April Fool’s VS Journalists
Real News about Fake News³ regarding Fake News which was actually Fake Fake News masquerading as mere Fake News¹ which was actually Real News
I can’t believe I just wrote that subtitle.
I came across an interesting article today regarding an April Fool’s prank played by the popular messaging app, Discord. There had been rumors recently that Microsoft is trying to acquire Discord. Bloomberg and the WSJ had reported on this story and claim that the deal is currently being negotiated.
Today, on April Fool’s, a video was circulating that appeared to be from the official Discord YouTube channel. The video’s thumbnail contained the Microsoft logo, and the tagline was “Announcing Partnership With Microsoft.” Upon clicking, it becomes obvious that the video is in fact a “rickroll” prank.
This in turn apparently lead Eric Abent of technology blog SlashGear to write up a lengthy article on the subject. Abent claimed in his headline that “Discord just trolled everyone who’s worried about a Microsoft takeover,” apparently believing the prank to have been done by Discord. Abent links the video in his article.
Abent is referring to fears many Discord users have that the Microsoft acquisition will harm the app. Microsoft does not have a stellar track record with communication apps, with many pointing to Skype’s declining popularity as an example.
As of a few hours ago, an already interesting April Fool’s prank got even more interesting. The prank video, visible in the screenshot, has been pulled from YouTube due to a Trademark claim by a third party affecting the entire channel. It would seem that not only was the video a fake, but the whole channel was a fake. It was not the actual Discord YouTube channel, but a troll-created imitation.
The imitation was apparently good enough that Abent was fooled into writing an entire article on it, assuming that it was Discord themselves doing the trolling. HOWEVER, Abent was instead a victim of fake news, and it wasn’t just ordinary fake news. It was fake fake news.
Abent ends his article by saying that Discord pulling a prank like this can only lead one to conclude that the rumors of a Microsoft acquisition are false.
It ends up, that in writing an article about fake news, the only fake news ended up being Abent’s reassurance that Discord isn’t selling to Microsoft, because the prank was not actually done by Discord, and thus, the WSJ’s article should be assumed to be accurate. Abent was trolled by fake fake news (Fake News²) into writing an article about a Fake News¹ prank, making Abent’s article fake fake fake news, or Fake News³.
SlashGear has since deleted Abent’s article, visiting the article page now gives a 404 error.
It’s too late, though! (Insert maniacal laugh here) Because another news aggregate site had already reposted the article! Albeit in a weirdly edited form seemingly put through some sort of bizarre thesaurus program to avoid direct plagiarism. You can read the edited article here. I also archived the edited version in case that gets deleted here, and archived the search containing the headline here. I unfortunately was not quick enough to archive the original article.
Unless this ENTIRE THING is a prank by Abent. Perhaps Abent wrote his Fake News³ article indeed knowing that the video was Fake News², as Abent’s own highly elaborate April Fool’s Prank⁴. The possibilities are endless and very exciting, as they push the boundaries of what is considered Fake News. Let us revel in the glories of multiple levels of poetic irony! This will go down in history as an article that smashed the glass ceiling of traditional Fake News, far surpassing anyone’s expectations for the medium and reaching new heights of Falsehood!
I hope you found this as amusing as I did. I thought it would be very entertaining if someone would write an article about how this guy wrote an article about a prank that turned out to be a fake prank that turned out to just be real news from the WSJ. So that’s exactly what I did :)
Happy April Fool’s!!!!!
