Move over, PolitiFact. You are no longer the most hilariously incompetent and obviously dishonest fact-checking outfit in town.
Snopes promoted a junk science article this weekend, titled “Study: Too Many People Think Satirical News Is Real,” thus resuming its bizarre campaign to brand the right-leaning satirical website the Babylon Bee as malicious “fake news.”
This is beyond mere feud. Snopes is a well-trafficked fact-checker, cited by politicos and journalists alike. Its crusade against the Babylon Bee has hurt the satirical website’s traffic in the past, and it could hurt it in the future. Snopes’ grudge is as destructive as it is absurd.
Stories published by The Babylon Bee were among the most shared factually inaccurate content in almost every survey of this research. https://t.co/x96rPCl1w9
— snopes.com (@snopes) August 16, 2019
“People have long mistaken satire for real news,” write the Ohio State University’s R. Kelly Garrett, Robert Bond, and Shannon Poulsen for a report that appeared first on the Conversation. “But now more than ever, Americans are worried about their ability to distinguish between what’s true and what isn’t and think made-up news is a significant problem facing the country.”
Their article rightly notes that satirical sites like the Onion and fake newsmen like Jon Stewart existed long before the Babylon Bee. However, they then claim political satire has only recently become a public emergency.
See, it was not so dangerous when data first showed U.S. voters rely increasingly on fake newsmen for actual news coverage. But political satire is definitely a “problem for democracy,” as the Ohio State University professors put it, now that Trump is president and a small, unrelated right-leaning website publishes jokes about Democratic officials. Okay, then.
The article promoted this weekend by Snopes continues, taking in an even more absurd direction. Its authors go on to tout their “study on misinformation,” which they say found that “stories published by The Bee were among the most shared factually inaccurate content in almost every survey we conducted.”
Their supposed study, which was conducted between Feb. 20 and July 31 and surveys 800 “Americans” (they did not make their data or methodology available for further inquiry), presented respondents with paraphrased Babylon Bee headlines and then asked participants to “tell us whether it was true or false and how confident they were in their belief.” Again, the researchers paraphrased joke headlines, asked respondents if they thought they were true, and then concluded from there that the Babylon Bee is deceiving people.
For example, the study asked respondents to say whether they believe the following sentences are true or false:
- “Most Americans believe that major media companies should apologize for pushing the now-debunked news story of collusion between President Trump and Russia.”
- “Representative Ilhan Omar said that being Jewish is an inherently hostile act, especially among those living in Israel.”
- “CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper said his belief that Trump colluded with Russia is unshakable; it will not change regardless of statements or evidence to the contrary.”
Those badly paraphrased sentences are drawn from the following obviously satirical Babylon Bee headlines:
- “Nation Awaits Apology From Media That Pushed Fake News Story For Two Years”
- Ilhan Omar: ‘If Israel Is So Innocent, Then Why Do They Insist On Being Jews?’
- CNN: ‘God Allowed The Mueller Report To Test Our Unshakable Faith In Collusion’
By rewording the headlines to remove the obvious comedy tells, the survey was predetermined to get the result it did. The researchers ought to be embarrassed, and Snopes ought to be doubly embarrassed for continuing its bizarre jihad against the Babylon Bee.
