When the moon hits your eye

It's not particularly difficult to spot "fake news." The real challenge is getting past the narrative. Consider a woman who seems to be aggrieved at the moment:

Hillary Clinton on Thursday decried the spread of fake news online, calling it an “epidemic” that Congress should take action against.

“The epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year — it’s now clear the so-called fake news can have real-world consequences,” Clinton said during a speech on Capitol Hill.

Some Democrats have argued the spread of anti-Clinton fake news online contributed to her electoral loss to Donald Trump.

The issue has received renewed attention this week after a gunman entered a pizzeria in Washington that was at the center of a false viral conspiracy theory that alleged it was home to a pedophilia ring operated by Clinton and her inner circle.

That free speech thing is definitely a problem, especially when a deranged gunman enters a pizzeria bent on causing mayhem. Better shut up those third parties!

If we're trying to understand recent events and the larger trends that have driven them, perhaps we ought to look at a different pizzeria:

Weeks after it inadvertently became the center of a nationwide scandal and was forced to close, Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Ind., has reopened.

The pizza joint became embroiled in a massive culture war when its owners told a television station that while they would serve pizza to any LGBT customers who walked through their doors, they would not cater a gay wedding due to their religious beliefs. Their comments, made shortly after the state’s recently-signed religious freedom law was signed and met with an angry response across the country, soon became the subject of vandalized Yelp pages and a fundraiser spearheaded by TheBlaze host Dana Loesch that managed to raise nearly $850,000 dollars for the restaurant. In the meantime, the restaurant was forced to close due to threats.

It's worth remembering some of the things people posted on Yelp about this particular eatery:

Free speech

Just a guess -- people in places like Walkerton, Indiana, remember things like this. And they vote. It's at least one reason Mrs. Clinton has more leisure time than she'd anticipated a few months ago.