I wasn’t sure whether I was going to post the Snopes’ Field Guide to Fake News Sites and Hoax Purveyors since we just talked about fake news sites, but then I got to the part about The Stately Harold and I wanted to punch things. Specifically anyone who shares its content with intentions beyond maybe someone will think this is funny.
The Stately Harold shouldn’t be fooling anyone, given the deliberate misspelling in its name, a front page filled with articles by “feminist Cassidy Boon” about such hard-hitting topics as “Redefining beauty: Why cankles are hot!” and an introduction from the Chief Editor that states “Hi! My nme is Clive Pebble. I have Dyslexia but my drem evre sens I was a litl boy has ben to strat a newspapr. Nwo I have!!”
Nonetheless, now that social media users often never visit a site’s main page, the Stately Harold has since its November 2014 start managed to fool readers with fake news articles about Hillary Clinton’s wanting to ban beards, President Obama’s referring to Baltimore rioters as “black heroes,” a 9-year-old boy’s being suspended from school for saying that he “didn’t like Obama,” and President Obama’s pardoning Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The Stately Harold unhelpfully identifies itself as a “satire” site in a manner that is deliberately difficult for readers to find, requiring them to highlight the solid black background of a page footer to disclose the site’s “satire” tag.
Jesus Christ, people. You should not need a clear satire tag here. some sixth grade reading comprehension might be helpful, though.