I cheered when Mark Zuckerberg fired Meta’s fact-checkers. To hell with verifiable information. Bring on the unfettered whack-a-doodle-ry!
If I wanted hard news, I wouldn’t be on social media. I’d go to one of the few legacy media outlets that still exist, read a few lines, and get cut off by their paywall.
And I’m sorry, but reality isn’t just depressing, it’s dull. If we’re going to collectively leap off a cliff, let me spend what little time I have left gobbling up stories about how octopuses are from space, Wallace Shawn’s been cast as the new Superman, and Alaska’s actual size is eighteen square feet.
So sayonara to the chains that have shackled us to facts for the last fifteen years. I’ve already noticed a difference, with today’s feed informing me that:
- I can lose weight by investing in crypto
- Vaccines are bad because needles are hurty
- Jonas Salk’s legacy has collapsed in the wake of allegations that he was a mediocre cribbage player
- Cauliflower’s health benefits are negated by the fact that it’s disgusting
- The secret to regrowing hair lies in paying compliments to the scalp
- Actor Dennis Farina had a whole other career as an app developer
- Senate debates will now be settled with cake fights
- Next season, the NFL will replace helmets with berets
- People who take nonsense at face value have been proven to be more intelligent
- Astronomers have discovered the Fabric of the Universe has a distinct peach scent
- English is the only real language, all those others are just brown people talking gibberish
- An early demo of Leonard Cohen’s song So Long, Marianne contains multiple references to the subject’s “gash”
- Gravity is a fiction created by Big Kite
- The Sun’s going to run out of fuel in 2027 and be replaced by a large candle
- In addition to delivering presents and eating cookies, Santa Claus jerks off your husband
- We all actually died two years ago
- Meta’s claims to have eliminated fact-checking can’t be verified
Now hold on. That last one’s a stumper.
What if Meta’s still fact-checking everything, and just wants us to think they aren’t? How am I supposed to trust the stuff friends, bots, and Russian trolls post if it might be grounded in reality?
If I don’t have a steady stream of batshit balderdash pouring into my brain all day every day, how am I supposed to achieve my dream of becoming a bro-dude podcaster?
