FAKE NEWS!
That was Sacha Baron Cohen’s response to Sarah Palin’s claims that she was manipulated by the “evil, exploitative and sick” comedian after he duped her into appearing on his new show Who Is America?, which was announced this week. The show was shot secretly and we don’t know much about it apart from the fact that Palin is definitely not a fan.
Baron Cohen’s response to Palin apparently penned by a newly unveiled alter-ego called Dr Billy Wayne Ruddick; a Maga-loving citizen journalist who runs Truthbrary.org, “a liberty website for true America and truth loving Americans.”
Why Truthbrary? Well, as the website, which seems to have been set up last year explains, it’s a rejection of “THE MAINSTREME MEDIA + THE LIEbrary OF FALSE INFORMATION THEY TRY TO PUSH INTO THE PUBLICS MIND’S.”
The creative approach to spelling and grammar, along with the penchant for capitalization, are characteristic of the site, which is written in a very Trump-esque voice.
Truthbrary contains, for example, a “collection of studies and investigations” that you don’t see in the lying mainstream media, including hard-hitting pieces like “The Military has been Implanting Mind Controlled Neural Dust to remotely control their victims” and “21 goals of the illuminati”. It also contains all the favourite conspiracy theories of the right, including “Obama is a Kenyan” and “Hillary is Satanist Illuminati.”
Truthbrary is peppered with memes and gifs, which have become a favourite communication technique of the alt-right.
While Truthbrary may look like the deranged ramblings of a disturbed mind, the most worrying thing about the website is just how closely it resembles established sites like Infowars and Breitbart. See, for example, a sample of real headlines from Breitbart:
- ROGER STONE: CLINTON AIDE HUMA ABEDIN ‘MOST LIKELY A SAUDI SPY’
- POLITICAL CORRECTNESS PROTECTS MUSLIM RAPE CULTURE
- PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S BODY COUNT UNDER CECILE RICHARDS IS UP TO HALF A HOLOCAUST
- HILLARY CLINTON’S MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD PROBLEM
(Sorry for all the shouting, but rightwing websites, as you may have noticed, are very fond of untrammeled capitalism.)