Facebook is to trial a "Satire" tag on linked articles, to help users distinguish what is satire and what is actual real news.
Stories posted in users' feeds are being tagged as "[Satire]" in an apparent move to prevent them being mistaken for real news stories.
Satirical stories have provoked confusion and angry comments from some social media users.
Facebook told the BBC that feedback from users has highlighted the need for the feature.
"We are running a small test which shows the text '[Satire]' in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed," a Facebook spokesman said in a statement.
"This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units."
The Onion has responded [Satire] with an article about a stupid Facebook user that needs everything to be as easy as possible.
One has to wonder whether the satire tag is needed because satire articles have become too clever for people to tell the difference, or whether real world events are becoming indistinguishable from satire (the most recent example I can think of being people in Ferguson getting tips on how to handle tear gas from people in Gaza).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @04:00AM
SO LIKE YEAH!
[/satire]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 20 2014, @04:06AM
Whoa! Hey, Dudes and Posse, check it out! There is this new thing that may not even be real going down! Send links to every and like the heck out of the twitter feed. Or something. >?snark
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday August 20 2014, @04:23AM
Let's be serious here -- the sarcasm tag in that case is a lot like the laugh-track of old 80's and 90's shows -- it tells idiots who are dumb and don't know how to think for themselves the "proper" way to interpret the situation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday August 20 2014, @05:31AM
That's not the purpose of the laugh track. Rather hearing others laugh makes yourself laugh more easily. Which means you'll more likely laugh also on rather lame jokes. In other words, a laugh track allows the producers paper over bad content quality.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday August 20 2014, @05:33AM
So yes, it's the trigger to make stupid people laugh at stupid shit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday August 20 2014, @07:41PM
The problem is there are a lot of fake stories which look pretty legit. Take for example the recent fake article in which an NYPD cop who killed an infant: http://www.snopes.com/media/notnews/babydead.asp [snopes.com]. It was published on a site that posts fake outrageous news articles which if you don't do some research, looks pretty legit to the layman. That bit spread quickly and people were going ape shit. That is pretty dangerous.
But on the flip side: for a satire tag to work, someone has to tag the article as such. And knowing the internet, there will always be a troll looking to whip people into a frenzy. The real solution is for people to stop believing everything they read and do you know, actual research a.k.a. work. But that appears to be impossible given how lazy people tend to be.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by halcyon1234 on Wednesday August 20 2014, @10:53PM
That's a stupid idea. I wouldn't want to be on ANY site that literally tags each piece of user generated content with a modifier that defines the theme of the content. What's next after that? Tagging them FUNNY because I don't know what to laugh at? And after that? INSIGHTFUL because I can't make up my own mind when to be enlightened? INFORMATIVE because I don't know when I'm being educated? Fuck, I bet they'd even try to tell me how much of that emotion I should feel, on a scale of, like, 1 to 5.
Great, so first I have to rely on one group of random assholes to tell me how to interpret the content, and now you're saying we're going to need a SECOND group of assholes whose job is to moderate the first group of assholes in some sort of meta fashion?
Your idea is fucking stupid and would never, EVER work.
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @04:08AM
I don't use facebook.
Can you tag your own posts with [satire] in the same way facebook's experimental tags look?
If so, best thing to do is to tag everything satire.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 20 2014, @04:33AM
All of your WILDEST dreams will come true!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 20 2014, @05:49AM
Napoleon Dynamite Rules! But this is something that could never go viral, because in spite of it being satire, it is an accurate representation of life in Idaho. No satire, much truth. Vote for Pedro! Or a Liger might get you. Just saying.
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Wednesday August 20 2014, @04:37AM
Ironically, the article was not meant to be satire.
(At least, that's my headcannon.)
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 20 2014, @04:58AM
At press time, someone had reportedly fixed everything for the goddamn imbecile.
Yes, definitely not satire. Evidently we need a "literally" tag, and a "not quite serious" and a "crowbar upside your head" tag. Again, see Weird Al Yankovic's parody of Blurred Lined by the Justine Timberlate wannabe, entitled "Word Crimes". Well worth the youtube time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Wednesday August 20 2014, @05:23AM
For the terminally lazy, aristarchus means this song [youtube.com]. Probably my favourite from the new album, followed by Foil [youtube.com].
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:24AM
Marand! You are silly, since the terminally lazy, since they are using a terminal, could not view the video, unless they are using terminology (which is so cool), so the warning is obselensant, but the link is much appreciated, for that lazy that are terminal. Weird Al Rules! All the way back to the Polka days! Listen up!
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday August 20 2014, @03:53PM
Now I just need some kind of quantum observation device so I can start tagging every post with "literally" and see English majors' heads asplode.
#literally #sarcasm #satire #algore
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:26PM
Yes, definitely not satire. Evidently we need a "literally" tag, and a "not quite serious" and a "crowbar upside your head" tag.
And the "Literally" tag will be used to identify figurative statements.
I'm starting to get confused already... Is this Satire?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:27AM
Lemme guess.
Was it meant as reporting on the status of "No kid left behind" in US public schools? (which, long term, translates into "No kid should learn faster than the lowest imbecile" [wikipedia.org])
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:43PM
Something similar happens in schools that adhere to the "equality" principle. Everyone should be equally stupid..
West is founded on individualism. In particular that individuals have the right and opportunity to go for higher ambitions than others if they so want to. Or their parents.
(Score: 1) by sjwt on Wednesday August 20 2014, @06:09AM
And yet we get the same old BS posted every day by AntiVaxers and Homeopathic nut jobs.. can we get a [TOTALBULLSHIT] tag too?
I wont even complain when it tags my posts by accident.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 20 2014, @10:44AM
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Wednesday August 20 2014, @12:18PM
Looking at that Onion page, looks like they could use a [Satire] tag of their own to help pick out any actual Onion articles lurking amongst the sponsored '10 weird things you really don't want to know' links.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:50PM
This is just an indication of what and cesspool of imbeciles Facebook really is. The people that went from AOL me-too eternal September should perhaps not be allowed onto the Internet at all. Of course intelligent life can be found on FB, but their presence ain't the one that runs the show.
Besides given that FB will feed all your stuff to the state. It says something about their users willingness to pay attention.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday August 20 2014, @04:00PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday August 20 2014, @05:28PM
The site is structured in a way that encourage imbecilic behaviour. The barrier to use the service is too low thus it will be full of people that is just noise. It's based on "friends" rather than on what people say etc. Just the way when it's more important who says than what they say.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday August 20 2014, @05:57PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Interesting) by forsythe on Wednesday August 20 2014, @01:54PM
If anyone has doubt that Facebook users would take the Onion seriously (or if anyone just wants a few laughs), I offer a link to Literally Unbelievable [literallyunbelievable.org].
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Wednesday August 20 2014, @02:46PM
I came in here to point out that site, but you beat me to it. When OP says
the answer is neither; people simply are just that dumb. And Literally Unbelievable proves it.