A Wayfair Child-Trafficking Conspiracy Theory Is Flourishing on TikTok

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Despite It Being Completely False

Late last week, when #wayfair started trending on Twitter, one would have been forgiven for assuming that the hashtag was started by a medium-to-high-end household decor enthusiast. Yet the roots of the trend were much darker than that. In fact, it alluded to a conspiracy theory which began on Reddit’s r/conspiracy subreddit, according to NBC News’ Ben Collins, speculating that Wayfair was covertly using its cabinets as shipping containers for a secret child trafficking ring. The “evidence” for this theory was prices of between $12,699.99 and $14,499.99 for some of its cabinets, combined with the names of these cabinets such as Yaritza, Alivya, and Samiyah, which proponents of the theory speculated were names of the victims.

What came to be known as “Wayfairgate” quickly took hold among conspiracy theorists, many of whom were QAnon supporters, due in large part to its resemblance to Pizzagate, the 2016 theory speculating that left-wing establishment figures were secretly running a child sex trafficking ring from a D.C. pizza restaurant. Even some more mainstream lifestyle influencers hopped aboard. It particularly took root on Twitter, where, according to Darren Linvill, an associate professor studying social media disinformation at Clemson University, garnered 1.8 million total mentions, with 600,000 in a 24-hour period. (By comparison, Wayfair had about 500 mentions a day prior to last week.)

“You can’t think of platforms separately, social media is all inter-related,” Linvill tells Rolling Stone. “This originated on Twitter, took fire on Reddit, and then spread across other platforms quite quickly. It also took off quickly because one, people are bored and at home and two, some of them are really, really dumb.”

Link to tweet

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Naturally, Wayfair considered it less than ideal that it had become the target of a child sex trafficking rumor, and it quickly issued a statement saying there was “no truth to these claims.” “The products in question are industrial grade cabinets that are accurately priced,” the company told Rolling Stone. “Recognizing that the photos and descriptions provided by the supplier did not adequately explain the high price point, we have temporarily removed the products from site to rename them and to provide a more in-depth description and photos that accurately depict the product to clarify the price point

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/wayfair-child-trafficking-conspiracy-theory-tiktok-1028622/

Someone has too much time on their hands. They also should take their meds.