No Joke: Babylon Bee Sics Lawyers On Snopes Over “Fact Checksâ€Even the satirists at the Babylon Bee have a limit to jokes — and the attempts by Snopes to “fact check†their humor doesn’t qualify. In a message to subscribers yesterday, the Bee declared that Snopes was attempting to exploit its position as a Facebook partner to “deplatform†the conservative satire site. In response, the Babylon Bee has decided to sic their very real and non-humorous attorneys against the urban-legend site to put an end to their harassment:
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Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon confirmed the accuracy of the statement published yesterday to readers in an e-mail to Hot Air this afternoon, so this is no satirical joke. The move follows a long Twitter thread Friday by founder Adam Ford on Snopes’ most recent “ridiculous article,†in which they questioned whether poking fun at Georgia state representative Erica Thomas could be considered “satire.†What follows on Ford’s tweetstorm is what we’d have called an old-fashioned Fisking in the blogosphere a few years back:
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Ford finished the thread by advising Snopes to “fix your operation.†The Bee has now hired legal representation to assist them with that, or at least to incentivize them to fact check something other than jokes.
At least one newspaper weighed in on the Bee’s side. The Arkansas Democrat Gazette’s editors lectured Snopes on the difference between fake news and satire, and scoffed at Snopes’ attempt to defend its weird obsession with the Babylon Bee:
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If it weren’t for Snopes’ role as a Facebook gatekeeper, this would have no more significance than any other blog war. That role, however, gives Snopes a significant amount of power over a major distribution channel for independent publishers, and not just the Bee. The threat of malicious deplatforming in that context is real, and Snopes’ disparate treatment of the Bee as opposed to The Onion (discussed by both Ford and the Gazette-Democrat’s editors) certainly makes it look personal and biased in relation to conservative satire.
Readers of the Bee,We apologize for the length of this note, but we wanted to bring something important to your attention. 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. 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.
As you know, fake news—which is distinguished from satire by its intent to mislead—was widely considered a serious issue in the last election cycle. As a result, social media networks like Facebook began partnering with fact-checkers to try and limit the distribution of fake news on their platforms. Snopes was one of them. At one point, a piece of ours was rated "false" by Snopes, prompting Facebook to threaten us with limitations and demonetization. We made a stink about this, and after some media attention shed light on the problem, Facebook apologized for their handling of the matter and admitted that satire is not the same as fake news.
We came out on top last time, but this latest smear from Snopes is both dishonest and disconcerting. 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.
EDITORIAL: Satire vs fake newsSATIRE has come a long way since Jonathan Swift. And the art has seen its ups and downs since. When most think of satire news these days, The Onion probably comes to mind.
But satire is a free market just like most things in this country, and The Onion is not the only game in town. Readers that want their satire bent a little more to the right can go to the Babylon Bee website, a newer outlet, but a fast-growing one. The Bee comes to the satire game with guns blazing, shooting in every direction. But maybe Planned Parenthood and AOC get a few more shots than others.
The Bee has an ongoing tiff with fact-checking site Snopes, and this most recent skirmish has drawn blood in the water. Fans of the Bee will note a running gag has Snopes “fact-checking†a number of its spoof articles and reports them “true.â€
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Last week Snopes “fact-checked†an article titled “Georgia Lawmaker Claims Chick-fil-A Employee Told Her To Go Back To Her Country, Later Clarifies He Actually Said ‘My Pleasure’.†First, that headline is way too long. Second, why is a company wasting time fact-checking a site clearly labeled satire?
What will be “investigated†next? Crop circles?
Snopes writer Dan Evon wrote, “While this real-world incident stirred up a good amount of online anger, it wasn’t quite outrageous enough for the entertainment website Babylon Bee. In an apparent attempt to maximize the online indignation, this website published a fictionalized version of the story . . .â€
In an apparent attempt? There’s no apparent. That’s exactly what the Bee does. Would you expect an outlet that publishes headlines like “Border Patrol Agent Calls Up Planned Parenthood To Get Helpful Pointers On Separating Children From Their Mothers†to be subtle or sneaky in its attempts to drive web traffic?
Mr. Evon went on to accuse the Bee of fooling its readers. But it seems pretty clear that readers of the Babylon Bee know what they’re getting into.
After playing partisan political games, Snopes may be about to get a punchline. Are they smart enough to back off? Or arrogant enough to try to defend the indefensible? I'd guess the odds are 3-2 that Snopes will be that foolishly arrogant.
