Poe's law

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Poe's Law (English Poe's law ) describes a phenomenon in the world of network-based communication . It says that it is not possible to parody a politically or religiously extremist statement in such a way that the parody is clearly recognizable as such, unless this is explicitly indicated by a smiley or similar. identifies. Without such indicators of humor or irony , the author of the parody, despite all the exaggerations it contains, cannot prevent his statement from being misunderstood as literal and serious. Similar to the " Usenet laws" (see, inter alia, Godwin's law ), Poe's law is not a strictly valid scientific law, but rather a rule of thumb that itself has a certain ironic connotation .

history

This rule was originally formulated in 2005. It was posted on the christianforums.org internet forum on August 10th by an unknown user who called himself "Nathan Poe" and read:

"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly [sic] impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake [it] for the genuine article."

"Without a winking smiley face or some other overt display of humor, it's absolutely impossible to parody a creationist in such a way that no one will think it's a real contribution."

- Nathan Poe

While the comment appeared in a debate about creationism, it can also be carried over to other more marginal topics and beliefs. A similar observation was made in 1983 by Jerry Schwarz in an article on Usenet :

“Avoid sarcasm and facetious remarks.

Without the voice inflection and body language of personal communication these are easily misinterpreted. A sideways smile, :-), has become widely accepted on the net as an indication that 'I'm only kidding'. If you submit a satiric item without this symbol, no matter how obvious the satire is to you, do not be surprised if people take it seriously. "

“Avoid sarcasm and joking remarks.

Without the emphasis and body language of personal communication, it can easily be misinterpreted. A sideways smile, :-), has largely established itself on the internet as a label for 'I'm just kidding'. If you publish a satirical post without this symbol, no matter how obvious the satire is to you, don't be surprised if people take it seriously. "

- Jerry Black

reception

In 2009, The Telegraph put Poe's law in second place in the top ten Internet rules and laws, after Godwin's law and ahead of Rule 34 . In 2017, the US tech magazine Wired Poe named the law the most important internet phenomenon of the year. In the meantime, representatives of the New Right and Alt-Right movement in particular abuse it as an excuse for breaking taboos via social media , stating that the relevant contribution was meant ironically and was misunderstood. Poe's law also applies to more and more online interactions, since in 2017 the social networks are no longer delimited according to interests and, for example, in retweets, the context of an ironic statement can be completely unclear to many addressees.

Similarly, Poe's law is used to explain the misclassification of satirical external web content shared via hyperlinks on social media . In social networks, the relationship between the sharing user and his addressees (“followers”, “friends”) is of great importance for how linked web content is perceived. For example, the content of the well-known American news satire The Onion was shared on Facebook via a link on Facebook by a Republican US Congressman, assuming that it was serious news about the abortion-advocate organization Planned Parenthood , and therefore also shared by a large number of his " Friends ”has been recorded as true information. Satire can thus involuntarily mutate into fake news . A similar effect occurs when news parodies more or less decoupled from their satirical context confirm (politically more extreme) prejudices. For example, the Onion editors published a week to vote in 1998, after they posted a message under the headline Chinese gets seven -of-a- kind, that said the remaining six were babies of one in relation to China's one-child policy She was thrown down mountain peaks, received numerous emails telling her that deeply sad churchgoers were holding prayer vigils for the babies.

In a scholarly article published in 2009, the American philosopher Scott F. Aikin presented further variants of Poe's law. For every website that parodies religious extremism, there is at least one website with identical but seriously represented content. It is therefore impossible for a visitor to distinguish a satirical website from a serious website based on its appearance, unless the satirical website makes its nature obvious. As a result, not only would parodies not be recognized as such, but serious content would also be considered satire. As an example of the latter, Aikin cited the Christian fundamentalist website ObjectiveMinistries.org , which had launched a school competition in 2001 on the subject of " Creation Science " (German: "Schöpfungs-Wissenschaft"). Because of the titles of the competition entries that were among the winners (including my uncle is a man named Steve (not a monkey) , Pokemon Proves Evolution Is Wrong and Microevolutionary Creation of Latent Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria through Prayer ), ObjectiveMinistries.org who, according to their own statements, have committed themselves to combating the mockery of Jesus Christ on the Internet and are particularly campaigning for the shutdown of the religious satirical website Landover Baptist Church , considered an offshoot of Landover Baptist Church.

See also

literature

  • Scott F. Aikin: Poe's Law, group polarization, and argumentative failure in religious and political discourse . In: Social Semiotics . tape 23 , no. 3 , 2013, p. 301-317 , doi : 10.1080 / 10350330.2012.719728 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Scott F. Aikin: Poe's Law, Group Polarization, and the Epistemology of Online Religious Discourse . In: Social Science Research Network . January 23, 2009. doi : 10.2139 / ssrn.1332169 .
  2. ↑ a b Tom Chivers: Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe . In: The Daily Telegraph , October 23, 2009  .: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."
  3. ↑ a b Emma Gray Ellis: Can't Take a Joke? That's Just Poe's Law, 2017's Most Important Internet Phenomenon. In: Wired. May 6, 2017, accessed July 13, 2018 .
  4. ^ Nathan Poe: Big contradictions in the evolution theory, page 3. In: christianforums.com. August 10, 2005, archived from the original on January 14, 2017 ; accessed on July 7, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Emily Post for Usenet. net.announce, November 1, 1983, accessed July 7, 2018 .
  6. Jump up ↑ Ian Brodie: Pretend News, False News, Fake News: The Onion as Put-On, Prank, and Legend. In: Journal of American Folklore. Volume 131, No. 522, 2018, pp. 451-459, Project MUSE , pp. 454 ff.
  7. ↑ "For this reason, this website was created to try and stop one of the more vile and dangerous misuses of the Internet: using it to mock Our Lord Jesus Christ, His teachings, and His followers." Objective: Landover Baptist Shutdown. In: ObjectiveMinistries.org. Retrieved July 16, 2018 .