The Internet is an immensely stupid place.
On Thursday, Adam Ford, who runs the satirical website for Christian news, Babylon Bee, received a warning from Facebook that they would censor their content if they continued to publish “info disputed by (Snopes.com), an independent fact checker.”
Ford posted screenshots of the warning he received from Facebook on Twitter.
Really, Facebook?? pic.twitter.com/HEtBc7C0Gz
— Adam Ford (@Adam4d) March 2, 2018
The article in question that Facebook and Snopes had to “fact check” poked fun at CNN for their spin on the news cycle by suggesting they purchased an “industrial-sized washing machine to spin news before publication.”
It’s such a ridiculous story to be fact-checked that one has to question whether anyone would fall for it. Well, Facebook and Snopes seem to think so.
Sure, people are dumb, but they have to be smart enough to understand that news is not a physical substance that could actually go through a wash cycle in a household appliance.
A few years ago, Facebook said they were testing out the idea of adding a “satire” tag to websites like The Onion–to which The Onion called users who needed such a distinction “dip***ts.”
We don’t need to fact check satirical news websites. What we do need, however, is more people posting stories by outlets like The Onion and The Babylon Bee, thinking they’re spreading the truth only to be humiliated in the comments section with someone calling them out for believing satire to be 100 percent real. It’s pure entertainment, and I’ll be damned if independent fact-checkers like Snopes take that away from us.
Siraj Hashmi is a commentary video editor and writer for the Washington Examiner.
