I’m wondering the extent to which being a satire site — which makes them exempt from Facebook’s fact-checking program — has allowed them to traffic in misinformation under the guise of comedy. Do you think that’s a deliberate strategy?
Well, that’s a great question, because it’s been a big source of controversy for them. They’ve had a few articles that were fact-checked by Snopes and rated “false.” Which The Bee’s writers and editors claim prompted Facebook to threaten them with being demonetized (Facebook denies this). The Bee’s founder, Adam Ford, has claimed that Snopes fact-checked them in ways that were “egregious,” with standards that wouldn’t be applied to, for example, The Onion.
The Bee feels that they’re being targeted unfairly. But Snopes has poked at the fact that their pieces can sometimes be easily mistaken for real news — which might fall on them, not their readers.
Politics aside, it sort of speaks to the impossible nature of being a satirical site in the age of the mega-platform. Because on one hand, you’ve got to write things that are so obviously made up that they can’t reasonably be mistaken for real news, but also close enough to the truth to be funny.
One hundred percent. Truth is funnier than fiction these days.
One thing I’ve wondered is what the whole “owning the libs” media industrial complex (which I’d categorize The Bee as belonging to, even if they wouldn’t) will do if Trump loses in November. Do you get the sense that The Bee cares who wins the election, from the standpoint of comedic potential?
What’s funny is that because they aren’t Trump loyalists, they can see an advantage for their comedy either way. In some senses, comedy comes a lot easier when you’re not the party in power. But on the other hand, Trump is such an absurd figure that he can lend himself to some really wild caricatures. The editor in chief of The Bee told me Trump is great for comedy, so he’d be happy to see him win — a little later, he added that maybe they’re sick of Trump humor and ready for a change. They also see a lot of humor opportunity in the Biden camp, especially playing off the “Sleepy Joe” motif.
So what I’m taking from this conversation is: The Babylon Bee is not a covert disinformation operation disguised as a right-wing satire site, and is in fact trying to do comedy, but may inadvertently be spreading bad information when people take their stories too seriously?
For the most part. But they also seem to find it pretty funny when their content is mistaken for real news — and they’re not exactly going overboard to stop that.