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The New York Post recently published a story on the emails of former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, and his former employment with the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, but the story and the circumstances through which the emails were obtained give reason for skepticism.
Because of that—and because the emails featured in the story show contact information for multiple people—Twitter limited the ability of its users to share the piece.
Republicans, including President Donald Trump, leapt at the opportunity to accuse the social media outlet of bias against conservatives.
Then, on Thursday, Twitter experienced a widespread outage that kept most users from tweeting at all for hours.
Once it was restored, the President shared an article from the right-leaning satirical website Babylon Bee, which joked that Twitter had shut down completely in order to keep users from sharing the Hunter Biden story.
The President didn't realize it was satire.
Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network To Slow Spread Of Negative Biden News https://t.co/JPmjOrKPcr via @TheBabylonBee Wow, this has never been done in history. This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2020
It wasn't long before Babylon Bee reshared an article from 2018, joking that Trump had declared its site as his "most-trusted news source."
President Trump Declares The Babylon Bee His Most-Trusted News Source https://t.co/oObdxaH3w6
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 16, 2020
The article jokingly quotes Trump saying:
"Everyone knows I really like Fox & Friends, but look, The Babylon Bee is the absolute best. They're tremendous—nobody else even comes close to the quality and truth in their reporting. I read the Bee every day because I always know that what I'm reading is 100% accurate."
People couldn't help but laugh at the site's trolling and that Trump made the two year old article truer by taking the Bee's satire as fact.
Well played. https://t.co/eqju66ThBv
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) October 16, 2020
I thought you guys would get there someday. Never thought it would be this soon. https://t.co/7pLNONNqA0
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) October 16, 2020
This is great. https://t.co/J9llWghBgc
— Travis Akers (@travisakers) October 16, 2020
Fake President retweets satirical news source https://t.co/x50WV6Jdfd
— Derek 'Vote Early' Cressman (@DerekCressman) October 16, 2020
You know its bad when the Babylon Bee is telling the President that they don't publish real news. https://t.co/iYgEH37Dzz
— Conor James Kelly (@Cjkelly35) October 16, 2020
It's official. This marks the moment where real life is now a parody https://t.co/WMr6Yyyppc
— Daniel Buck (@MrDanielBuck) October 16, 2020
But the Bee wasn't the only one to mock Trump for sharing the article.
Not sure what's more telling here, that the president took a satirical site's joke as a fact, or that hours later no one on his staff has apparently told him he should take it down. https://t.co/arx79ajwJ3
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 16, 2020
The president just retweeted a parody story thinking it's real. Literally every day is like a mini-episode of Idiocracy. But the thing is, he has the nuclear codes. https://t.co/zWe0kSblKz
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 16, 2020
oh my God he thought this was real https://t.co/8RJjUe7tZn
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 16, 2020
As the President would say: fake news.