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Facebook, the social networking site and owner of all of your personal information, is testing a “Satire” tag to protect people from being mislead by headlines and articles from such fictional news sources as “The Onion.”
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Facebook is putting the tag [Satire] in front of just about every “Onion” article on your Newsfeed, so as to not mislead people who mistake “The Onion’s” razor-sharp wit and professional writing style for actual news headlines.
A Facebook rep confirmed the news to Ars Technica, saying “We are running a small test which shows the text ‘[Satire]’ in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units.”
Satire is a lost art. That’s a fact that we come across day-in and day out, whether that be on social media, or in the comments sections across the internet. People just do not get the joke at an alarming rate. I’m sure that before social media, people didn’t get the joke as well. It’s why shows like “Arrested Development” get cancelled after three seasons, but “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” is entering its 10th season, and has inspired more spin-offs than “Happy Days.”
This opinion seems to be echoed around the world of tech as well: Techradar bemoans the fact that “Facebook is dealing a crippling blow to the art [of satire]” with this change, while Engadget writes, “maybe you should be made fun of if you actually think stories like these are true.” VentureBeat went as far as to call Facebook, “Dr. Buzzkillington.”
Social Media has truly given everyone a voice, and the vast majority of people seem to be using it to be ill-informed douchebags rather than actually learning something so they can differentiate between hard news and a joke headline. Then again, peoples’ misinterpretation of “The Onion’s” brand of comedy just makes for even deeper humor. For example, the blog “Literally Unbelievable,” which posts the responses of the ignorant and ill-informed reacting to fake news.
Mike Judge was right. “Idiocracy” is upon us.
[via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
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@JayTasShow
@FireJayTas
B-b-b-b-b-but if it’s posted on the internet it has to be true I thought.
People that share links to InfoWars to prove their point = the fucken worst
On the other hand, I’m not completely sure this is satire:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-facebook-user-incredibly-stupid,36712/
I bet the employee who reported the pilots of the crashed Asiana Flight 214 as: Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, & Bang Ding Ow wished there was a “satire” tag in their news source.
Wuts satyre