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

Woman with Bible in front of face.

By John Nolte

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.

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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.

Washington Post Scrubs Headline Calling Louis Farrakhan ‘Far-Right’

Barack Obama and Louis Farrakhan (Askia Muhammad via TriceEdnyWire.com)

By Justin Caruso

UPDATE 5:23 PM EST: The Washington Post has added a correction to the post in question — after this article was published. The paper held off on a correction on its site for nearly two hours after acknowledging the error on Twitter. The headline on Breitbart’s story has been updated to reflect this change.

The Washington Post described Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as “far-right” Thursday, then scrubbed the error from the article’s headline and text without acknowledging the edit.

The far-left newspaper’s coverage of Facebook’s latest move to ban controversial and anti-establishment figures linked Farrakhan with conservative activists, originally posting the headline “Facebook bans far-right leaders including Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos for being ‘dangerous.’”

The false label was also included in the first line of author Elizabeth Dwoskin’s article.

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The publication’s official Twitter account posted the same headline with this false information. In a followup tweet, the Post said, “We have deleted this tweet because it incorrectly included Louis Farrakhan, who has espoused anti-Semitic views, in a list of far-right leaders. Facebook banned extremist figures including Farrakhan, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos for being ‘dangerous.’”

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However, the paper has not acknowledged any error on the article page itself — or told readers that its editors altered the headline, lead paragraph, and URL after publication.

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Despite the stealth correction, the article has received the endorsement of NewsGuard, a Microsoft partner that marks news sources as reliable or not in a web browser extension — even on a cached version of the article with the false “far-right” label still included in the URL.

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“This website adheres to all nine of NewsGuard’s standards of credibility and transparency,” a pop-up reads when users mouse over the green checkmark next to the Post‘s name. Among those criteria: “Regularly corrects or clarifies errors.”

NewsGuard similarly defended a stealth edit from corporate media in February, saying that the New York Times did not run afoul of its policy by altering a headline without acknowledging the update.

Another article published in The Atlantic about the Facebook bans used the headline “Instagram and Facebook Ban Far-Right Extremists,” with a photo of Farrakhan in the featured image. As of this writing, it has not been corrected.

Farrakhan, who has praised Adolf Hitler and promotes an anti-Semitic and black nationalist worldview, has a number of well-documented relationships with Democratic lawmakers.

Former president Barack Obama posed for a photo with Farrakhan, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) have long associatedwith the hateful preacher.

Last October, Farrakhan said during an address that he was not an “antisemite” but an “anti-Termite.”

“So when they talk about Farrakhan, call me a hater, you know they do, call me an antisemite–stop it! I’m anti-termite! I don’t know nothing about hating somebody because of their religious preference,” he said

 

Gab Standard: Twitter Failed to Act on Hundreds of Death Threats from Mail Bombing Suspect

Twitter allowed Cesar Sayoc to make 240+ threats on its platform

By Charlie Nash

Twitter allowed Cesar Sayoc, the man who allegedly sent apparent bombs to public figures around the country this month, to post more than 240 threats towards 50 different people on its social network without sanction. Meanwhile, the media managed to temporarily force free speech social network Gab offline after it was revealed that the Tree of Life Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting suspect had an account on the platform.

According to CNN, an analysis discovered that “Sayoc tweeted more than 240 threats directed to at least 50 public officials, news organizations and media personalities.”

“The threats, and Twitter’s apparent inaction regarding them, raise new questions regarding social media and radicalization,” CNN declared, adding, “In this instance, Twitter may well have provided Sayoc with the material that radicalized him, and then it stood idly by as that radicalization led to hundreds of threats.”

Some of Sayoc’s threats reportedly included, “Your Time is coming,” “Your days are over,” “your (sic) next,” and “Hug your loved ones real close everytime U leave your home,” while he also sent pictures of decapitated goats to users.

CNN’s report did not include all of Sayoc’s targets on Twitter. Sayoc tweeted violent images of man-eating crocodiles to liberal Fox News contributor Rochelle Ritchie, a fact mysteriously left out by CNN, which instead focused on anti-Trump celebrity Kathy Griffin, who admitted she hadn’t even read the threat tweeted to her.

Free speech social network Gab, however, was forced offline this week after media outlets and figures blamed the platform for allowing Tree of Life Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers to make anti-Semitic comments on his account — where Bowers also made several posts attacking President Trump and the MAGA movement, which he perceived as Jewish.

Despite this, Gab has a strict policy against threats and illegal content, and in contrast with Twitter, immediately issued a statement condemning Bowers and expressing sympathy for the victims following the crime.

Gab is currently offline, after its web host Joyent gave the social network just 48 hours to migrate elsewhere.

Domain service GoDaddy also forced Gab to immediately move to another service.

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