A North Carolina man was arrested Sunday after he entered a Washington D.C. pizzeria with an assault rifle hoping to investigate an online fake news story involving Hillary Clinton.

Police respond to reports of man with gun at Comet Ping Pong restaurant in D.C. https://t.co/ccH50zq6KH pic.twitter.com/b6mLPkxxRg

— WTOP (@WTOP) December 4, 2016

Police say Edgar Maddison Welch, 28, of Salisbury, North Carolina walked into Comet Ping Pong–located in Chevy Chase–and pointed an AR-15 assault-style rifle in the direction of a restaurant employee, who fled and called police.

Welch reportedly fired the rifle inside of the restaurant, but no one was injured.

According to the Washington Post, police also seized a Colt .38 caliber handgun and a shotgun from Welch. One of those weapons was found inside the restaurant, while the other was located in his car.

Comet Ping Pong was the unlucky target of the #Pizzagate conspiracy theory that went viral last month. A string of fake news stories claimed that then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman John Podesta were running a pedophilic sex ring from the pizzeria’s back rooms.

None of the rumors were true, but that didn’t stop the restaurant’s owner, James Alefantis, and his employees from being attacked on social media and receiving death threats.

Reddit banned the Pizzagate subreddit from its site, citing its strict policies against posting personal information of others; however, this was met with a wave of criticism from users on r/The_Donald, a popular pro-Trump subreddit, who felt Reddit’s decision was an act of censorship.

Every “conspiracy” theory has proven right&media wrong. Comet ping pong and #Pizzagate are real. I trust Twitter “reporters” more than CNN

— Jill SteinCrazy (@terrymendozer) December 5, 2016

The rise of fake news stories has become a growing concern as some experts argue it altered the fate of the presidential election. Facebook even went as far as to announce plans to crack down on fake news, but eradicating these types of stories from social media may be next to impossible.

In a statement on Sunday, Alefantis vowed that Comet Ping Pong would “continue to operate safely and securely,” and he condemned those who are working to spread the malicious accusations.

“What happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences,” he said. “I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away.”

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Comet Ping Pong Gunman Says He Was ‘Investigating’ Fake News Story appeared first on Law Street.

Reddit has been under fire since the company’s co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman admitted that he actively changed posts by Trump supporters on the site. The subreddit r/The_Donald is the most active one for Trump fans. On Thursday Huffman admitted in a post on the subreddit that he changed comments that targeted him personally by switching his Reddit username, u/spez, for the usernames of the Trump page’s moderators, so the hateful attacks seemed to be aimed at them. The spontaneous editing only went on for an hour, but the damage was already done.

Huffman said that it had been a long week trying to recover from “pizzagate” and being called a pedophile, but that his community team is “pretty pissed” at him so he won’t do it again any time soon. Pizzagate refers to an insane conspiracy theory that spread quickly through fake news articles and on Reddit, alleging that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a child trafficking business out of a pizzeria in Washington D.C. called Comet Ping Pong.

The pizzeria is real but the story is not, and the owner and staff endured threats and harassment when fired-up people believed the story was true. After Reddit decided to shut down the Pizzagate thread, Huffman got targeted instead. And some people still believe the fake story.

The less obvious upshot to Reddit CEO editing posts: will likely draw more attention to whatever nefariousness he was protecting #pizzagate

— Paul Nehlen (@pnehlen) November 24, 2016

But some people think arbitrary editing should be okay in cases where the original posts are harassing.

tbh I approve of the CEOs behavior. Harassing posts should be subject to edit at the site owner’s whim https://t.co/E63Qf3Ugh6

— Matthew Martin (@hyperplanes) November 28, 2016

However, many Reddit users called Huffman’s actions unethical and called for his resignation. And a legal site called Associate’s Mind argued in an online piece that this might have consequences for how Reddit will be treated under the law in the future. If it is no longer simply a medium for people to express their opinions, but rather a website where admins and owners edit content and express their own opinions, the company might be liable for content posted on it.

Huffman has not commented on some of the r/The_Donald subreddit users’ calls for him to step down as CEO. But he did say that Reddit needs to improve its policies for moderating hate speech. This summer, admins of the site tried to stifle the Trump subreddit’s popularity by changing its algorithm so that it wouldn’t rise to the top or front pages of the site. No matter how small the editing was this time, it was still seemingly a violation of Reddit’s regulations for policing posts and it will remain to be seen how this will affect the company’s popularity.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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