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Seth Dillon, CEO of the wildly popular Babylon Bee satire site, announced on Twitter Thursday that the company’s lawyers have sent a letter to the New York Times accusing the paper of defamation and demanding the retraction of an article calling the Bee a “far-right misinformation site” that “sometimes trafficked in misinformation under the guise of satire.”
The New York Times article in question, published in March, describes how Facebook content moderators struggle to know how to handle satire. Mike Isaac, who penned the piece, apparently consulted his thesaurus and found some nifty pejoratives to describe the Bee. (New York Times screenshot) Dillon pushed back against the description in a Twitter thread on March 21: Here’s the section of the article where they quote Emerson T. Brooking making this claim. Booking is described as “a resident fellow for the Atlantic Council who studies digital platforms.” pic.twitter.com/GsDOayh7uJ — Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) March 21, 2021 Adam Ford, founder of the Babylon Bee, called out Isaac personally: Hey @MikeIsaac , I trust you’ll be fixing this today https://t.co/Yaz1A3w4xQ — Adam Ford (@Adam4d) March 22, 2021 Dillon pointed out that “No other examples of far-right misinformation sites are offered. The Babylon Bee is the only one cited in this piece.”
“Notably, the words ‘trafficked in misinformation’ are hyperlinked, presumably a supportive source,” Dillon continued. “But the link they point to is another NY Times piece that actually refutes—rather than supports—the claim being made here by accurately describing us as a legitimate satire site.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a legal term for what’s happening here,” he declared. “Incredibly, the NY Times is publishing deceptive disinformation for the purpose of leading people to falsely believe that we are a source of it.”
Upon receipt of the demand letter, the Times added an update to the original article, which Ford described (rather generously, if you ask me) as “piping hot liquid garbage” at Not the Bee . (Screenshot New York Times) Isaac, apparently quite proud of himself, tweeted at both Dillon and Ford, announcing the “update.” @Adam4d Hey Seth and Adam, Flagging you both to note that the piece […]
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