Facebook To Ruin Our Good Time With 'Satire' Disclaimer; The Onion Responds With Satire

from the peeling-away-the-layers dept

Satire: some people just don't get it. More specifically, some folks out there don't have the capacity to read what is an obviously satirical news piece and/or headline and recognize it as such. You all know what I'm talking about: you jump on Facebook and see an article shared by a "friend" that contains the headline, "Barack Obama Admits To Being A Muslim Terrorist Puppy-Puncher" and the accompanying "I told you so!" commentary from your friend sends you into a snigger as you see that it's a link to The Onion, Clickhole, or Infowars. You know, sites that are clearly filled with joke articles that nobody in their right minds would believe. This is one of the great joys of Facebook and social media in general: watching your friends fall for bullshit. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what Facebook is for.

But Facebook doesn't agree, apparently, as the site is now experimenting with tagging links from these kinds of sites with a "satire" notification.

We can only assume this was implemented as a reaction to users believing that Onion links are nonfiction reports (you can lose hours flipping through Literally Unbelievable, a site that catalogs such boneheaded moments), but we're not sure what compelled Facebook to go so far as to assert editorial control. What's more confusing is this limited implementation, which itself takes a while to explain. Original posts on friends' feeds and The Onion's official Facebook page don't come with a tag. If users save the article to a read-later list, the tag will vanish as well. And other satiric sites, particularly The Onion's newest sibling site, Buzzfeed-spoof Clickhole, are immune to the tag.

Forget confusing, this is yet another inch down the slippery slope in the war on humor and me-getting-to-make-fun-of-people, and I won't stand for it, damn it. People I haven't seen since high school getting fooled by The Onion has been one of the great pleasures in my life and it's just not right for Facebook to chip away at that fun just because it appears to have finally acknowledged that its users are, by and large, idiots.

For what it's worth, The Onion itself appears to concur with this assessment in an article reacting to Facebook's move.

DOYLESTOWN, PA—Describing him as frequently frustrated and overwhelmed, sources confirmed Monday that local Facebook user Michael Huffman is incredibly stupid. “I need stuff easy,” said the absolute dipshit, adding that he finds many things confusing, and that those things must be changed so that they make sense to him. “I like looking at things on Facebook, but I don’t understand a lot. Help, please.” At press time, someone had reportedly fixed everything for the goddamn imbecile.

Funny, but here's an idea. Instead of ruining everyone's righteous good time by tagging satire articles for people, how about instead we work on some kind of integration between Facebook and Snopes? That would be twice as useful and none of the nonsense I regularly combat with Snopes on Facebook makes me laugh, so no harm no foul. Guys? Yes?

Filed Under: algorithms, fooling people, satire
Companies: facebook, the onion

Even The Onion Is Mocking Big Pharma's Focus On Patents Over All Else

from the truth-in-humor dept

For many years, we've been pointing out that the big pharmaceutical industry has become so focused, and so reliant, on patents that they've lost sight of the plot. They don't even consider other potential business models or, you know, keeping people healthy. These days, everything is about getting and extending patents, allowing them to charge exorbitant markup rates on drugs around the globe. It's now reached the point that even The Onion is deftly mocking big pharma's patent focus, with a story titled: "New Pfizer Breakthrough Miraculously Extends Lifespan Of Near-Death Patents." Here's a snippet:

“At Pfizer, patents always come first. Our primary goal is, and always will be, keeping them alive and healthy for as long as possible. And that’s why we couldn’t be happier to announce this wonderful development.” Hilty added that nothing causes Pfizer officials more distress than seeing a once robust patent expire at a young age, a “terrible tragedy” that allows dozens of generic manufacturers to copy it and offer pharmaceuticals to customers far more cheaply.

It's both funny and depressing at the same time, because it's pretty damn accurate. It's disappointing just how far the pharmaceutical industry has gone over the years. Back in 1929, one of the leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, George Merck, declared:

We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been.

That's a noble position to take. That's not how the pharmaceutical industry acts today. At all.

Filed Under: humor, patents, pharmaceuticals
Companies: the onion

Disappointing: The Onion Tests A Paywall

from the don't-turn-away-fans dept

Apparently, The Onion is now testing a paywall outside the US, though the publisher insists that it's really just a test and they're very open to learning from and/or changing it. They're also apparently modeling it on the NY Times somewhat leaky (somewhat non-existent) paywall, so that people can still feel comfortable passing around links and stuff. Still, the limits seem pretty low. You're asked to pay once you've hit 5 articles (though, again, that may change as tests go on). Still, I'd think that -- especially with a site like The Onion -- a carrot approach, rather than a stick approach makes a lot more sense. I know that I've bought books from The Onion on more than one occasion (and have found they're good as gifts as well). If The Onion focused on giving people positive reasons to buy things, rather than negative reasons to "avoid" getting cut off, I would imagine it would work much better.

Tellingly, The Onion admits that it won't let the paywall anywhere near its famed A.V. Club, noting those folks "are much more focused on talking to each other... they don�t want to be charged for their belonging to that community -- whereas I think they would feel differently about being charged for content that�s being provided to them. It�s a very different thing." This is a key point we've tried to make with various news sites. When your focus is on building a community, it makes less and less sense to try to force a paywall on people, because that actually takes away the value of the community itself. Giving people additional reasons to buy? That's good. Trying to beat them into paying... not so good.

Filed Under: paywalls
Companies: the onion

The Big Question: Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Kids For The Apocalypse?

from the things-we-need-to-know dept

With all of the stories over the past few years concerning the supposed "risks" of kids playing violent video games -- often argued over soundbites on cable news networks, The Onion comes to the rescue with the perfect antidote, wondering Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse? I wonder if Jack Thompson would like to weigh in on the debate... My favorite line: "The games all make it seem deceptively simple. I mean, in the future, a kid's not going to be able to kill a six-foot irradiated beetle just by pressing a few buttons. He's going to have to get down there with an axe, and hack and hack and hack." Indeed. Violent video games need to be even more real. Otherwise, we're all doomed.

Filed Under: apocalypse, video games, violence
Companies: the onion