As media plays more and more of an important role in today’s society, it can be hard to filter out Fake News. Fake news is commonly understood to be something that can be harmful for a community, as fake news typically follows an agenda that hopes to prey on unsuspecting people. However, The Onion is a site that consistently publishes fake news, but in a way that isn’t inherently terrible or believable. This is because their posts are satirical, which means that they are simply created to poke fun at the audience. Their posts do not have any ulterior motives and the website is commonly known by people who frequently use the internet to be fake.
For example, The Onion has posted articles with headlines such as “Instagram Assures Parents They’ve Hired Dozens of Pedophiles to Find Vulnerabilities in App” and “Scientists Speculate Universe May be Simulation After ‘Trial Version Expired’ Appears Across Sky,” which are obvious to most readers to be jokes. Even if these posts were to be taken out of context, all one would have to do is find the original publisher and then they would realize that the article is not real. Additionally, if these headlines were real, then there would be more media coverage on them. Instagram admitting to hiring pedophiles would deal a huge blow to their company, especially because that would imply that they hired these employees specifically because they are pedophiles. A confession like that would most likely make international headlines, due to how popular Instagram is worldwide.
As for the other article, the end of it states that “a team of leading cosmologists… successfully renewed the free trial period for another 14 billion years by simply signing up again with a different email address,” which is very satirical. This pokes fun at streaming services offer free trials, and how so many people take advantage of them with the creation of a new account with a different email address. Plus, if a message had truly appeared across the sky, there would also be widespread coverage over it. While The Onion does post Fake News, they do it in a way that does not harm anyone specifically, and without an obvious agenda. This proves that satirical media can be acceptable, though there is always the possibility of going too far.
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