There are unsubstantiated claims that a computer allegedly owned by Hunter Biden contained images of child sexual abuse.

There’s no evidence that the claims are true – so where did they come from?

Here’s a thread on how this political disinformation spread and mutated!

After the controversial New York Post story about Hunter Biden broke last week, a story asking if “something darker” could be on the computer allegedly belonging to him appeared on this site, Revolver.

Revolver is a right-wing site tends to aggregate pro-Trump stories from other places – and links from it have been shared by the President himself.
 
It most recently did an exclusive Interview with the President’s former chief adviser Steve Bannon about the alleged hard drive.

In a guest post written under the name “Moxie Russo” (almost certainly a pseudonym), the writer speculates about the FBI agent who issued the subpoena for the laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter as well as other online rumours about “underage content”.

Business Insider and others wrote about how the agent had come up in relation to work tackling child porn.

But the computer store owner who claims he copied the hard drive says he saw no indecent images of children – and the journalists who covered this made that clear.

And this isn’t without context.

QAnon supporters have been targeting Biden and the Democrats baseless claims about child abuse and child trafficking for weeks.

Read my report about how these conspiracy theories could impact the election!  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-54440973

Nonetheless, the Revolver article succeeded in asking internet users to jump to conclusions with no concrete proof.

And so the allegations took hold over the weekend, shared first by pro-Trump Facebook pages, then QAnon supporters in SaveOurChildren groups, then on local groups.

But it’s not just about fringe, partisan websites and Facebook groups.
 
The allegations have been promoted by public figures and right-wing commentators speaking on outlets such as Fox News! https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1317849887438966784

Since then, the allegations have mutated. 

People speculated wildly about “thousands of images” and even more vile crimes, shared by right-wing commentators and sites known for promoting conspiracy theories.

None of this was backed up by any evidence. But allegations of vile crimes understandably provoke disgust on social media – even when there is nothing to those claims.  
 
And as Tom – who runs a local Facebook group in Florida pointed out to me – they can stick to candidates.

What we don’t know is whether this will be Pizzagate 2.0 – an online narrative that sticks!

And whether it could bleed further into the mainstream political conversation - including at the debates.

Here’s a reminder of Pizzagate! https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/blogs-trending-38156985

If you're seeing rumours about this in your parent chat, local Facebook group or on your social media feed, please get in touch! DMs are open or email me - [email protected]

The difference between baseless claims and conspiracy theories surrounding this election versus in 2016 is that they are further amplified by public figures, commentators and partisan media.

They are by no means left to fester in the dark corners of the internet for long!