The Onion Has Been Permanently Banned from Twitter

April 21, 2022 11:42 AM

Just hours ago, in a sudden, inexplicable, and chilling act of censorship, The Onion has been permanently banned from Twitter. Read all about it on their Twitter page.This is a dark day for journalism and sets a grim precedent for the freedom of expression in America. The truth perishes in the night.

It’s Been 11 Minutes Since The Onion Was Banned From Twitter. So Why Isn’t The Mainstream Media Covering This?

SILENCED: Harrowing Photos From The Onion Office 3 Long Hours Into Our Twitter Ban

The Onion Store Now Selling ‘Thin Green Line’ Flags To Support Their Efforts

‘Je Suis The Onion’: Tributes From Around The World

Twitter, Enemy Of First Amendment Rights, Permanently Bans The Onion

BREAKING: Our Intern Is Being Forced Into A Hunger Strike Until Twitter Lifts Our Ban

You might ask yourself: if they've really been banned, how are they tweeting about it constantly? I mean, aren't those literally their tweets right there?

That's just twitter brainwashing you, pal. The only way to get around The Onion's Twitter ban is to go to their fucking website.

posted by DirtyOldTown (33 comments total)

*checks date*
Not April Fool's?
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:45 AM on April 21, 2022 [7 favorites]

“This sucks, but I’m sure as fuck not typing out a whole URL.”
AUSTIN GHITIS, PING PONG COACH

I feel like Austin speaks for us all, to be honest.

We call on all defenders of free speech to retweet our tweet about Twitter banning us. Feel free to quote-tweet our tweet too, but only to say something nice. Don’t let Twitter get away with this.

I'm on my way to angrily QRT this right now!
posted by fight or flight at 11:49 AM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

We also surmise that hidden powers have colluded to gag us by placing so many ads on our website as to render it functionally unreadable. Finally, a glance at the New York Times bestseller list reveals not a single one of The Onion’s many books, a clear act of journalist-on-journalist censorship with horrific significance.

Right on.
posted by flabdablet at 11:58 AM on April 21, 2022 [10 favorites]

That...is some amazing satire.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:58 AM on April 21, 2022 [18 favorites]

Alway April Fool's at The Onion.
posted by nicwolff at 11:58 AM on April 21, 2022 [7 favorites]

It's so meta it's really the truth, these days.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:59 AM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

I'm just wondering what they told that poor intern
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 12:02 PM on April 21, 2022

Ha I'd gone to their site to find the url for On Top Of Everything, Man’s Allergies Also Acting Up because it felt so personal, and then found this all going on!

It's largely true that satire may be dead... but no one tell the Onion!
posted by cirhosis at 12:04 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

Sort of the "Conservative voices are being silenced!" bit from Charlie Brooker's Death to 2020 writ large.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:04 PM on April 21, 2022 [7 favorites]

OMG! Do you think it's for their recent article "Signs your Boss Might Actually Hate You, or do you think it's more likely to be the Big Ghost Gun lobby?

Elon's takeover of Twitter is more needed than ever! Save the Onion!
posted by LeRoienJaune at 12:04 PM on April 21, 2022

They want to be like the Babylon Bee?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:14 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

I was worried there for entirely too long.
posted by rpfields at 12:28 PM on April 21, 2022 [6 favorites]

from deep within this slideshow:
>> We tried to start a Substack so that we could finally speak freely on a platform that actually supports free speech. Except maybe they don’t? Or maybe they apply the idea of freedom of speech a little too freely? It seems like they’re silencing voices that need to be heard, or maybe some that shouldn’t be heard, except that freedom of speech means all speech, however barbaric or obscene, except maybe that’s too much latitude, but obviously if they’re a private platform they can say what they want not subject to government approval, except maybe if you’re a big enough platform there should be limits on what you can say, except how is that standard applied, exactly, but then maybe the question is should you be able to monetize speech that others find objectionable, although if people are willing to pay for it, isn’t that their business, but ultimately we as a community need to come together to hold each other accountable for what we say, or aren’t we doing that already, or maybe we’re trying to but it isn’t working, or maybe it is? Anyway, we found the whole discourse around it too confusing, so we deleted our Substack, and it’s back to trying to get back on Twitter, where we belong.
posted by dobi at 12:30 PM on April 21, 2022 [39 favorites]

See also:
Shame on you, @Twitter. Our intern’s harrowing last words: “Please, #UnbanTheOnion”.
@twitter Fuck, fuck, fuck, our intern is still alive and clawed his way out of his grave. #UnbanTheOnion
Our intern is bloodthirsty for revenge, only you can stop this by unbanning our account @twitter
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:33 PM on April 21, 2022 [9 favorites]

dobi, holy heck is that quoted bit utterly perfect, and I wish I had had it in my copy/paste buffer for some of the free-speech debate over on the Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter thread a week ago.

Reading the best of the Onion - and this is definitely the best of the Onion - leaves me shaking my head in awe and wonder at people who are THAT good at satire.

This is amazing.

And an outrage!

Thank you so much for posting this, DirtyOldTown. Yow.
posted by kristi at 12:45 PM on April 21, 2022 [9 favorites]

The Onion News Network was also pretty great back in the day. The character actors were on point. They had 1 or 2 hilarious visions of TV news in a far future dystopia. And somehow associated Clickhole, while hit or miss, did have some big hits.
posted by Schmucko at 12:49 PM on April 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

Regarding their nipple-censoring t-shirt …

Keep your damn greasy ham-grabbers off my nipples …

OK, maybe a bit, but don’t get carried away …
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 1:09 PM on April 21, 2022

BREAKING: ‘The Onion’ Has Purchased A 0.000000125% Stake In Twitter And Is Demanding A Seat On The Board
posted by chavenet at 2:01 PM on April 21, 2022 [15 favorites]

The "thin green line" merch is also great.
posted by fight or flight at 2:09 PM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]

Don't forget that they are circumventing their ban by tweeting through their girlfriend.
posted by LostInUbe at 3:03 PM on April 21, 2022 [8 favorites]

Where's the Jim Anchower column calling bullshit on twitter for doing this? (Or did he forget his twitter password a couple of years ago?)
posted by Catblack at 3:42 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm selling the ban as an NFT.
posted by NoThisIsPatrick at 4:43 PM on April 21, 2022 [12 favorites]

I hope people at Twitter react by banning The Onion from Twitter
posted by potrzebie at 12:40 AM on April 22, 2022 [4 favorites]

Spoiler: I am informed that the Babylon Bee got permabanned from twitter and their staff are responding to that situation by kicking off in their personal accounts. This is just The Onion mocking them.

As the Babylon Bee is an Onion knock-off, only conservative, Christian, evangelical, and not as funny as they think they are, this is perfect.
posted by cstross at 2:36 AM on April 22, 2022 [26 favorites]

Just checked out the Babylon Bee out of curiosity, and "not as funny as they think they are" is an understatement.

This is straight from the "holy shit!" files. (warning: blatant racism unless somehow I missed some kind of joke? but I doubt it.)
posted by Reverend John at 5:52 AM on April 22, 2022 [5 favorites]

The Babylon Bee is a far-right white supremacist publication that is currently funding and preparing legal defenses for an anti-LGBQT terrorist on social media that is encouraging people to stalk, harass, and murder people. That's really all you need to know about them.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:15 AM on April 22, 2022 [19 favorites]

guess we'll chalk this one up to stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day ...

Joel Osteen Forced To Wear Body Cam To Monitor Interactions With Scriptures

“The camera will capture all interactions between Pastor Joel and innocent biblical texts,” a spokesperson for Lakewood Church told the press. “Should another verse come forward claiming Osteen totally ripped it out of context in order to support his health and wealth gospel, we’ll have an internal team review the footage to see if the accusation is true.”
posted by philip-random at 7:58 AM on April 22, 2022 [4 favorites]

This made this whole 'internet' thing worthwile.
posted by signal at 8:30 AM on April 22, 2022 [3 favorites]

Jim Anchower has never retweeted Dril.

I don't know what to do with this information.
posted by mhoye at 11:33 AM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]

I have been silenced!
posted by sebastienbailard at 7:38 PM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Uuuuuuuugh, I sat on twitter in disbelief watching people explode into outrage over the Babylon Bee "being banned" while their account was clearly still present AND ACTIVE and feeling absolutely insane so this is basically therapy.

Thanks. I have everything but this.
posted by seraphine at 7:44 PM on April 22, 2022 [2 favorites]

For those who aren't observers of the preposterousness that is white evangelical culture, Babylon Bee has had only one joke for the past 5 years--making fun of trans women. The 10,000th time they made a shitty joke about Assistant Secretary of HHS Dr. Rachel Levine, Twitter deleted it. To white evangelical culture, this deletion was as though their entire world was ending, and they still haven't gotten over it weeks later.
posted by hydropsyche at 5:23 AM on April 23, 2022 [11 favorites]

It wasn't even deleted, just raptured.
posted by flabdablet at 3:10 AM on April 24, 2022 [3 favorites]