2mo ago

New Indiana Law Requires All Porn Viewers To Register As Sex Offenders

theonion.com New Indiana Law Requires All Porn Viewers To Register As Sex Offenders

INDIANAPOLIS—In an effort to curb unauthorized traffic to adult websites within the state, Indiana lawmakers passed new legislation Thursday requiring all potential viewers of online pornography to register as sex offenders before they could access sexually explicit material. “This law will ensure ...

Indianapolis @lemmy.ml

New Indiana Law Requires All Porn Viewers To Register As Sex Offenders

theonion.com /new-indiana-law-requires-all-porn-viewers-to-register-as-sex-offenders/

17 9

45 comments

Genuine case of "this headline could easily be true in the current climate".
- I was genuinely eating this onion before I came to the comments lol. Came here to drop a WTF rant, and instead I find out I'm a dummy right now.
  
  I was honestly wondering how many people would tell on themselves.
  
  The audience is not to blame when comedy whiffs.
- My immediate reaction was "yeah, that tracks".

Welp they got me on this one. Good shit, Onion. Ridiculous we live in a world where I believed this for a good 10 seconds.
- Yeah same here.

I ate the onion

The funny thing is that, if this were true, it would be the most efficient and effective way to register a hundred politicians, especially Republicans, as sex offenders.
- Oh no... I wasn't "watching porn" I was researching content to make sure the law is properly applied!

It's pretty much impossible to satirise US politics, isn't it?
- "Indiana places all owners of Twister game on sex offender registry."
  "Entire adult population held for questioning following anti-porn sting."
  "Indiana prepares for porn criminalization by building prison wall around entire state."
  "Indiana constructs new prison on former site of Ohio."
  "Viewers of 'creampie' porn sentenced to watch videos to full term."
  "ICE checkpoints established at vestibulum vaginae."
  "Baby born on plane from Thailand deported back to Nigeria."
- "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." - Tom Lehrer

Almost bought it. If they had called it a new bill, "introduced" or some such, instead of "law" it would be perfectly feasible.
- The comment section saves me once again.
  
  That's antithetical to satire.
  What y'all experienced, in this headline, is The Onion fucking up. They picked a lie that's believable. Satire has to reach further than that, no matter how broken reality gets.
  "Eating the onion" came from dipshits with zero media literacy believing the dumbest shit imaginable. Like "teenage girl to be tried as adult black man." If a bunch of reasonably savvy people have to check whether a satirical headline is real - that headline sucks. It has failed, as satire.
  Comedy is selecting a lie your audience knows is not true. If half of them are going 'wait, really?' - revise.
  
  Always check the community under which it's posted. It's getting harder to spot the difference between theonion and nottheonion.