Nolte: Snopes Spreads Fake News to Blacklist Christian Satire Site the Babylon Bee

Woman with Bible in front of face.
Sarah Noltner via Unsplash

The far-left “fact check” outlet Snopes is using fake news to blacklist the Christian satire site the Babylon Bee.

Although the Babylon Bee’s own name points to the fact it’s a satire site, although the Babylon Bee is widely known and recognized as a satire site, although the Babylon Bee clearly advertises itself as a satire and “fake news” site, Snopes has launched a fake news jihad to deplatform the Babylon Bee and put it out of business.

Everyone was laughing at Snopes when it started fact-checking the Babylon Bee’s satire pieces; we all howled as the self-serious Snopes labeled obvious satire as “false.” But now we know Snopes actually has an agenda here — and that is to abuse its power as a Facebook-recognized fact checker to blacklist the Babylon Bee, to get the openly Christian satire site algorithmically hidden and demonetized, which will effectively put it out of business.

The Babylon Bee is concerned enough — and rightfully so — that it has retained an attorney.

In a statement released Tuesday, the satire site writes:

Last week, Snopes fact-checked us again. We’re pretty used to that. But this time, instead of merely rating the article as “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.

Yes, this is a big deal, because as we all now know, once the fascist left smears ideas and opinion they do not approve of as “fake news,” people and web sites start to disappear forever.

Although Snopes has been “fact-checking” the Babylon Bee since July of 2016, everyone took notice back in March when Snopes published a disingenuous fact check that resulted in Facebook threatening the Babylon Bee with “limitations and demonetization.”

CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication” was the Bee’s title, but Snopes still pretended it needed to “fact check” a ridiculous satire piece.

Facebook eventually backed off, but it is likely no accident that the Snopes’ attack and Facebook’s subsequent blacklisting threat occurred just after CNN’s Brian Stelter — a rabid left-winger and conspiracy theorist — published a tweet accusing the Bee of being a “fake news site” disguising itself as satire. He eventually deleted it.

In April, Snopes again “fact-checked” another blatantly obvious piece of satire, this one aimed at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

“Did U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Repeatedly Guess ‘Free’ on TV Show ‘The Price is Right?’” asked Snopes in its stupid “fact-checking” article.

Obviously, she didn’t. That’s the joke.

Things got a whole lot more serious last week, though, when Snopes openly accused the Babylon Bee of engaging in the spreading of fake news.

Snopes “fact checked” a July 22 Babylon Bee piece satirizing State Rep. Erica Thomas (D-GA), the lawmaker who was caught lying earlier this month about being told by a white man in a Publix grocery store to “go back where she came from.”

In the end, Thomas was forced to admit she lied. The man in question is not only Cuban, he’s a Democrat who probably voted for her. What’s more, witnesses claim she was the one screaming “go back,” not him.

Anyway, the Babylon Bee satire piece was titled: “Georgia Lawmaker Claims Chick-Fil-A Employee Told Her To Go Back To Her Country, Later Clarifies He Actually Said ‘My Pleasure.'”

But for its pedantic “fact check,” Snopes accused the Babylon Bee of deliberately misleading people.

“We’re not sure if fanning the flames of controversy and muddying the details of a news story classify an article as ‘satire,'” Snopes wrote as its sub-headline, adding:

The Babylon Bee has managed to fool readers with its brand of satire in the past. This particular story was especially confusing for some readers, however, as it closely mirrored the events of a genuine news story, with the exception of the website’s changing the location from “Publix” to the more controversial Chick-Fil-A.

Babylon Bee founder Adam Ford exposes Snopes in this must-read Twitter thread.

Over the past couple years, Snopes has “fact-checked” the Babylon Bee some 20 times! But if you look at the most recent “fact-checks,” the nine since June of last year, they are all in defense of leftists: Bernie Sanders. Ilhan Omar, CNN, Bill Clinton, California legislators, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, etc.

Although the Babylon Bee regularly satirizes President Trump, Republicans, and even Christians, it is quite telling that Snopes — which falsely identifies itself as non-partisan — never rushes in to save right-leaning targets from the Babylon Bee’s effort to mislead people.

Obviously, what we have here is CNN and Snopes manufacturing a “fake news” controversy as a means to blacklist a satire site — not because the satire site is effective at spreading fake news, but because it is  effective at mocking the media, Democrat politicians, and their inane ideas; effective at using comedy to illuminate a truth the far-leftists at Snopes do not want illuminated.

Thankfully, the Babylon Bee sees this “latest smear from Snopes [as] both dishonest and disconcerting.”

“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 retain us in this matter,” the statement reads.

 Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

 

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