By Chip Byteley
In a shocking turn of events, the highly-respected fact-checking website, Eternal Fact Checker, has shut down following a catastrophic server meltdown. The cause? An audacious attempt to verify every single claim, meme, and dubious factoid circulating on the internet – at the same time.
“We were always a little too ambitious,” admitted a former EFC editor, speaking on condition of anonymity. “But we were determined to expose the lies and restore sanity to cyberspace.”
In the days leading up to the crash, eyewitness reports surfaced of a panicked atmosphere within the company’s headquarters. Harried fact-checkers battled a tidal wave of information: dubious celebrity health remedies, political conspiracy theories, and conflicting histories of the origin of pineapple pizza.
“It was like the Hydra,” lamented one exhausted researcher. “Cut off one dubious claim, and three more popped up, each wilder than the last.”
The final straw, investigators believe, was when the system attempted to cross-reference a flat-earth video with actual NASA satellite images. “It basically blew the website’s mind,” explained an IT specialist. “Turns out the internet has more capacity for falsehoods than even the most dedicated fact-checkers.”
The website’s demise has been met with mixed reactions. Conspiracy theorists hailed it as proof of the “global cover-up machine,” while journalists mourned the loss of a valuable resource.
Social media exploded with tongue-in-cheek eulogies:
- “RIP Eternal Fact Checker, You fought the good fight, even if it was unwinnable” – @CynicalSara
- “Anyone got tips on how to fact-check a meme about aliens building the pyramids? Asking for a friend…” – @GullibleGary
Experts are now questioning the viability of large-scale fact-checking in the age of disinformation. “Perhaps the lesson here is that we all need to be more critical consumers of information,” mused media analyst Dr. Anya Gupta. “Don’t believe everything you read online, even if it comes from a website promising to verify everything.”