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Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. A man in Oakland, Maine learned this the hard way after exercising his perceived right to free speech by spinning his tires in front of an Oakland police officer. He had just read in New Maine News that a judge had declared burning rubber to fall into the constitutionally protected right to free speech in Maine. The only problem is that New Maine News is a satire site.
Naturally, the officer promptly pulled the man over to ask him if he’d lost his mind. The man smiled, told the officer he couldn’t do anything about it and proceeded to show him the article in New Maine News.
In the New Maine News piece, the fictional Maine Supreme Court Chief Justice Leigh I. Saufley said the court finds laying rubber a way to give “a voice to the voiceless. What good is a huge truck? What good are fat tires, a screaming exhaust set up, and a killer big block if all that power can’t be used to make a statement?”
The Oakland police officer knew the man in question, “who is actually a pretty good kid.” Imagine the surprise and embarrassment when he learned that the article is not actually true. “Explaining the concept of satire was probably the educational highlight of that young man’s morning,” the Oakland Police Department posted on Facebook.
The post did not say whether the man received a citation or not. But it’s probably safe to say that he will no longer believe that everything he reads on the internet is true.
And watch the header picture’s burnout here, on Hooniverse.
