Satire news site the Babylon Bee told readers they are planning on looking into legal action against the fact-checking site Snopes over what the Babylon Bee said is an attempt at deplatforming.
“Last week, Snopes fact-checked us again. We’re pretty used to that. But this time, instead of merely rating the article ‘false,’ they questioned whether our work qualifies as satire, and even went so far as to suggest that we were deliberately deceiving our readers,” the Babylon Bee said in a note to its readers. “Basically, they treated us as a source of intentionally misleading fake news, rather than as the legitimate, well-known satire publication that we are. This is a big deal.”
The statement said they were taking the threat seriously because in the past Facebook had threatened to limit “fake news” and Snopes had put that in jeopardy.
“We have no choice but to take it very seriously. For better or worse, the media, the public, and social networks all look to Snopes for authoritative answers. By lumping us in with fake news and questioning whether we really qualify as satire, Snopes appears to be actively engaged in an effort to discredit and deplatform us. While we wish it wasn’t necessary, we have retained a law firm to represent us in this matter.”
The latest spat between the two sites came after the Babylon Bee published a satirical article titled: “Georgia Lawmaker Claims Chick-Fil-A Employee Told Her To Go Back To Her Country, Later Clarifies He Actually Said ‘My Pleasure.” The article was a parody on the recent events in which Georgia state Rep. Erica Thomas claimed she was racially targeted at a grocery story before backtracking key points in the story.
Snopes responded to the Bee’s satire by fact-checking it and accusing them of potentially “fanning the flames of controversy.”
“We’re not sure if fanning the flames of controversy and muddying the details of a news story classify an article as ‘satire,'” Dan Evon with Snopes said. “The Babylon Bee has managed to fool readers with its brand of satire in the past. This particular story was especially confusing for some readers, however, as it closely mirrored the events of a genuine news story, with the exception of the website’s changing the location from ‘Publix’ to the more controversial Chick-Fil-A.”
Adam Ford, the founder of the Babylon Bee, responded to the article in a Twitter thread, calling it “disturbing.”
And here is the Bee article they say they’re “fact-checking”: https://t.co/btfUocCdi5
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— Adam Ford (@Adam4d) July 25, 2019
“The Bee has been ‘Snoped’ plenty of times before (and had to endure Facebook purgatory once because of it). But what they’ve written this time certainly seems like an attempt to delegitimize and demonize an important satirical outlet, and that is totally unacceptable,” Ford said. “A clumsy mistake or an incompetent writer are insufficient explanations for publishing something like this when you position yourself as an unbiased, stalwart arbiter of truth and presume to wield the influence that comes along with that title.”
A clumsy mistake or an incompetent writer are insufficient explanations for publishing something like this when you position yourself as an unbiased, stalwart arbiter of truth and presume to wield the influence that comes along with that title.
/17
— Adam Ford (@Adam4d) July 25, 2019
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Snopes for comment on the story.
In 2018, Facebook apologized to the Babylon Bee after Snopes flagged the site for “fake news.” In February of this year, Snopes ended its partnership with Facebook to fact-check news.
