Satire can be tricky for the uninitiated. If you weren’t exposed to the oeuvre of Monty Python growing up (no surprise, given it’s banned here), or didn’t have a competent high school English teacher to walk you through A Modest Proposal, you might have a hard time discerning fact from ironic fiction.

So it’s unfortunate, but perhaps not much of a shock, that a former inspector-general of police missed the memo explaining that the information shared on American satirical news outlet The Onion is about as real as your aunt’s forwarded WhatsApp chain messages declaring the impending apocalypse.

Over the weekend, ex-IGP Musa Hassan took to Twitter to offer earnest praise for the site’s 10-month-old, very-much tongue-in-cheek story “CIA Issues Posthumous Apology After New Evidence Clears Osama Bin Laden of Involvement in 9/11 Attacks.”

“Our organization acted in haste and without full knowledge, and in doing so, took the life of a loving husband, father, businessman, and highly effective community organizer,” the story (falsely) quotes CIA Director Gina Haspel as saying. “We understand there is nothing we can do or say will bring Osama back, but we hope the bin Laden family will accept restitution of $18 million in recognition of their pain and suffering. No one deserves to endure what you have been through.”

Lol.

But one person who wasn’t lol-ing was Musa Hassan, who tweeted out the link to the story, sans comment, apparently confusing it for actual news.

Though his Twitter followers were quick to explain the nature of the site to the former federal police chief (though, to be fair, some also appeared not to get the joke), it was no use: The former top cop was not having any of it, and expressed that not only should the decidedly fake claim be investigated, but that “if the news is not true, the US government must deny it.”

Jika berita tidak benar pihak Kerajaan Amerika perlu membuat penafian. https://t.co/YclVt9BlYh — Musa Hassan (@TSMusaHassan) October 12, 2019





Story continues

Oh, dear.

Reader, have you ever found yourself so deep into making a point, and so reluctant to admit that you were wrong (see: us, in 2001, arguing that the first Strokes album wasn’t a masterpiece), that you doubled down on the erroneous claim?

Well, we’ll be kind and imagine that Musa may have found himself in a similar Twitter quandary, and felt forced to stick to his proverbial guns, saying “The Onion should deny the story, otherwise America is spreading fake news.”

Tunggu The Onion menafikannya. Jika demikian America membenarkan berita palsu disebarkan. https://t.co/424xizc4It — Musa Hassan (@TSMusaHassan) October 12, 2019





When followers gently suggested that failing to distinguish satire from real news may diminish the prestige of the Malaysian Royal Police, he replied:

“If it was not broadcasted, then no one would spread it around. Is it a freedom to spread false news or slander? If the answer is yes, it is an illogical freedom,” he mused, again missing the point entirely.

Article ini tiada kaitan dengan kredibiliti PDRM. Kerana jika dikatakan palsu ianya datang dari Amrica. https://t.co/Ux7PdnF3nu — Musa Hassan (@TSMusaHassan) October 12, 2019





Then, as if to throw his hands up without admitting defeat, he added: “No wonder the world is in such chaos, for allowing such false news.”

Jika tidak menyiarkan tiada lah orang yg menyebarkannya. Adakah suatu kebebasan bersuara utk menyebarkan berita palsu atau fitnah? Jika jawapannya ya, ia adalah kebebasan yg tidak masuk akal. https://t.co/wWC7DP8tFQ — Musa Hassan (@TSMusaHassan) October 12, 2019





Things pretty much snowballed from there, as more users tried to point out the error of ex-IGP’s ways, and the ex-IGP himself climbed ever higher on his increasingly wobbly high horse, hitting out against “irresponsible journalism … [and] slander, even if one meant to be humorous or joking by saying something untrue.”

Doesn’t he sound like a barrel of laughs, y’all?!

The furor was such that Malaysia’s own homegrown satire site, The Tapir Times, quickly published their own take on the embarrassing revelation that the nation’s former head of police didn’t understand satire, irony, or a simple explanation of both.

Ex-IGP Musa Hassan Removed From CIA Watchlist https://t.co/6oaKQrHk6Z — The Tapir Times (@thetapirtimes) October 13, 2019





According to the Times‘ own “CIA source”: “Once it was revealed the former Malaysian police chief didn’t know all you need is a pulse and a website to produce silly online news, he was no longer considered a potential mastermind behind any ongoing CIA and FBI investigations.”

Just to be clear, none of this is real (including the stuff about the watch list), but it’s all pretty funny — or, at least it is now that the Anti-Fake News law is finally getting repealed.

This article, Former top cop thinks ‘The Onion’ is real, US government must be held to account for it, originally appeared on Coconuts, Asia's leading alternative media company. Want more Coconuts? Sign up for our newsletters!