U.S. Capitol Police Investigating Onion Twitter Joke

[meegbear]

The Onion botched a joke about congressmen taking children hostage this morning on Twitter. Now, the U.S. Capitol police are investigating the joke. Everyone chill out!

Today, The Onion tweeted: "BREAKING: Witnesses reporting screams and gunfire heard inside Capitol building."

This, by itself, was not funny at all and many people, including me, believed the account might have been hacked. Either way, no big deal: It's still fake! The Onion followed up a minute or two later with: "BREAKING: Capitol building being evacuated. 12 children held hostage by group of armed congressmen." This made it clear the tweets were related to a story on the Onion's website "Congress Takes Group of Schoolchildren Hostage," satirizing the budget fight—an article about as offensive as anything on the Onion any day.

Still, Twitter was outraged. More than that, the US Capitol Police sent out an email to counter the reports: "There is no credibility to these stories or the twitter feeds," the press release reads. "The U.S. Capitol Police are currently investigating the reporting." So, looks like a bad Twitter joke by a fake newspaper has led to a Capitol Police investigation? It's like something from the Onion! yuk yuk. Here's hoping the Onion gets cleared quickly.

<snip>

http://gawker.com/5845093/us-capitol-police-investigating-onion-twitter-joke

[Jackpine Radical]

1. That was a classic example of

piss-poor judgment.

[Enrique]

2. not funny at all?

i beg to disagree. :rofl:

[Ikonoklast]

3. Less than smart thing to do.

Many people have no clue what The Onion is or does, and take what they read from them at face value.

[Xithras]

8. Those people are stupid and should be ignored.

Why in the world would anyone follow The Onion on Twitter without knowing who they are or what they do?

[Ruby the Liberal]

10. And the Capitol Police giving it creedence

only adds fuel to what was a non-fire for these types.

[Goblinmonger]

13. Why would they follow The Onion on twitter then? n/t

[snooper2]

17. They will be okay in the morning...

They'll wake up and forget all about it :P

[KansDem]

4. Well, at least it was a "bipartisan group of hostage takers."

And that's what really counts in DC these days...

[RZM]

5. It's not a big deal, but it's also in poor taste

I love the onion and I really love it when they aren't afraid to piss a few people off. But when you're talking about killing children, it's a little over the top. This is especially bad given its (probably unintentional) similarities to the Beslan hostage situation in Russia in 2004. That was a very sad event.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. The Onion specializes in poor taste -

and I think it is fucking hilarious.

[Goblinmonger]

14. Yeah, just like "A Modest Proposal."

That Swift fucker was a hack.

[qb]

6. Kudos to the Onion for drawing attention to the sociopaths in congress.

Who follows Onion tweets without knowing they're satire?

[canoeist52]

7. Although there is SOME truth to the story...

Republicans ARE holding future generations, the elderly, the poor and disabled hostage to get billions for the banks.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[eppur_se_muova]

12. Now, how could anyone tell that a $12 TRILLION ransom demand was not serious ??

If only there had been some kind of clue ...

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. Because the Wall Street and the Banksters do it all the time

and the govt pays the ransom.

The capital police just read the news.....LOL

[ellie]

15. Bwahahahaha!

I love the Onion! I didn't know about their Twitter feed. Now I am a follower.

[hootinholler]

18. Personally I hope charges are filed

So the courts can smack down the capitol police. They need to be smacked down for being stoopud enough to not know The Onion is satire.

Think about this for a minute.

It means that no one in the capitol PD of a high enough rank to be authorized to do a press release understands satire or the first amendment and can't identify a fake newspaper that is famous for poking congress! Even if they haven't heard of the Onion, the 'investigation' should take all of 3 minutes by looking at Onion.com, and the press release should be: Oh for fuck's sake, it's from the Onion.

:rofl:

This reaction brings it to a whole new level of hilarity in a sad kind of way.

-Hoot

[uppityperson]

19. Seriously. k&r for The Onion. If you don't understand satire, you shouldn't be reading it

or following its tweets. Too funny.

[tritsofme]

20. Didn't Orson Welles teach us anything?

How far we've come since 1938!