4 ms·

Eh, part of the reason why fact-checking "satire" sites became necessary is that some propaganda outlets have taken to using "it's just satire, bro" as an all-p

Eh, part of the reason why fact-checking "satire" sites became necessary is that some propaganda outlets have taken to using "it's just satire, bro" as an all-purpose cover applied to blatant lies that don't even try to be funny. The people behind "Q" and all the other extreme-right fantasy-world nonsense have a vested interest in keeping the line between serious racism/calls-to-violence/libel/etc and "just joeks" as fuzzy as possible. Alex Jones, for example, famously claims to be a satirist when it's convenient for him (e.g. when he's about to lose custody of his kids, or when he loses a lawsuit to the Sandy Hook parents that he slandered), but demands to be taken seriously on the same exact topics at other times.

big_chungus 7y ago
Except the Babylon Bee always writes satire and nothing but satire. It's not like they publish some serious stuff and fail to properly delineate factual vs. satirical reporting, they publish satire only and the "about us" section makes that clear. Your analogy attempts to demonstrate that the site is "playing both sides" and claiming to be factual and satirical, when that is clearly not the case.
- iron0013 7y ago
  It seems to me like they write some things that are obviously satire, and some things that a reasonable person would have a hard time differentiating from non-satire. This is what I'd expect a propaganda outlet utilizing the strategy I described to do. Of course, we're not the first ones to be having this conversation. Here's Snopes themselves commenting on the phenomenon: https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-is-real/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-... and here it is being described in the mass media: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.htm...
davvolun 7y ago
Sure, but, like porn and art, we can tell the difference between Info Wars and The Onion. A simple landing page on The Onion or Babylon Bee is all Snopes needs to do, whereas it's clear Info Wars has an agenda of spreading disinformation and it's useful combatting specific articles of theirs. Last I knew, Snopes isn't and cannot be run as a simple application of objective rules. You can follow guidelines, but debunking the type of Info Wars, or Trumpian, disinformation requires more mental effort than that. If it didn't, if it was the simple application of objective rules, there would be little value in the site.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > we can tell the difference between Info Wars and The Onion Correction, you can. But unfortunately not everybody can.
  - a_tractor 7y ago
    Then something has gone horribly wrong, either in the nature (or its expression) of human beings or in your estimation of human beings. If you are indeed right then the entire rational framework supporting the very notion of a functional democratic society of free men and women, which assumes that humans are rational animals capable of making moral judgements and deciding between right and wrong as an evolutionary strategy, is forfeit. I'm not totally disagreeing with you, but I would be more interested in solving the original problem that makes this true, which in my view would represent a corruption of a human's natural abilities. These types of issues expose a problem that needs to be solved elsewhere, so in that sense it is useful not to nerf the entire information world of all potential confusion.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    This I think, is the source of much of the disagreement: 1) whether content should be judged on it's intended vs perceived meaning 2) whether we should make an effort to reduce everything to be understandable to the lowest common denominator.
  - davvolun 7y ago
    You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time ... but in general, while people may be fooled by The Onion a few times, they tend to learn and do better in the future. - Abraham Lincoln - Michael Scott

big_chungus 7y ago

Except the Babylon Bee always writes satire and nothing but satire. It's not like they publish some serious stuff and fail to properly delineate factual vs. satirical reporting, they publish satire only and the "about us" section makes that clear. Your analogy attempts to demonstrate that the site is "playing both sides" and claiming to be factual and satirical, when that is clearly not the case.

iron0013 7y ago
It seems to me like they write some things that are obviously satire, and some things that a reasonable person would have a hard time differentiating from non-satire. This is what I'd expect a propaganda outlet utilizing the strategy I described to do. Of course, we're not the first ones to be having this conversation. Here's Snopes themselves commenting on the phenomenon: https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-is-real/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-... and here it is being described in the mass media: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.htm...

davvolun 7y ago

Sure, but, like porn and art, we can tell the difference between Info Wars and The Onion. A simple landing page on The Onion or Babylon Bee is all Snopes needs to do, whereas it's clear Info Wars has an agenda of spreading disinformation and it's useful combatting specific articles of theirs. Last I knew, Snopes isn't and cannot be run as a simple application of objective rules. You can follow guidelines, but debunking the type of Info Wars, or Trumpian, disinformation requires more mental effort than that. If it didn't, if it was the simple application of objective rules, there would be little value in the site.

jacquesm 7y ago
> we can tell the difference between Info Wars and The Onion Correction, you can. But unfortunately not everybody can.
- a_tractor 7y ago
  Then something has gone horribly wrong, either in the nature (or its expression) of human beings or in your estimation of human beings. If you are indeed right then the entire rational framework supporting the very notion of a functional democratic society of free men and women, which assumes that humans are rational animals capable of making moral judgements and deciding between right and wrong as an evolutionary strategy, is forfeit. I'm not totally disagreeing with you, but I would be more interested in solving the original problem that makes this true, which in my view would represent a corruption of a human's natural abilities. These types of issues expose a problem that needs to be solved elsewhere, so in that sense it is useful not to nerf the entire information world of all potential confusion.
- beerandt 7y ago
  This I think, is the source of much of the disagreement: 1) whether content should be judged on it's intended vs perceived meaning 2) whether we should make an effort to reduce everything to be understandable to the lowest common denominator.
- davvolun 7y ago
  You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time ... but in general, while people may be fooled by The Onion a few times, they tend to learn and do better in the future. - Abraham Lincoln - Michael Scott