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Comment by cpncrunch | Hacker News Reader

>even if his Facebook page was obviously a parody.

Here is the page in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8h4PIC4HhI

It had the police department logo, with no mention that it was a parody. The post said people would be arrested if they went outside at certain times.

I would like to think that most people would question and fact check clearly weird shit like this. But, as we now know, the vast majority of people do not fact check. They take dumb shit like this at face value, hook line and sinker.

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Read the brief filed by The Onion. It is hilarious, but also a masterwork in arguing that parody only works by initially fooling people into believing it is real, which is illustrated by its own parodies of a legal brief. People have been trying to sue parody creators for not including a disclaimer since before the US existed, see Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. They cite ample precedents that US courts have consistently held that disclaimers are not needed to distinguish parody from sincere libel/slander for a "reasonable person," who precedent holds is not the average person or a "lowest-common denominator, but of reasonable intelligence and learning."

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-293/242292/2022...

Relevant TAL episode prologue:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/775/the-possum-experiment

Lady puts up "Cat Found" posters around her L.A. neighborhood with pictures of a possum, as a stunt:

https://hw4.thisamericanlife.org/sites/default/files/styles/...

Her voice mail explodes with callers from all over the country after the poster gets shared online. Hundreds of calls. She gets three types of messages, which she catalogued:

1. Those who didn't realize it was a joke or weren't sure and called to politely let her know she had found a possum, not a cat. About 70% of callers.

2. Those who realized it was obviously a joke and called to tell her she had found their cat. About 20% of callers.

3. Those who didn't realize it was a joke and called to tell her how dumb she was. She got some really mean messages. About 10% of callers.

I was dubious at first - but you are correct - even technically correct.

Worth reading - or at least scanning - to understand both the seriousness of their filing and their parody of it in all seriousness.

>They cite ample precedents that US courts have consistently held that disclaimers are not needed to distinguish parody from sincere libel/slander for a "reasonable person," who precedent holds is not the average person or a "lowest-common denominator, but of reasonable intelligence and learning."

This wasn't about slander though. It was about the 10 x unnecessary 911 calls caused by the page. He also didn't help himself by deleting all comments saying the page was fake, and posting a warning on his page when the police posted a warning about his fake page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novak_v._City_of_Parma

> It was about the 10 x unnecessary 911 calls caused by the page.

That's a problem to address by telling those people not to make frivolous 911 calls.

yeah, "your website is offensive" definitely falls under the purview of 311

Is there really no way to allow this other than a giant website banner that says "THIS IS A PARODY"? For goodness' sake the page was even posting images of bacon referring to old and well know pig/police jokes...

Even though they were arrested by the police, the site was considered a parody by court and he was acquitted. The case in question is about whether the police was liable for wrongly arresting him, which the court found they are not

Thank you that is an important clarification. To me the line between legality of the page and practical outcome seems like a distinction that's getting greyer. If I can be arrested and held in jail for four days with impunity, that's enough to scare me from criticizing the police, even if I am confident I might ultimately prevail in court.

Criticising the police is unlikely to get you in jail. Theoretically he was arrested for impersonating the police, which is a crime. It's just that when it's a clear parody, then it's not illegal. That is a bit nuanced, though. And you can see how some officer may get that wrong. By the way, now that this has been tried, it's extremely unlikely you will be arrested or investigating for creating a parody page in Facebook. At this point, they would lose in court if sued for wrongly arresting someone that did this exact same thing.

Anyway, if you do things that are in the boundaries of the law, you shouldn't be surprised if you get arrested.

> It had the police department logo, with no mention that it was a parody.

Doesn't matter.

> But, as we now know, the vast majority of people do not fact check. They take dumb shit like this at face value, hook line and sinker.

Doesn't matter.

>> It had the police department logo > Doesn't matter.

Uh, actually, if nothing else --- this should definitely matter.

>> But, as we now know, the vast majority of people do not fact check. They take dumb shit like this at face value, hook line and sinker. > Doesn't matter.

So the consequences of one's actions, don't matter?

> So the consequences of one's actions, don't matter?

For the purposes of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, this is broadly correct.

Sure. Context matters here. The person I was responding to, gave literally none outside a few snippets of the parent.

The context I was following down from the top was (mainly) "obvious parody".

> Uh, actually, if nothing else --- this should definitely matter.

No. It doesn’t. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yes_Men exploits for plenty of examples, like https://theyesmen.org/project/snowcones

It is legal to parodize your local police department if you live in the US. (You would get in trouble if you tried to make parody traffic stops with a parody police car with parody flashing lights, but that’s very different than a Facebook page.)

> So the consequences of one's actions, don't matter?

The government may not punish legally protected First Amendment speech - which parody absolutely is.

Your boss can fire you for it, though.

You can't be punished for parody or speech itself, but you can be punished if you break any laws by publishing that speech. I don't see any laws broken by the Yes men example.

It is reasonable for the police to believe that the law was broken in this case, due to the 911 calls and similar disruption that could reasonably be expected to happen in this case, and the judges agreed, which is why his legal bid to sue the police failed.

If the community you police cannot tell that a facebook post talking about minorities needing to pass a special test to join the force is parody, then that should tell you how horrifically bad your police department is.

It tells you at most what public perception is, whether it aligns with reality, or not.

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