Snopes Edits Pathetic Attempt To 'Fact-Check' Babylon Bee as the Satire Site Lawyers Up
Conservative satirical site The Babylon Bee is punching back at Snopes after the latest development in their long, ongoing feud took a step in a very serious direction.
The Babylon Bee released a statement in its newsletter informing readers that it has gotten its lawyers involved after being targeted by a particularly egregious article.
So far, Snopes’ only response has been to edit the story in question.
Snopes, a left-wing outlet that disguises itself as a “fact-checking” site, published an article fact-checking a Babylon Bee piece that satirized the recent controversy surrounding Georgia state Representative Erica Thomas.
Thomas, in the wake of Trump’s infamous “go back” tweets about four congresswomen, exaggerated an argument she had with another customer at a grocery store. In her original version of the encounter, she claimed that the man had told her to “go back where [she] came from.”
After store employees and the accused man pushed back, she later admitted that he may not have said anything of the sort.
The Babylon Bee jumped on this, and satirized the fact that she made an outrageous claim that turned out to be false. Snopes missed the point — most likely deliberately.
After the obviously satirical article circulated around the Internet, the left-wing self-proclaimed “definitive fact-checking resource” took the time out of their day to fact-check a website that literally never publishes factual stories.
Well, what if Snopes didn’t know that The Babylon Bee was satire? Then that would explain their story, if not destroy confidence in their research ability.
But that’s not the case. They knew the piece was satire, but they eviscerated it anyway. That’s the whole point.
Babylon Bee founder Adam Ford took to Twitter to shred Snopes and the threat they pose by getting to decide what is and is not satire. Here is the first tweet in a thread that is far too long for this article, but I would encourage you to click the tweet and read the whole thing.
Thread:
So @snopes fact-checked @TheBabylonBee again. But this time it’s particularly egregious and, well, kind of disturbing. And I’d like to talk about it.
Pack a lunch cuz this’ll be a long one.
First off, here’s their ridiculous article: https://t.co/SBugStUnfq
— Adam Ford (@Adam4d) July 25, 2019
Snopes began the article by wondering if the Babylon Bee story should classify as satire. Thoughtful readers may wonder why a “fact-checking” site cares to worry about making moral, opinionated judgments, but that is just the beginning.
Snopes went on to summarize the Erica Thomas incident by conveniently leaving out the fact that she walked back her accusation. They only included the man’s admission that he cursed at her and his denial that he told her to “go back.” That definitely isn’t the work of someone concerned with facts.
The worst part, of course, is that Snopes attributed a malicious motive to the satirical site. By claiming that The Babylon Bee “has managed to fool readers with its brand of satire in the past,” the piece strongly hints that they always intend to mislead, but only sometimes succeed. It’s sickening.
Even worse than the worst part (bear with me), the kings of discourse over at Facebook have legitimized Snopes as a standard they use to identify and censor what they call “fake news.” This unholy matrimony between big tech and leftism has burned The Babylon Bee in the past.
That being said, The Daily Wire reports that Snopes has caved and edited the article to appear less opinionated, but I doubt that this episode will change things too much.
Snopes has shown that they harbor a real obsession with The Babylon Bee, and as long as they have big tech in their corner, they will continue to profit off of our fear of misinformation by publishing fact-free hit pieces on conservative comedy.
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