This blog is going on 18 years old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that time, I’ve written a lot of things, in a lot of styles; reporting<\/a>, fiction<\/a>, analysis<\/a>, history<\/a>, and a whole lot more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And, oh yeah, satire. Lots<\/a> and lots of satire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And I’ve found the “hard” way (not that hard; there were few real consequences, knock wood) that a lot of people just. Don’t. Get. Satire. At. All. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Combine human bovinity with tribalism, and you’ve got…<\/p>\n\n\n\n …well, Snopes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The once-respected fact-checking site has beclowned itself a few times in “fact-checking” “news stories” from the likes of the Onion and Babylon Bee. It was easy to chalk it up to not-very-bright “fact-checkers”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But then it became all weaponized”<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, after\u00a0Snopes<\/em>\u00a0fact-checked a\u00a0Bee<\/em>\u00a0article titled \u201cCNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication\u201d (no, really),\u00a0Facebook warned the\u00a0Bee<\/em><\/a> that it could be penalized with reduced distribution and demonetization. Facebook later apologized for its warning. This isn’t about would-be “journalists” with no sense of humor. This is about stifling – “deplatforming”, the kids call it today – one of civil dissent’s most powerful weapons – cutting humor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This blog is going on 18 years old. In that time, I’ve written a lot of things, in a lot of styles; reporting, fiction, analysis, history, and a whole lot more. And, oh yeah, satire. Lots and lots of satire. And I’ve found the “hard” way (not that hard; there were few real consequences, knock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71867,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71866\/revisions\/71867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
And last week\u00a0Snopes<\/em>\u00a0escalated its attack. It fact-checked an article called \u201cGeorgia Lawmaker Claims Chick-Fil-A Employee Told Her To Go Back To Her Country, Later Clarifies He Actually Said \u2018My Pleasure.\u2019\u201d But rather than merely noting that the story was clearly satire from a known satire site, it launched an attack on the\u00a0Bee<\/em>\u2019s motives and methods.
In its original fact-check<\/a>, it questioned whether the article was satire, accusing the\u00a0Bee<\/em>\u00a0of \u201cfanning the flames of a controversy\u201d and \u201cmuddying the details of a news story.\u201d It posted a misleading and incomplete summary of the ridiculous Erica Thomas incident in Georgia (where a black Georgia lawmaker accused a fellow Publix customer of telling her to \u201cgo back\u201d where she came from and then\u00a0walked back her accusation<\/a>) and then called the\u00a0Bee<\/em> article a \u201cruse\u201d and an \u201capparent attempt to maximize the online indignation.\u201d
It bears repeating that the\u00a0Bee<\/em>\u00a0is obvious satire. Obvious.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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