Satire news story causes a stir among Facebook users

CEBU, Philippines – Recently, a parody news story posted by the satire news website National Report (www.nationalreport.net) caused a stir among Facebook users by running the headline: "Facebook to Begin Charging Users $2.99/mo Starting November 1st."

Posted by the site's "Darius Rubics," a number of netizens failed to recognize the "satire news" nature of the site - taking the story at full face value, leading to the quick circulation of the "news" in social media threads.

Though the satire news character of the website was eventually became clear to those who thought it was a legitimate news outfit (via responses to social media feeds that shared the story), it's worth noting that this "incident" is not the first time when a story published by a parody or satire news organization was mistaken to be true.

A couple of years back, Weekly World News - the online publication notorious for its take on alien abduction stories and Bigfoot and Elvis sightings - ran a "news story" about Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg deciding to pull off the plug of his creation. With Facebook still up and about, the story, obviously, was not true.

Like the National Report's published story about Facebook's implementation of a subscription-based scheme, those who knew about the satire-news nature of the site had to explain what a satire or parody site is to clarify matters.

All in all, the incident said a lot about how netizens should be wary when it comes to what they read online.