Also, in a marvelous closing paragraph:The satirical online website The Onion has filed an amicus brief before the Supreme Court to side with a man who was arrested for parodying and criticizing police online.
Anthony Novak was arrested after he created a Facebook page six years ago to make fun of his local police department in Parma, Ohio. He made six posts on the page and faced a felony charge for violating a law that prohibited using a computer to “disrupt” or “interrupt” police functions, according to court documents.
A jury acquitted Novak of the charge, and Novak sued the officers, alleging his First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated.
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The Onion said in its brief supporting Novak’s appeal to the Supreme Court to allow him to sue that they were concerned when they heard that “Americans can be put in jail for poking fun at the government.”
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The Onion argued that its business model is threatened by what happened in the situation. They said parody would be “functionally useless” without the ability to fool people.
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The Onion argues that the 6th Circuit’s ruling suggests that parody is only protected if parodists warn the public in advance that their words are not true.
“But some forms of comedy don’t work unless the comedian is able to tell the joke with a straight face,” the brief states. “Parody is the quintessential example.”
They said parodists intentionally take the rhetorical form of their target to exaggerate or “implode” it and demonstrate the illogic of the subject. They said announcing in advance that the parody is fake would “strip parody of the very thing that makes it function.”
The Hill
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