Christian Satire Site Reveals Threat Facebook Sent Them
Facebook is apologizing for a threat it sent to a Christian satire news site.
The threat was originally sent as part of the social media network’s alleged attempt to police fake news pages.
The only problem was, the “fake news” website was, well, pretty much what it said it was. Still, Facebook more or less whacked them over the head with a threat to behave.
The whole thing began with The Babylon Bee writing a story called “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication.” The article was clearly designed to mislead people in a hilarious way.
“In order to aid the news station in preparing stories for consumption, popular news media organization CNN purchased an industrial-sized washing machine to help its journalists and news anchors spin the news before publication,” the obviously satirical piece read.
“The custom-made device allows CNN reporters to load just the facts of a given issue, turn a dial to ‘spin cycle,’ and within five minutes, receive a nearly unrecognizable version of the story that’s been spun to fit with the news station’s agenda.”
Obviously a satire. But check out this “fact-check” from Snopes, as caught by an astute Facebook user:
Nice work, Facebook.
But wait, wait! We aren’t done yet! Oh, no sirree. Here’s the message that Facebook sent The Babylon Bee when the honey hit the fan:
Really, Facebook?? pic.twitter.com/HEtBc7C0Gz
— Adam Ford (@Adam4d) March 2, 2018
“Snopes has ‘fact-checked’ several of our articles before,” Ford told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “But this is the first time Facebook has used that to threaten us with reduced reach and demonetization.”
Whoops. Yeah, the same people who Snopes threatened with retaliation actually got retaliation. Who would have ever thought?
“Snopes acknowledged that the Bee’s article was satire, but claimed the fact check was justified because ‘some readers missed that aspect of the article and interpreted it literally,'” TheDCNF reported, citing Snopes.
They also reported that a “Snopes article attempting to discredit a Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group news story revealing that millions of Department of State tax dollars were sent to a charity created by Secretary of State John Kerry’s daughter was also loaded with factual errors and omissions.”
To put it simply, Snopes is wrong fairly often.
“Snopes also employs failed liberal bloggers to do its fact checking. Snopes’ main political fact-checker is a writer named Kim Lacapria. Before writing for Snopes, Lacapria wrote for Inquisitr, a blog that is known for publishing fake quotes and even downright hoaxes as much as anything else,” The DCNF added.
Facebook, meanwhile, apologized for the error.
“There’s a difference between false news and satire,” Facebook said in a statement to TheDCNF. “This was a mistake and should not have been rated false in our system. It’s since been corrected and won’t count against the domain in any way.”
Or, as we like to say, nanny nanny boo boo.
Please like and share on this story Facebook and Twitter if you think Mark Zuckerberg’s company has some explaining to do.
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