Читать книгу Keeping the Republic - Christine Barbour - Страница 144

Of all the forms of expression, obscenity has probably presented the Court with its biggest headaches. In attempting to define it in 1964, Justice Potter Stewart could only conclude, “I know it when I see it.”⁴² The Court has used a variety of tests for determining whether material is obscene, but until the early 1970s, only the most hard-core pornography was regulated.

Don’t Be Fooled by . . . Parody News Sites

The First Amendment is an essential tool for keeping the republic. Americans who wish to speak truth to power are protected—whether they do it in a pamphlet, online, in a song, or on a stage. But what happens when they employ made-up facts or exaggerations as a vehicle to speak truth to power? That is: when a story is fabricated around what seems like a grain of truth, stretched to its absurd limits to make a political point? That’s the nature of satire, a form of writing, art, or drama that uses irony, exaggeration, and humor to shed light on specific—and often political—issues.

It can be tricky telling stories that seem like they could be true, because it can be remarkably easy to fool people into thinking they are true. Consider the web site Daily Currant, which during the Obama administration posted fake news stories with no punchlines or discernible humor to be found. It presented completely false headlines (for example, “Obama Nominates Abortion Doctor to Replace Scalia on the Supreme Court” or “Donald Trump: ‘I Have the Greatest Toenails in the History of Mankind’”) that at some level seem reasonable to at least some readers. Although most folks get the joke, at least a few will invariably click, like, or share, believing the story to be true.¹

If you’ve been fooled by a Daily Currant piece, don’t feel bad: it’s also happened to reporters at the New York Times and the Washington Post.² In a warning to his own staff, one editor described the Currant’s stories as “semi-believable political wish-fulfillment articles distinguished by a commitment to a complete absence of what most people would recognize as ‘jokes.’”³