Michele Bachmann, the Congresswoman from Minnesota, was not arrested for driving under the influence of marijuana, as one satire website is claiming.
A number of people shared and retweeted the fake report, from the webite Newslo.com.
“Michele Bachmann, Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, was arrested early Tuesday morning in Fort Collins, Colorado for driving under the influence of a controlled substance. After reportedly running a red light and failing multiple sobriety tests, Bachmann was taken into custody and booked at the Fort Collins jail,” it reads.
According to the website’s disclaimer, it is the “first hybrid News/Satire platform on the web. Readers come to us for a unique brand of entertainment and information that is enhanced by features like our fact-button, which allows readers to find what is fact and what is satire.”
But some people weren’t impressed with the satire.
“This was a sponsored post in my Facebook feed. Please, please, please...no more bad imitations of The Onion,” wrote Steve Penhollow on Facebook, referring to satire publication The Onion.
“The reason people get confused by these posts is, the people writing them don’t know how to write them. They think it’s funny just to claim Bachmann smoked pot. Satire requires more work than that -- more subtlety, more perceptiveness, more layering. Go read some Swift, some Mencken, more Twain, and the first five years of National Lampoon magazine and then try again,” he wrote.
Other users said the article wasn’t funny.
“I hope you get sued for slander, and stupidity,” added another.
This week, another satire website the Daily Currant claiming 37 people died of “marijuana overdoses” generated more than 1.4 million “likes” and shares on Facebook, with many believing it was real.
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