kind of weird disinformation campaign, some sort of psyop to make people not believe. The fact that it shows up so closely whenever Pedodate and Pizzagate are mentioned, the fact that that’s when it pops up, I think it’s designed to muddy the waters … whoever’s pushing it continually, it does appear to be a disinformation campaign.”

Beyond the video blog and a number of other videos about Pizzagate, Seaman has tweeted extensively about how Pizzagate has been covered up and attributes information available on Wikileaks.

“We see this happen quite a bit. Different forms of JFK conspiracy theories have debated each other quite a bit because they all have ideas of what happened,” says Joe Uscinski, Political Science Professor at the University of Miami and co-author of American Conspiracy Theories. “I’ve heard of scuffles between the Flat Earth Truthers and Hollow Earth Truthers because they have diametrically opposed views about what’s going on.”

It makes sense that there would be disagreement between theorists on a particular event like John F. Kennedy’s assassination; with many varying ideas, one group wants to be the one that’s correct. So it’s interesting to see tension between believers of two very different topics — Pizzagate and Flat Earth.

Meanwhile, commenters on Seaman’s YouTube video have gone toe to toe with the writer. Many on Seaman’s side have argued that it’s important to pay attention to Pizzagate because it deals with a much more sensitive issue. Several of his followers have also expressed their dissatisfaction with him speaking out against the Flat Earth theory.

“When the Malaysian jet airliner disappeared a few years back, you have people claiming different conspiracy theories about it but those people didn’t want to be associated with the people who believed that it was a black hole or inter-dimensional time switch or aliens,” says Uscinski. “Conspiracy theories battle for the same audience.

They have to fight each other for a finite number of people to adhere to them. It makes sense they would attack each other, they’d rather be the only game in town.”