Fake News: Saturday Night Live NOT Fined $16.2 Million For Vulgar Kavanaugh Sketch

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Saturday Night Live NOT Fined $16.2 Million For Vulgar Kavanaugh Sketch

Was SNL fined a huge amount of money for a sketch involving Matt Damon that parodied the recent Kavanaugh hearings? No, that's not true: a liberal satire website that loves to troll conservatives and Trump supporters into sharing their made up stories as real news made up a tale about a pig named Dorothy being involved in the sketch and a huge fine resulting from that but none of it is real.

The story originated from an article published on September 30, 2018 by America's Last Line of Defense titled "BREAKING: Saturday Night Live Fined $16.2 Million For 'Vulgar' Kavanaugh Sketch" (archived here) which opened:

You've probably heard about Saturday Night Live's disastrous sketch involving Brett Kavanaugh. But just case you haven't, here what you need to know. The sketch featured Matt Damon as Kavanaugh openly weeping in a courtroom. Eventually one of his accusers, a pig named Dorothy, took the stand.

This may sound ridiculous, but it's what passes for humor in the liberal world. At the end of the sketch, Damon as Kavanaugh leaps on top of the pig and fondles its genitals in full view of the camera. This violates FCC rule 36.9 B in the "Animal Sexuality" guidelines.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail so people who hadn't actually seen the sketch might have thought it was real:

BREAKING: Saturday Night Live Fined $16.2 Million For 'Vulgar' Kavanaugh Sketch

You've probably heard about Saturday Night Live's disastrous sketch involving Brett Kavanaugh. But just case you haven't, here what you need to know. The sketch featured Matt Damon as Kavanaugh openly weeping in a courtroom.

As it happens there is no FCC rule 36.9 B about animal sexuality, and the actual cold open sketch with Matt Damon did not involve a pig named Dorothy as you can see for yourself here:

The site comes with a clear satire disclaimer at the bottom of each article:

sat·ire ~ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.

The owner and main writer of the site is self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has made it his full time job to troll gullible conservatives and Trump supporters into liking and sharing his articles. He runs several other websites, including potatriotpost.us, dailyworldupdate.us and nofakenewsonline.us. Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". A second man working on the sites is John Prager as revealed in this earlier story we wrote.

Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up and he keeps knocking them down.

If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news.

We wrote about worstpot.us before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

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  Maarten Schenk

Maarten Schenk is the co-founder and COO/CTO of Lead Stories and an expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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