“Yes please and cancel Whoopi while you’re at it,” one commenter exclaimed.

On July 6, 2014, the Facebook Page The Patriots Network published a post with an image positing that tech magnate Elon Musk was going to buy the U.S. television network ABC in order to cancel one of its flagship shows, “The View”:

The post had obtained 21,000 reactions and 2,800 comments as of this writing. Commenters reacted in agreement. “Yes!! Most despicable talk show with a bunch of haters… cancel asap,” one demanded. “Oh I hope so, they are the most prejudice people, they thrive on hateful talk especially,” another one added, indignant.

The pinned comment under the post linked to an article on the website SpacexMania.com. The article relayed the same allegation:

Breaking: Elon Musk Is Considering Owning ABC, “I’m Going To Cancel Woke The View”

In the latest chapter of his entrepreneurial saga, Elon Musk is reportedly considering the acquisition of ABC, one of the largest and most influential television networks in the United States. This potential move comes with a bold promise to “cancel woke The View,” a statement that has already sparked considerable controversy and debate.

This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. First, we ran the text of the article through several artificial intelligence (AI) detectors, including writer.com, CopyLeaks, and ZeroGPT, all of which identified it as AI-generated.

Further, the article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows:

Our mission? To bring you the freshest fake news, some sassy analysis, and a good dose of satire, all rolled into one crazy concoction that orbits around Elon Musk and everything that’s lighting up the viral/trending charts.

The Facebook page of The Patriots Network confirmed this, disclaiming “The Patriots Network is a Network of Satire and Parody affiliated with SpacexMania.com.” Lastly, the post itself noted that it was satire: “Elon Musk is going to cancel The View tv show – Satire.”

We’re written about similar stories before, in May 2022 and in April 2024.

For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.