Wayfair product listings spark child trafficking conspiracy theory

According to New York Post 

A conspiracy theory emerged Friday that the Wayfair online store was using the sale of storage cabinets as a cover for child trafficking — which the home decor company immediately denounced as false.

A post on the social media website Reddit noted the high cost of the furniture — along with the fact that each item was identified by a female name — as potential evidence of the purported scandal, The prices for the cabinets — called Alyvia, Neriah, Samiyah and Yaritza — ranged from $12,699.99 to $14,499.99 each.

“Is it possible Wayfair involved in Human trafficking with their WFX Utility collection? Or are these just extremely overpriced cabinets? (Note the names of the cabinets) this makes me sick to my stomach if it’s true :(,” user PrincessPeach1987 wrote Thursday.

The post quickly drew more than 700 comments from the subreddit’s 1.3 million members, including the assertion that “some of the names are missing children.”

“i cant access the cabinets anymore, but i remember a cabinet called Samiyah for like 12K, which is also a missing child from this month!” user coffeeismymuse added.

According to Newsweek

Supporters of the theory have also urged skeptics to use a Russian search engine to search for the stock keeping unit number (SKU) associated with various Wayfair products, which returns image results full of children in bathing suits. However, none of the SKU searches return images of a single child, which would seem to run counter to the implication that the Wayfair SKUs secretly provide data regarding the specific child to be purchased. In addition: following the search engine instructions with any random string of numbers returns the exact same results.

Supporters of the theory have also drawn connections to June 2019 protests by Wayfair employees, which objected to the company selling furnishings to a Texas detention facility for migrant children. The facility subsequently closed. However, protesting Wayfair employees never mentioned setting up public listings for humans.

Pizzagate was built on the unsubstantiated claim that certain words within the emails were in fact coded allusions to child sex trafficking. In the arbitrary associations developed by conspiracy theorists, various food words, including “cheese,” “map,” “walnut sauce” and, of course, “pizza,” were actually coded indications of people’s preferred child victims.

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