The baseless conspiracy theory took off after an unnamed user made a query in an internet chat room: what if retail giant Wayfair used beloved garage lockers to traffic children?
The self-proclaimed Internet detectives responded temporarily by matching the names of Wayfair products with those without children, generating posts on social networks that have since invaded Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
The result: a national human trafficking hotline suddenly began to answer a series of calls about the imagined Wayfair program, expanding its resources. One woman said she posted a video of herself on Facebook to counter false accusations that she had disappeared. A mother’s calls to Facebook and YouTube to delete a video of her young daughter who was used to recommend her as a Wayfair victim received no response for days.
Wayfair was forced to respond to the accusations in a recent statement: “Of course, there is no fact in those claims.”
However, Internet users continue to weaving an internet complex around Wayfair’s furniture and décor, based on lies and conjectures. Social media influencers, online marginal communities, and even political applicants have also taken advantage of the conspiracy theory as evidence of an even larger theory, known as QAnon, founded on unfounded confidence that President Donald Trump is waging a secret crusade opposed to enemies in the “deep” state” and a network of child sex trafficking.
“Conspiracy theorists have controlled spreading their theories in the past, but the Internet has made it much easier,” said Kathryn Olmsted, a history professor who studies conspiracy theories at the University of California, Davis. “If you believe in one, you believe in another. You’re starting to get them together.”
Mentions of Wayfair and “traffic” have exploded on Facebook and Instagram in the following week. And in TikTok, hashtags #Wayfairconspiracy and #WayfairGate have compiled around 4.5 million perspectives, even when several facets of conspiracy theory have been discredited.
Some items on social media have pointed to the maximum charge of garage lockers, which sell for around $13,000 each, as a suspect. Wayfair, however, said that the value of metal structures is suitable for commercial use. A $9,999 indexed pillow also raised suspicions, but it was a mistake, the company said.
Other messages shared thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter linked the call from one of Wayfair’s law firms, Samiyah, to a report of people devoid of an Ohio woman named Samiyah Mumin, citing evidence that the company is dealing with young women.
One who knew herself as Mumin filmed a Facebook video, leaving things clear.
“Why am I angry? Because I don’t miss it,” she says. Mumin did not respond to the Associated Press’s comment requests. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office showed that Mumin discovered after it was reported that it was missing for 4 days in May 2019 and has not been reported to be missing since.
A Maryland boy who soon disappeared in April was also known to Internet conspiracy theorists as an imaginable victim of Wayfair because his survival coincided with the call of a pillow. It was discovered in less than 24 hours with no signs of traffic or kidnapping, according to the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office.
The outburst of attention for Wayfair also calls for renewed interest in QAnon’s conspiracy theory. In recent days, three conservative applicants from the Florida, Georgia and California Congress that have been expressed by QAnon have also filed baseless accusations about Wayfair on Twitter. Thousands of tweets promoted the QAnon hashtag, claiming Wayfair was dealing it. A network of popular QAnon Facebook teams shared a video with a combination of accusations about human trafficking, adding Wayfair’s conspiracy theory.
The term QAnon has skyrocketed on Instagram and Facebook, receiving more interactions last week than any in the following year, according to CrowdTangle’s knowledge, which tracks more than four million pages, profiles and public accounts.
@Wayfair WTF!! ??! You can’t tell me that this is not a child #traficando in an undeniable place … sell the same closets for $500 over and over and for $15,000?!! ??? With the names of the little girls? Is it sex trafficking in 2020? Explains!! ??? pic.twitter.com/FOYUCzQisR
Attention created through Wayfair’s conspiracy theory, in some cases, has been detrimental to other people who, according to social media users, seek to help.
An increase in calls prompted by the conspiracy theory is straining the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which provides emergency help to victims. The line was already seeing a surge in requests for emergency shelter assistance because of the coronavirus, said Robert Beiser, of Polaris, a nonprofit organization that runs the hotline.
“There is a very genuine option that if there is a conspiracy theory that is published on the Internet and generates thousands of signals in our hotline, it could save us from providing a quick service to survivors in crisis,” Beiser said.
Meanwhile, a YouTube video of a young Woman from London sitting on a sofa auditioning for a Wayfair ad has been used through some pro-Trump YouTube accounts to claim that she is a victim of the alleged traffic plan.
The video taken from the girl’s mother’s YouTube account and posted online, said Carleen McCarthy, senior agent of skill firm Alphabet Agency, which represents the girl.
The firm and the girl’s mother continually reported the videos on YouTube and Facebook as they continued to generate thousands of online views. YouTube deleted the video after AP has noticed, although new versions remain on the site. Facebook said in a statement that it was reducing the flow of false accusations around Wayfair’s conspiracy theory.
An influential YouTube, who posted a video, watched 155,000 times, accusing Wayfair of trafficking children with its products, backed down in comments a few days later.
“I didn’t really have all the facts for this video, I just did it all of a sudden because I was so scared,” Jeremiah Willis said in a later video. “Personally, I have no knowledge, no evidence, nothing.”
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