OTTAWA — In a reversal that has made cybersecurity experts, political analysts, and amateur comedians collectively raise an eyebrow, a series of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks on political humour websites this month following the US Election has inadvertently fueled a surge of satirical content.
“It’s the Streisand effect but for politicians,” noted cybersecurity consultant Maya Tran, referring to the phenomenon where efforts to suppress information only draw more attention to it. “Except now, instead of an unwanted photo, we have memes that refuse to die.”
The attacks, suspected to be the work of overzealous Trump supporters or micropeniled incel trolls with a vendetta, targeted well-known satirical hubs such as… well, this one. Instead of silencing these platforms, the temporary blackouts prompted their writers and publishers to double down on their efforts, producing an unprecedented wave of biting satire.
“We took the downtime as an opportunity,” said Sebastian Panache, Editor-in-Chief at Moosecleans. “We’ve turned every minute of those outages into inspiration. We’ve got a backlog of jokes so long, they’d need their own infrastructure to handle the punchlines.”
Within days, the Internet saw a proliferation of new content: a viral animated video series that portrays legislative debates as reality TV romance competitions, a parody website that lists politicians’ daily gaffes alongside “stock market reactions,” and a chatbot named “Senator Simulator” that answers every query with indecipherable jargon. Plus, snarky articles like this one.
The response from officials has been mixed. One spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said, “These sites spread a lot of nonsense. But I’ll admit, they’re persistent. Like that one raccoon that keeps getting into my trash.”
Ironically, the increase in political humour has sparked more visits to these sites than ever before, leaving would-be disruptors caught in a classic case of self-sabotage. As Panache put it, “We’re grateful for the free motivation. Now if only they could take a joke.”