… Like anybody’s gonna fall for that old chestnut. Melissa Dahl, at NYMag:
Earlier this week, Facebook announced a plan to start testing a “satire” tag, which you may soon find affixed to headlines like “Tips for Being an Unarmed Black Man” from sites like the Onion and ClickHole. And although on its surface, the move sounds a lot like a headline from the very satirical sites Facebook intends to warn its users of, the social-networking site may be on to something.
Because, as the Washington Post’s Caitlin Dewey points out, this isn’t just about satire; it’s also about the problem of purposely false “news” stories. Lesser-known and less obviously joke-y sites like the Daily Currant, Empire News, National Report, and the News Nerd will get the “satire” tag, too. So this could actually be a step toward addressing the problem of hoaxes spreading wildly online, by cutting them off at what has become many people’s main source for news: Facebook…
Apart from the fact that, as Lily Tomlin said, “No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up,” people forward stuff from Facebook because they want to believe all the sketchy stories that confirm our political biases. And for those of us who think we’re better than that, I have one name: Zaida Pugh. Because, yeah, there were smart educated people right here in the Balloon Juice commentariat who were absolutely convinced by Pugh’s “thought-provoking pranks” — as posted on Facebook.
***********
Apart from never trusting what somebody tells you they read on the internets, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Trollhattan
Mail-in ballots have become the norm in California, but….
Eric U.
as long as it is applied to Reason and Newsmax
Baud
I certainly wasn’t one of those people.
Villago Delenda Est
@Eric U.: Reason and Noisemax are dead earnest in their totally unbelievable stories.
wmd
I was asked if a story about 1 in 3 Americans having RFID chips implanted was true. Clicking through to the “study” there were banner ads for Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz. A quick search on the “scientist” and his institute showed it was BS.
Mnemosyne
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Zaida Pugh, or Ms. Muffin. When was this?
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: Yep. How about a “Unconfirmed but who’s to say it ain’t true” tag? Or “Outright lies, but the fact that so many people believe confirms that the Democratic candidate has an image problem” tag.
Mnemosyne
@wmd:
That’s one of those things that makes me wonder if it’s BS or mental illness. Feeling like you’re being controlled by an outside force (usually interpreted as being the government or the CIA) is a fairly common delusion, so I could see someone with undiagnosed psychosis deciding that they must have been implanted with an RFID chip.
One of the downsides of the internet, unfortunately — people with psychosis/delusions are able to find each other and reinforce them.
kc
Video pranksters are making the world a better place.
/sarcasm
kc
@Mnemosyne:
Earlier this year, per the article at the link.
I remember hearing about this video of an asshole white guy telling a black woman to go sit at the back of a public bus, but I never heard the aftermath, that it was a prank.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Fox News is getting the tag, right? Newsmax as well, I trust?
Oh I see. Only some satire gets the treatment.
Amir Khalid
Can they come up with a tag for Bob in Portland’s pro-Russian talking points?
gogol's wife
Question for the BJ etiquette experts: Do you tip construction workers who have been building your garage all summer (they work for a company)? What is appropriate as a sign of appreciation? (even if it was supposed to only take three weeks)
Marilynd..so
OK, open thread!! I am taking Elizabeth Warren’s Baby (CFPB) out for a test drive!! I submitted a claim to them last Thurs. The holder of my 2nd Mortgage on a home that I let go 3 years ago is harassing me again. In Oregon if you execute a first and 2nd at the same time, the 2nd holder can’t try to recover if no equity remains. I had a lawyer intervene 3 years ago, and the phone harassment stopped, and I ignored their billings. Now they have phoned me again, so I decided to sic the Feds on them! Very impressed with the website…easy submission even with a crappy computer. Response was immediate, when I submitted and 4 minutes later they had submitted it to offending lender….watch this space
gogol's wife
@Eric U.:
You mean headlines like this: “Romney: Obama Even Worse Than I Expected”? That’s NewsMax, not Onion.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
I had a good meeting with a friend in the publishing industry yesterday and I’m feeling a lot better about the process of self-publishing my novel. I may never raise enough money to go all the way to having actual, physical print books but I should get some of the way there. Just having enough to get it properly edited so that it is the best possible story is my threshold for calling it a success, even if it means that the only product is an ebook only, poorly formatted book with a cheap cover that never sells a single copy beyond those who preorder on the kickstarter.
I want to upgrade on all of those outcomes, but if the only thing that happens is that it gets out then I win. And if I do manage to raise more money, I can hire that friend’s company to walk me through the process and, probably more importantly, hold my hand through it.
raven
Villago Delenda Est
@gogol’s wife: Case of beer. Tops.
Well, toss in a pizza or two.
But actual cash? No way.
Trollhattan
Am slightly conflicted about this, but anyway.
Heck, rate him a solid “A” you gun-botherers, isn’t this the very expression of Freedom(tm)?
Villago Delenda Est
@Suffern ACE: There’s always El Rushbo’s “It could happen!” exclamation.
gogol's wife
@Villago Delenda Est:
That’s what I thought.
Trollhattan
@Marilynd..so:
Good luck!
max
Apart from never trusting what somebody tells you they read on the internets
“Keep Calm and Trust No One” poster.
Or perhaps, ‘Believe nothing you hear, and half of what you read. See it with your own eyes for confirmation.’
max
[‘Just clearing that up.’]
OzarkHillbilly
So the Klan has arrived in the fair city where I pick up my mail (supposedly since yesterday). The local rag tried calling the Grand JackOff but he would not answer his phone. They communicated with him via e-mail and he said that they are NOT having a Klan rally. They are having a fund raiser for the “cop who did his job against the criminal negro.” But they won’t say where the fund raiser will be held. Not even whether it will be within the city limits or not. How does one hold a fund raiser with out telling people where to come and donate?
So color me skeptical, but most definitely not denying the possibility. If they are holding one out here, I suspect it will be on private land and only people who know the supersecrethandshakewebsite will know where it is, and there are plenty of people here who would love to attend (of course, the Mayor of Sullivan is NOT one of them. I heard him say so).
It is supposed to be both Saturday and Sunday (with temps getting to 98 and above) (hotter than Hell, appropriate isn’t it?) I have this sudden overwhelming desire to have a t-shirt made that say’s on the front: “Jesus was a Jew”
On the back it will say, “He was black too.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan: “I’m shocked, shocked, that our actual rhetoric is being thrown back into our faces.”
jeffreyw
Keeping an eye on my favorite bug. And vice versa.
jl
@Trollhattan:
” No more surveys! You come near me, and I’ll blow your head off!” Then the lawmaker hung up the phone, ending the 78-second phone call. ”
No stand your ground laws in MN?
And… regarding the post, many people get most of their news from Facebook? Is that satire? asks area man.
OzarkHillbilly
@gogol’s wife: As one of those guys, I never got a tip, tho I did get a X-mas ham on occasion. They were good too.
Villago Delenda Est
@jeffreyw: That photo puts the bug in “bug-eyed”.
SatanicPanic
@kc: I agree, these are stupid. Gawker linked, disapprovingly, to one in Brazil where a woman pretended to cry and then when people would talk to her would say “Surprise! I’m fine!” These are fucking dumb. There is enough racism in the world, if Ms Muffin or whatever wants to go document that, great! Do it! But creating fake examples of racism is exactly the opposite of what the world needs.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
“St Ann, like Ferguson, is majority black”
FTFY. No charge as you are a first time customer.
beth
@raven: Was this the guy the ACLU sent a letter about? I can’t find it right now but the letter included the phrase “when asked for his identity, the officer invited citizens to fuck themselves”. How much fun was it to send that letter?
EDIT – the letter’s here : http://www.mediaite.com/online/meet-the-cop-now-known-as-officer-go-fck-yourself/
gogol's wife
@OzarkHillbilly:
Well, what would you want to get?
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
The Missouri ACLU should get the credit for that.
jeffreyw
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, my other favorite bug is the Hummingbird Moth. Made this hard to watch.
Botsplainer
Hey, a tiny victory for the good guys – Officer Go Fuck Yourself got suspended indefinitely for being a complete pu$$y by aiming his rifle at protestors who were filming him, all while threatening to kill the protestors. He was so much of a candyass that a St Louis County sergeant actually pushed his rifle down while leading him away.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/st-ann-officer-removed-after-pointing-gun-threatening-ferguson-protesters/article_3854ed72-a14c-5b8e-b32f-ddb35de94803.html
Botsplainer
@raven:
Whoops, you beat me to it.
That footage causes me to react on a visceral level.
OzarkHillbilly
@gogol’s wife: Paid.
Botsplainer
Heh – from the Washington Post comments about the suspended St Ann douchebag:
lol
Reading that article about Pugh, I’m reminded there’s a subtle difference between prank and hoax.
Trollhattan
Just yesterday I joked that Republicans would link Ferguson and Benghazi.
Felanius Kootea
@raven: I think that’s what Botsplainer was referring to in a post below about deadspin commenters laughing at the police. You can see the cop on video making the threat and pointing his rifle at protestors before other cops tell him to stop pointing his weapon.
Mnemosyne
@lol:
IMO, a prank usually requires a reveal at the end. The Jimmy Kimmel “woman sets herself on fire while twerking” video was in a bit of a gray area, because the reveal didn’t come until a few weeks after the video became popular, but he definitely did a full reveal that, yes, it was all a prank.
beth
@Trollhattan: I’ve seen that tweeted out some lately. I guess now that Rush is blabbering on about it we’ll be hearing it more and more. The problem is that an FBI team did go to Benghazi and investigate and if any of those idiot dittoheads would google it they’d find out the truth.
Botsplainer
@Felanius Kootea:
Yup. The boys at Deadspin have assessed this candyass for what he is – a candyass.
Botsplainer
The suburban police departments of St Louis County combine to suppress the threat to order in their area.
http://www.greenisthenewred.com/blog/wp-content/Images/red_dawn_mcdonalds.jpg
Original Lee
My agenda is likely focused on two topics:
1. A conservative-leaning friend has asked why Fox News is the only major media outlet reporting that Michael Brown assaulted Darren Wilson and was shot while charging him. I need to find a more tactful way of explaining the situation to him than “Fox News is full of shit” because I think this is his Terri Schiavo moment.
2. California has apparently issued water rights to 5 times more surface water than available through normal runoff (370 million acre feet allocated, 70 million acre feet normal freshwater flow). I am researching the upcoming water wars for some speculative fiction I hope to start during NaNoWri Mo.
(Edited to add a verb.)
Trollhattan
This is probably worth noting.
scav
@Original Lee: Well, if you’re in a henhouse with half-eaten free-range mcnuggets and all the biddies are pointing at the fox and the fox is pointing at the rooster . . . .
Botsplainer
@Trollhattan:
But did Blue make it home safe?
It’s all that matters…
Baud
@Original Lee:
I thought that was the more tactful response.
SatanicPanic
@Original Lee: CNN was reporting the same thing yesterday. You know what was really striking to me yesterday? I was watching either Rachel Maddow or Chris Hayes, and they showed the St Louis police chief (I think) talking about the young man who was shot by St Louis police. The guy answered questions, told the story, in detail, about what happened. At least it appeared like he was trying to be transparent. These Ferguson guys? They’re running a clown show.
JPL
@Original Lee: Most outlets have covered both sides of the story. You might ask if Fox has covered both possibilities. This is the headline on the liberal (haha) NY Times.. Shooting Accounts Differ as Holder Schedules Visit to Ferguson
Hal
Saw this on Facebook earlier. I’ve been seeing many similar quotes all over the interwebs. This is part of what I mean when I said in the previous thread that some people need to deny any possibility of racism in the Ferguson case, or in some peoples interactions with the police in general. This guy all at once tells people to let it go, then accuses everyone of being uneducated crooks looking for a hand out. But he’s not racist, ok?
skerry
In more good news, a humongous volcano in Iceland is getting ready to blow. (GOS link) It’s name is Bárðarbunga (BOWR-thar-Boon-kah, “Bárður’s Bulge”). Much larger volcano than the one that erupted a couple of years ago that disrupted air traffic all over the place.
SatanicPanic
@Hal: dude, you need to narrow your friend list
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic: A clown show with a purpose…to get Crusty out of the jurisdiction.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hal: “The DemoRATS are the REAL racists”.
The stoopid. It burns.
Villago Delenda Est
@Original Lee: It’s really very simple. The autopsy showed no signs that Brown’s knuckles were bruised from wailing on Wilson’s head, which is what they’re implying happened.
So, Faux and the racist shit of the right are full of, well, shit.
Hal
@SatanicPanic: I know, but it’s kind of like Newsmax for Facebook. Plus, people you thought you knew well, I mean people you grew up with, can surprise you and take a sharp left when you least expect it.
Mandalay
@Trollhattan:
But what does that announcement actually signify? Darrell Wilson also faces “potentially serious charges”. So what?
Their announcement effectively says “We have nothing to report with respect to charges being filed, but we are still investigating”. BFD.
SatanicPanic
@Hal: This is true. I shouldn’t talk, I have some tools on my feed. I haven’t been on there much in the last few days, so I might have missed them.
SatanicPanic
@Villago Delenda Est: This is true. But I feel like they could have done it more smoothly. Or not. I shouldn’t armchair quarterback them because I’ve never been in the position to have to protect a murderous colleague.
Mandalay
@Hal:
I doubt if that is true, but they can definitely vote them out. It is entirely within the power of the residents of Ferguson to throw out the mayor and police chief.
This article has one of the most constructive solutions I have seen for addressing the problems in Ferguson:
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
Generally speaking, CHP takes officer violence much more seriously than LAPD or the LA County Sheriff do because one of CHP’s mandates is to assist motorists in trouble (people with flat tires, out of gas, got into accidents, etc.) so they do tend to hold their officers to a higher standard than the other agencies. He probably won’t get a punishment anything close to what a civilian would get, but he’s going to get canned and will probably plead guilty to a misdemeanor at least.
If he was LAPD or LA County Sheriff, at worst he’d probably be allowed to quietly retire and that would be about it.
Mike S
Well Chrome isn’t working for B-J again tonight. It worked this morning. Now it freezes and says it is “processing request”. I guess I have to use IE again for a few days. I don’t think it is an ad causing the problem since I installed adblock the other week when this problem happened.
WereBear
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Awesome news!
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike S: Chrome (running on Win 7) working fine for me. YMMV if you’re on another OS/Platform, of course.
Anne Laurie
@Original Lee: If your friend wants some context, Charles “Not Exactly A DFH” Johnson at LGF posted this rant about fringe right-wing bloggers funneling (very crude) lies into the Fox News ‘some people say’ Wingnut Wurlitzer.
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
If you don’t already read the publishing stuff on John Scalzi’s website, it’s probably worth looking it up — IIRC, he started off by self-publishing his first novel and then was able to build up a readership through his website and eventually get a publishing contract through one of the sci-fi houses (Tor?) He’s out in the middle of Iowa or some damn godforsaken place, so he didn’t have to talk face-to-face to people in order to do it. It looks like there are some links on the right-hand side with his bio etc. that may be interesting for you.
Original Lee
Thanks for all of the suggestions re: Ferguson reportage. I’ll have to see how persuasive I can be.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne: One problem is that this novel is in a genre I’ll probably never write in again. It’s really just a one off that I couldn’t not write. Everything else I do is fantasy/science fiction. So this one may not be the right piece to try to pull that off with.
The really hard part, for me at least, is going to be finding some endorsements from established writers.
NotMax
Oy vey.
Poopyman
@Villago Delenda Est: Ditto here. Chrome on W7.
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
CHP Commissioner Farrow has a reputation as a stand-up dude and reports to Jerry, so am hopeful they’re not going to blue-wash this incident. We’ll see. (The lapsed time should be instructive for anybody looking for speedy wheels of justice in Missouri).
Roger Moore
@Mike S:
You could use Firefox instead.
lamh36
COME ON MO’NE DAVIS!!!
@nycjim 13m
Starting now on ESPN, phenom Mo’ne Davis pitches to reach US Little League Championship game. http://on.mash.to/1q1iAo6
EthylEster
Re: satire tag aka spoofing….I blame DougJ. Only partly joking.
But most here will have no idea of what I am talking about.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@EthylEster:
Why would you say that?
Woodrowfan
Chrome hangs as much for me as Firefox. The webpage that hangs Chrome the most? Google. oye
Keith G
Decided that I will not bother with news from Ferguson until headlines (quickly scanned tell me something substantial has changed in the level of verifiable knowledge about what really went down. That might mean waiting for the feds to issue a preliminary report, but I am fine with that.
In the mean time, other important news calls for attention such as…
The NFL is floating a proposal the music acts selected for the Super Bowl Halftime Show pay the NFL for the prestige and exposure gained by appearing in that wonderful venue.
America really is going crazy.
raven
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department released cell phone footage Wednesday of the police shooting of Kajieme Powell, a 25-year-old black man killed on Tuesday in St. Louis, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
A convenience store owner called 911 on Tuesday when he suspected Powell stole drinks and donuts from his shop, according to a recording of the call. Another woman called to report Powell was acting erratically and had a knife in his pocket.
Two officers in a police SUV responded to the calls, the cell phone video shows. When the officers got out of their vehicle, Powell walked in their direction, yelling and telling them to shoot him already.
St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said Tuesday that both of the officers opened fire on Powell when he came within a three or four feet of them holding a knife “in an overhand grip.”
But the newly released cell phone footage undermines the statement, showing Powell approaching the cops, but not coming as close as was reported, with his hands at his side. The officers began shooting within 15 seconds of their arrival, hitting Powell with a barrage of bullets.
raven
Now there are 2 white people holding songs supporting the cop in Ferguson.
gian
@Mnemosyne:
LAPD just wrote a 5 million check today
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G: The NFL needs to be slapped around like a red-headed stepchild.
Mnemosyne
@gian:
Yes, the taxpayers of Los Angeles paid the guy’s family off, but the officers involved haven’t been disciplined in any way. And that’s the problem.