
Facebook working on approach to classifying satirical news pieces - tallblondeguy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/03/05/facebook-working-on-approach-to-classifying-satirical-news-pieces/
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tallblondeguy
Interesting followup to the discussion on "Facebook Threatens Satire Site Over
CNN Story That Snopes Rated 'False'"[0], with a statement from Snopes.com CEO
David Mikkelson.

The most interesting thing to come out of all of this: given that "satire"
isn't a binary thing, how can you police it? What's to keep anyone from saying
whatever and calling it satire, without hurting silly sites like the Babylon
Bee or The Onion who are pretty clear about their silliness? Can such a thing
be policed manually or algorithmically?

Tangentially, does Hustler Magazine v. Falwell ("the parody could not have
been reasonably considered believable")[1] deserve re-evaluation in light of
Poe's Law ("it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously
exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some...as a sincere expression of
the parodied views")[2]? I ask this light-heartedly, more for discussion than
out of any kind of strong conviction on the matter.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16503829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16503829)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law)

