Tag: satire

Germany’s War on Satire: AfD MP Fined €11,250 for Meme While Leftist Magazine Is Celebrated After It Depicts Trump Giving Hitler Salute

Germany is no longer a democracy — it’s a warning. A German court has just fined AfD lawmaker Petr Bystron €11,250 for sharing a satirical meme online, while the country’s liberal establishment laughs as one of its biggest magazines once showed President Donald Trump giving the Hitler salute on its cover with the headline “Sein Kampf” (“His Struggle”).

That cover made international headlines in 2017. No prosecutor, no police, no criminal charge. It was called “art.”

But when Bystron — a conservative member of parliament — posted a meme mocking Ukraine’s former ambassador Andrij Melnyk, who had publicly defended a Nazi collaborator, the German justice system came crashing down on him.

Mock a Nazi Apologist? Get Convicted in Germany.

The meme, published in July 2022, showed German politicians “waving goodbye” to Melnyk after his recall from Berlin. Prosecutors said the waves looked like “Hitler salutes.” You can’t make this up.

Bystron’s real “crime”? Daring to expose hypocrisy in a system that protects globalists and punishes dissent.

Melnyk, the Ukrainian diplomat at the center of it all, had told a German interviewer that Stepan Bandera, a Nazi collaborator responsible for mass killings of Jews and Poles, was “no mass murderer.” That statement caused outrage in Poland and Israel — but in Germany’s woke establishment? Nothing. Melnyk stayed a hero. He was later promoted by Volodymyr Zelensky to Deputy Foreign Minister.

Bystron mocked that insanity — and Germany called him the extremist.

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Mexico Bill Proposes Prison for AI Memes Mocking Public Figures

Mexico’s Congress is once again at the center of a free speech storm.

This time, Deputy Armando Corona Arvizu from the ruling Morena party is proposing to make it a crime to create or share AI-generated memes or digital images that make fun of someone without their consent.

His initiative, filed in the Chamber of Deputies, sets out prison terms of three to six years and fines for anyone who “create, manipulate, transform, reproduce or disseminate images, videos, audios or digital representations” made with artificial intelligence for the purpose of “ridiculing, harassing, impersonating or damaging” a person’s “reputation or dignity.”

Read the bill here.

The punishment would increase by half if the person targeted is a public official, minor, or person with a disability, or if the content spreads widely online or causes personal, psychological, or professional harm.

The bill presents itself as protection against digital abuse but is, as always, a new attempt at censorship.

The initiative would insert Articles 211 Bis 8 and 211 Bis 9 into the Federal Penal Code, written in vague and sweeping terms that could cover almost any form of online expression.

It makes no distinction between a malicious deepfake and a harmless meme.

By criminalizing content intended to “ridicule,” the bill allows courts or public figures to decide what counts as ridicule. That opens the door to arbitrary enforcement.

There are no explicit protections for parody, satire, or public-interest criticism, all of which are essential to a free society.

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No, South Park, You Didn’t Need to Yank the Charlie Kirk Episode

Oh, c’mon, South Park. You didn’t need to do that. This current season featured an episode about Charlie Kirk and his activism, which was pretty funny, and it’s been pulled from rotation. Amy has more: 

According to the New York Post, the episode was quietly pulled and the network did not issue a statement, noting that “industry insiders” said the episode was “temporarily pulled” from rotation on Comedy Central. It is still available on Paramount+ with a subscription. 

The current season has been a bit Trump heavy, but the program has gone after everybody for years, from the hypocrisy surrounding hate crime legislation to steroid use in sports, political correctness, global warming, and other political figures; the program has tormented everyone. Also, Kirk loved the portrayal. He had a sense of humor, and conservatives can take a joke. 

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Senator Amy Klobuchar Can’t Take A Joke, Demands Censorship Law

Senator Amy Klobuchar has acknowledged what opponents of her legislation have been warning all along.

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, she confirmed that her proposed NO FAKES Act would be used to censor AI-generated parody.

Her target is a meme video that pokes fun at her reaction to an American Eagle jeans advertisement featuring actress Sydney Sweeney.

Rather than brush off the obvious satire, Klobuchar doubled down on the need to suppress it. “As anyone would, I wanted the video taken down or at least labeled ‘digitally altered content,’” she wrote.

She applauded TikTok for removing the clip, praised Meta for tagging it, and expressed frustration that X would not help her attach a Community Note.

This public complaint confirms that the NO FAKES Act, Senate Bill 1367, is not just about preventing identity theft or stopping fraud. Klobuchar is one of the bill’s lead authors, and she is openly calling for legal tools to remove content that ridicules her.

The bill gives individuals the right to sue over the creation or distribution of “unauthorized digital replicas.”

It also places heavy compliance burdens on platforms, which would face steep fines for failing to remove flagged content quickly or for not implementing policies to suspend repeat offenders.

While the bill claims to allow space for parody, satire, and documentaries, Klobuchar’s statements make it clear that those exemptions offer little practical protection.

The parody video in question shows an AI-generated version of Klobuchar speaking at a fake Senate hearing, ranting about Democrats needing more visibility in advertising. The fictional version of the senator says, “If Republicans are going to have beautiful girls with perfect titties…we want ugly, fat bitches wearing pink wigs and long-ass fake nails being loud and twerking on top of a cop car at a Waffle House ‘cause they didn’t get extra ketchup.”

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Democrats Can’t Take A Joke, So They’re Trying To Outlaw Free Speech

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., wants to make one thing perfectly clear: She has never said Sydney Sweeney has “perfect [breasts].” Nor has she accused her fellow Democrats of being “too fat to wear jeans or too ugly to go outside.”

The Minnesota leftist attempted to clear the air earlier this week in a New York Times opinion piece headlined, “Amy Klobuchar: What I Didn’t Say About Sydney Sweeney.” 

Klobuchar wrote that she is the victim of a hoax, a “realistic deepfake.” Some trickster apparently put together and pushed out an AI-generated video in which Klobuchar appears to make (hilariously) outrageous comments about Sweeney’s American Eagle jeans ad — after liberals charged that the commercial is racist and an endorsement of eugenics. 

‘Party of Ugly People’

The doctored Klobuchar appears to be speaking at a Senate committee hearing, She demands Democrats receive “representation.” Of course, the satirical video has gone viral. 

“If Republicans are going to have beautiful girls with perfect ti**ies” in their ads, we want ads for Democrats, too, you know?” the fake Klobuchar asserts in the vid. “We want ugly, fat bitches wearing pink wigs and long-ass fake nails being loud and twerking on top of a cop car at a Waffle House ‘cause they didn’t get extra ketchup.”

“Just because we’re the party of ugly people doesn’t mean we can’t be featured in ads, okay?” the AI Amy implores. “And I know most of us are too fat to wear jeans or too ugly to go outside, but we want representation.” 

She appears — and sounds — so sincere.  But Klobuchar wants you to know it certainly was not her saying such “vulgar and absurd” things. That’s why she’s urging Congress to pass laws to ban such AI videos, which would be as absurd as social justice warriors calling American Eagle white supremacists for paying a blue jeans-clad, beautiful actress to say she has great jeans. 

Any such law would certainly and rightly be challenged in court. 

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Mocking Elected Officials Is a Sign of a Healthy Democracy

There’s little question that President Donald Trump and his MAGA devotees can dish it out. Few things epitomize this populist movement more than its irreverence toward established institutions and its willingness to obliterate traditional standards of civility as it targets political enemies (and erstwhile friends during some internecine squabble). Trump’s social-media posts and statements are filled with invective and merciless mocking.

Trump’s schoolyard taunts rarely are sophisticated, as they frequently zero in on personal appearance. “He’s got the smallest neck I’ve ever seen. And the biggest head. We call him watermelon head. How can that big fat face stand on a neck that looked like this finger?” Trump said about Sen. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.). OK, I laughed when he called him “Adam Schifty Schiff,” but that’s only because it was so childishly stupid. That’s its appeal, I suppose.

One of Trump’s ugliest insults—dating to his first election—was when he mocked a disabled reporter by imitating his hand motions. The Wall Street Journal published a piece called, “The Art of the Insult.” We know this is how Trump operates. You can find hundreds of examples with a Google search or on his Truth Social account. Even the official White House account does this—when it’s not portraying Trump as a Kim Jong Un-style superhero.

It’s so very funny. Whenever anyone calls them out on this, Trump defenders act as if they are just so above it all. “Don’t you know the president is just trolling?” “Get a sense of humor.” “You must be suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).” Yadda, yadda. In full disclosure, I greatly value humor and have mocked my share of politicians over the years. But I find bullying taunts to be crass and the sign of those displaying low human capital.

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This ‘First Look’ At Kamala Harris’ Book Is Priceless

As we highlighted last week, Kamala Harris is cashing in on her God awful failed campaign by releasing a book she claims to have written.

It’s called 107 Days, because that’s how long everyone had to endure her word salad cackling before Trump won a massive landslide victory. 

It’s also the same amount of time that she managed to burn through one and a half billion dollars.

It also serves as her excuse as to why she lost.

The title of the book is a suggestion that she didn’t have long enough to put together a winning strategy. But given she never even coherently explained one policy, one can only assume it would take her years.

What do you think will be in her book? Will she finally answer the question ‘how are you different from Joe Biden?’

X user Jarvis has imagined what the content might be like, and it seems pretty accurate.

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Reuters Fact Checks Babylon Bee Article Stating ‘Allahu Akbar’ Has Replaced ‘Cheerio Mate’ As UK’s Favoured Farewell

Reuters is at it again with their team of ‘fact checkers’. They’re targeting The Babylon Bee, a satirical website, over an article that states the most favoured farewell  in the UK, ‘cheerio mate’ has been replaced with ‘Allahu Akbar.’

The humorous satire piece states, “A recent poll conducted by the University of Oxford just revealed that ‘Allahu Akbar’ has officially replaced ‘Cheerio, mate!’ as the most popular greeting in the UK,” adding that experts called the results of the “survey” a “flippin’ landslide, old bean.”

Kyle Mann, the Editor-in-Chief of the Babylon Bee, shared the lunacy on X, noting that “Reuters fact-checkers reached out for comment on our Babylon Bee story about ‘Allahu Akbar’ replacing ‘Cheerio Mate’ in the UK. I tried to help them out.”Mann then shared screenshots of the ridiculous message he was sent by Reuters 

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American Author Could Face Prison in Germany Over Satirical Swastika

A German court has found CJ Hopkins, an American writer living in that country, guilty of hate speech, which is treated as an unconstitutional activity. This overturned a previous acquittal by the Tiergarten District Court.

“Hate speech” in the case amounts to Hopkins using Nazi imagery to express his protest about Germany’s Covid-era policies, including what he called “New Normal Germany” – a satirical take on how that compares to Nazi Germany.

The imagery that caught the authorities’ attention was posted on X, including an illustration showing a white face mask with a white swastika superimposed on it.

Even though a lower court in January found this did not represent “hate speech,” on the last day of September, the Berlin Appellate Court disagreed. In a blog post, Hopkins, who has been residing in Germany since 2004, says that “the New Normal German authorities (…) were determined to punish me.”

To highlight the absurdity of the situation, Hopkins told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) that the second trial went with anti-terrorism measures in the courtroom. This meant a small number of people were allowed to attend, behind a glass panel, while journalists could not bring in laptops or even notebooks and pens.

Now, the case is back at the Tiergarten Court which is supposed to sentence him – the author is looking at up to three years in prison. And while the Berlin court’s decision itself can’t be appealed, Hopkins told FIRE he would go to the highest legal instance in Germany – the Federal Constitutional Court (ostensibly after the district court rules again).

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The Big Tech Think Tank Campaigning to Censor Satire

The Brookings Institution, seems to believe it has solved the problem faced by those who would like to censor memes. The problem is that memes are a form of satire, and censoring them while claiming to be a democracy is a difficult task.

But now, senior Brookings Institution fellow Nicol Turner Lee and Isabella Panico Hernandez, a project assistant, have revealed their thinking: AI memes should be treated as election disinformation “manifested” through satire.

One could use a similar form of mental gymnastics to say that this kind of argument represents a call for censorship manifested through supposed concern about disinformation.

The Brookings, meanwhile, is not just any foot soldier in the “war on memes”: it is a powerful think tank funded by the likes of Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, but also massive financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase (via its philanthropic foundation) and that of Mastercard, Impact Fund.

Brookings speaks about memes, particularly those AI-generated (adding some AI panic into the mix can only help the cause), as an extremely dangerous phenomenon hidden behind humor, and perceived as humor by pretty much everyone.

But the think tank, and others going after memes, present themselves as smarter and able to understand the true nature of this clearly humorous and often satirical imagery, which they say only “seem harmless” and “appear innocuous.”

Instead, the authors of the article say memes can influence how voters perceive candidates and other election-related information, “could potentially lead to violence” – and are “globally perceived” as being capable to “fuel extremist behavior” – which is in contrast to the US, supposedly because of the lack of appropriate regulation.

And so, less than a month before the presidential election, these according to the authors insidious messages use humor merely as a vehicle to spread dangerous influence, but are not properly tackled in the US.

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