Did U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez say Christianity should be ignored as "superstitious nonsense"? No, that's not true. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to mislead Trump supporters and Republicans into sharing made-up stories that are clearly marked as satire when you actually click them. Articles from the site are frequently copied by foreign-run fake news websites.
The people liking and sharing these stories are enriching foreign website operators or a liberal from Maine via the ad revenue generated with the content, which is probably not what they expected or wanted.
The false quote first appeared in an article (archived here) published by TatersGonnaTate on January 2, 2020, under the title "AOC Says Christianity Should Be Ignored As "Superstitious Nonsense"". It opened:
Democrats are well-known for being anti-Christianity. They do everything they can to dismiss our beliefs as evil or stupid and they refuse to accept Jesus into their lives. In addition, they are often known to try to pass laws that are in direct conflict with our Christian views.
One of their resident communists, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, recently relayed her opinion of the religion of the true God. She referred to the faith in question as "superstition" and "ridiculousness." Her ignorance was on full display and it was astounding.
"That religion is all very superstitious. They believe in all this nonsense. They believe in things that they don't understand, so they suffer. Superstition ain't the way.
The story was pubished in two categories named "Simple satire for simple people" and "Satire and/or Conservative Fan Fiction", and the word "superstition" in the article linked to a Stevie Wonder clip -- presumably to point out how blind readers must be to miss all the satire disclaimers and hints on the page that the story was not real.
The site is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine, along with a loose confederation of friends and allies. Blair has been in a feud with fact-checking website Snopes for some time now and has also criticized other fact checkers in the past who labeled his work "fake news" instead of satire. In reaction to this, he has rebranded all his active websites and Facebook pages so they carry visible disclaimers everywhere.
Every site in the network has an about page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":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.Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites that 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.
If you are interested in learning more about Blair and the history of his sites, here is something to get you started:
The Ultimate Christopher Blair and America's Last Line of Defense Reading List | Lead Stories
STORY UPDATED: check for updates below. Yesterday Eli Saslow at the Washington Post wrote a fantastic article about Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has been trolling conservatives and Trump supporters online for years and occasionally even made a living out of it.
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.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalists to rank the reliability of websites, describes tatersgonnatate.com as:
One in a network of sites that publish false stories and hoaxes that are often mistaken for real news, run by hoax perpetrator Christopher Blair.
According to NewsGuard, the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
