by Bassam Tawil
That truth was captured last week in the most unintentionally hilarious way when the alleged “fact-checking” website Snopes became so upset at a satirical news article on the Babylon Bee (a Christian satirical website) that Snopes actually fact-checked the satire!
The satirical article that became the focus of Snopes’s ire was entitled “Georgia Lawmaker Claims Chick-Fil-A Employee Told Her To Go Back To Her Country, Later Clarifies He Actually Said ‘My Pleasure.’” For anyone following the news over the last month, this piece was clearly intended to mock Georgia Democrat state representative Erica Thomas, who posted a video on Twitter of herself sobbing hysterically and claiming she feared for her life when a white man assaulted her with words, allegedly telling her to “go back where you came from.”
Further investigation by the Atlanta media and police discovered that the white man who “assaulted” Thomas was actually a fellow Democrat of Cuban descent who took umbrage at Thomas going through a Publix express lane with more than 10 items, and then confronted her.
When video was released showing Democrat Rep. Thomas was actually the aggressor, confirmed by the Publix manager (also a black woman) who witnessed the altercation and reported that it was Thomas who told the Cuban man to go back where he came from, and not the other way around, Thomas admitted her story might not be completely factual, but she was still the victim.
Snopes declared the Bee’s article “was especially confusing for some readers, however, as it closely mirrored the events of a genuine news story,” clarifying that Thomas’s altercation took place at a Publix, not a Chick-Fil-A, and with a customer, not a store employee.
Snopes wasn’t done though, whining, “We’re not sure if fanning the flames of controversy and muddying the details of a news story classify an article as ‘satire.’”
Not surprisingly, Snopes couldn’t even get the basic facts of the actual story correct, not realizing that Thomas had walked back parts of her accusation, or that it was Thomas who made the “go back” comments. When presented with those facts by the Daily Caller, Dan Evon of Snopes admitted, “I haven’t seen that quote before. … But I think you’re right, it’s probably worth adding.” The Caller’s exposure of Snopes’s partisan, sloppy work forced the site to revise its “fact check” with, you know, actual facts.
Of course, that didn’t stop Snopes from accusing the Bee of “misinformation” and of engaging in “an apparent attempt to maximize the online indignation.” Bee founder Adam Ford rightly expressed offense, asking, “What a subjective and malicious statement! This is a ‘fact check’?”
Though Snopes claims to be a nonpartisan fact checker, it is anything but, and that has become embarrassingly obvious in recent months.
A few months ago Snopes beclowned itself when it published a piece “fact-checking” a Bee article entitled “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication,” rating it “FALSE” before noting that the Bee is a satirical site that was spoofing the “ongoing political brouhaha over alleged news media "bias” and “fake news.” Anyone so dense as to not realize that was satire should not be allowed outside unattended.
It seems that Snopes just can’t tolerate a conservative Christian website so brilliantly and repeatedly skewering the insanity of the Left.
In addition to the aforementioned “fact checks,” Snopes came to the defense of Planned Parenthood when the Bee published an article entitled “Planned Parenthood Defends Bill Cosby: ‘Sexual Assault is Only 3% of What He Does.” That headline is a reference to Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortions are only 3% of the services the nation’s largest abortion provider performs — a claim debunked numerous times.
Snopes has also been caught blatantly lying about its “facts” in order to damage conservatives. That goes well beyond fact-checking and into ideological/partisan advocacy.
Ironically, it appears the outrage from the Left at the Babylon Bee’s articles are less because the stories are untrue (obviously, since they are openly satirical), but because the Left has become so unhinged, so radical, so bitter, so aggressive in demanding conformity, and so divorced from reality that one now has to read well past the headline to determine whether a story is real or satire.
After Snopes’s initial attacks, the Bee published more articles openly mocking Snopes, including one entitled “Snopes Rolls Out New Opinion Check Feature,” which included the satirical mission statement, “We’ll tell you which opinions are OK and which ones make you a Nazi.”
And the article “fact checking” the Looney Tunes movie Space Jam is a riot!
Unfortunately, because Snopes accused the Babylon Bee of being not just satire but intentionally misleading, and since social-media giants like Facebook have partnered with “fact-checkers” like Snopes to supposedly ferret out “fake news” (yet somehow never manage to flag CNN articles), Facebook recently threatened to limit and demonetize the Babylon Bee. The Bee pushed back and Facebook backed down, but with this latest attack by Snopes, the Babylon Bee has been forced to retain legal counsel.
And this is why we can’t have nice things. ~The Patriot Post
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