To be fair, I would not be surprised if people used this satire as evidence for their hatred of CNN. Perhaps even missing the fact it was satire at all.
There's a reason /r/nottheonion exists...
There's a reason /r/nottheonion exists...
Many actors have stories about meeting people who don't understand the difference between the actor and the character the actor plays. It happens all the time.
Nonetheless, we don't usually have "fact checkers" explaining to us that Kermit the Frog doesn't exist, nor do we generally have Facebook threatening a site because they've posted one of those popular "Kermit the Frog drinking tea" memes, and the "fact checkers" have pointed out that Kermit isn't a real frog, and that even real frogs generally don't drink tea.
This whole situation is ludicrous. The shill at snopes who wrote and published that is beyond the outer limit. I can believe that it was a mistake at Facebook, but it's got a lot of agenda looks to it.
I am willing to bet a significant percentage of our population is truly incapable of critical thought, and not equipped to deal with the information age.