I don't know how long they have been doing this for, but the two Snopes articles that this article links to use the rating "Labeled Satire", which seems accurate.
Or perhaps they changed their minds once they realized the error? Just because something seems obvious to you doesn't mean it must seem obvious to anyone else. When friends of friends on my social media networks started posting links to their articles (without any context) I certainly got caught "refuting" more than a few of them in the comments until someone pointed this out to me.
> Or perhaps they changed their minds once they realized the error?
if you can't trust fact-checkers to check their facts, then what purpose do they serve? if some rando on twitter or whatever tries to "fact check" the Bee and doesn't see it as satire, then gets called out on it and modifies their statement, then who cares... but if the whole point of your business is to check facts, and is touted as such to the point where major social media sites and search engines directly cite your fact-checkings in a UI-integrated way, then, well...
They "realized the error" after the Babylon Bee put out a press release stating, "While we wish it wasn't necessary, we have retained a law firm to represent us in this matter".
Organizations have more credibility when they realize their errors before the lawyers get involved.
Lots of folks get confused about satire sites. It is a positive development if you can find another site on the internet that says "even if this is satire, this is why they are wrong".
It was likely a targeted campaign to cut off the Babylon Bee's traffic source. The Bee had been targeting the Snopes brand for a while with headlines like, "Snopes Issues Pre-Approval Of All Statements Made During Tonight's Democratic Debate."
Facebook contracted with Snopes to fact check the news. Snopes knew that if they kept labeling obvious satire as false, The Bee would be more difficult to share on Facebook and potentially banned.
This happened, but Facebook realized the error and no longer uses Snopes for fact-checking.
