In 2014, we originally marked jesus-is-savior.com as an extreme form of Poe's Law (satire). But that didn't sit well with us. Could jesus-is-savior.com be satire? Or is it something much different?
Betoota is a small town in Diamantina Shire, in the Channel Country of Central West Queensland, Australia. Betoota Advocate, however, still has some Lorem Ipsum text on it. I’m assuming it’s not real. Now whether it’s pure gossip or satire is a question for another day. Since we don’t have bullshit category, we’re gonna mark this one “satire.”
As with comedy, timing is everything for “satire” and ClickBait sites. Take this article submitted for The Daily Snark: Jason Pierre-Paul Blows Off Other Hand After His Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Explodes. With Samsung’s ‘Exploding‘ Galaxy Note 7 recall in the news and being banned on all U.S. Flights, it’s very easy to believe something like this. Until, that is,…
NewsWire-24.com is based in the U.K. and geared mostly towards that audience. We looked at two stories, as best we could, to determine if it's real or not. Read onward:
Conservative Tribune makes the following claim: [David Boreanaz] broke ranks with the Hollywood elite, and the overwhelming culture of Hollywood, to criticize Pres. Barack Obama. This is the same Pres. Obama that hangs out with celebrities like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and George Clooney, while simultaneously campaigning against rich people. It’s customary to embed tweets when you’re relying on them to push…
This one is easy. Every story has a link to their ABOUT page: RILENEWS FAQ Are your stories real? Yes. If you believe fake news stories.
Fake news outlet usatodaysnews.com attempts to circumvent casual investigative tools by removing the site's "right-click" functionality. But we got their number at any rate -- read on.
UPDATE – 08-03-2016: We have slightly revised our judgment on Breitbart in light of their consistent policy of going well beyond headline-hyperbole with their articles into downright lying when it suits them: Obama’s post-Ramadan statement giving thanks to the “achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy”…
From their About page: Using [. . .] tongue-in-cheek sarcasm and satire, the website liberalbias.com is dedicated to promoting and publicizing graphs, statistics, and facts that somehow (inexplicably, for conservatives) support liberal beliefs, theories, or ideals. Liberal Bias is a member of the WinkProgress family.
Mirror-site for snoopman.wordpress.com. Snoopman is less satire, more conspiracy theorist. But plenty of folks, with varying degrees of conspiracy-isms, pass on Snoopman articles as facts. Editor’s Note: Someone from Snoopman offered a ‘defense’ of sorts for their site, which you can read in the comments below. Again, Real or Satire has, technically, a binary system (either, or) and a site…
Lercio.it was going to be another site that we’d pass on making commentary on. But one of the first images I was presented when I visited http://www.lercio.it/ was this one: So how hard can it be? Even better than the image, though, is the quote that Lercio is able to get from our Lord and Savior: “Sono cose che succedono.”…
Caveat emptor! While touted as the “British Onion,” it is actually a mix of current events, tabloid/gossip, and satire. It’s debatable whether or not their satire is adequately marked, so be careful with this one!
A mirror-site to snoopman.net.nz. Not much more can be said about it. And if you’re here because of the Lorde-Grammy-Censor story: No, Lorde didn’t give a long anti-whatever speech at the Grammys. The story is listed under Snoopman’s Satire, Sarcasm, and Snoofs category.
The Elephant in the Room is a political rant-blog that takes real events and dessiminates them with a heavy dose of sarcasm, satire, and all-around rantyness. It’s hard to label this as a “satire” site, because the events discussed really did happen: Elizabeth Lauten did call Obama’s children “classless.” Keystone WL was blocked, for now. The first line in the…
Although The American Tribune homepage still has an ABOUT menu item, it’s a completely dead-link. theamericantribune.org/about or theamericantribune.org/about-us go to 404-error pages. Fortunately, their original About disclaimer was put up on http://archive.is/sYRvn: Satire sites are likely dropping in ad revenue, so we’ll wager a lot of sites will be removing their “satire” disclaimers. Beyond this fact, American Tribune has moved…
BuzzFeed is an Internet news media company that specializes in a wide variety of topics like politics, DIY, animals, humor, and business. While it’s had its fair share of scandal — notably with plagiarism — and they have a pretty extensive humor section that includes some heavy satire. Unlike other sites, they do mark all humor as such. While they…
Although not a news site, I figured I’d go ahead and throw our hat in the ring about Bitelabs.org. How many of you saw the movie “Antiviral”? The premise is this: In a dystopian, celebrity-obsessed near-future, Syd March is employed by the Lucas Clinic, a company which purchases viruses and other pathogens from celebrities who fall ill, in order to…
The article sent to us for Hang the Bankers was this one: “US launches cyber attack on Russia’s power grid, telco networks and Kremlin command systems.” In the article, they claim that Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said: “If no official reaction from the American administration follows, it would mean state cyberterrorism exists in the US. If the threats…
stuppid.com, when it is up and available on something other than Google cached, is just a repository of silly stuff found on Reddit and other sources, and the occasional original material. The original stuff that was on there, like the woman who named her child after her favorite mega superstore, is likely made up (seeing as no source was given).…
Imagine The Colbert Report television show, without the laughing audience, the obvious wink-wink of the host, and the over-the-top comedic stylings of Comedy Central writers, and you have Christwire. Christwire highlights the excesses of American Christian conservatives through its satire. Ironically — or expectably, depending on your point of view — Christian Conservatives tend to mistake Christwire articles as true…
