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  1. Dec 2016
    1. But 2016 was also marked—besieged, even—by Poe’s law, a decade-old internet adage articulated by Nathan Poe, a commentator on a creationism discussion thread. Building on the observation that “real” creationists posting to the forum were often difficult to parse from those posing as creationists, Poe’s law stipulates that online, sincere expressions of extremism are often indistinguishable from satirical expressions of extremism.

      Poe's law states that on the internet satirical expressions of extremism are not distinguishable from real expressions of extremism. A good example of this is how fake news (hoaxes) led to fake news (disinformation).

      Poe's Law is also why categorizing disinformation as disinfomation is hard. We actually don't know the intent. We just know it is not true, manufactured out of whole cloth.