Poe's Law
E578394
Poe's Law is an internet adage stating that, without clear indicators of the author's intent, it is impossible to distinguish sincere extremism from parody of extremism online.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Poe's Law canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6231140 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Poe's Law Context triple: [Cunningham's Law, oftenMentionedWith, Poe's Law]
-
A.
Cunningham's Law
Cunningham's Law is an internet adage stating that the best way to get the right answer online is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer.
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B.
Pseudologoi
Pseudologoi are personified spirits of lies and falsehoods in Greek mythology, often associated with deceit and discord.
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C.
Paradoxa
Paradoxa is a work attributed to the ancient Greek engineer and writer Philo of Byzantium, likely dealing with curious or paradoxical mechanical and scientific phenomena.
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D.
The Burden of Proof
The Burden of Proof is a 1992 television miniseries adaptation of Scott Turow’s legal thriller novel, starring Brian Dennehy as a defense attorney investigating his wife’s mysterious death.
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E.
the Father of Lies
The Father of Lies is a biblical epithet for the Devil, emphasizing his role as the ultimate deceiver and source of falsehood.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Poe's Law Target entity description: Poe's Law is an internet adage stating that, without clear indicators of the author's intent, it is impossible to distinguish sincere extremism from parody of extremism online.
-
A.
Cunningham's Law
Cunningham's Law is an internet adage stating that the best way to get the right answer online is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer.
-
B.
Pseudologoi
Pseudologoi are personified spirits of lies and falsehoods in Greek mythology, often associated with deceit and discord.
-
C.
Paradoxa
Paradoxa is a work attributed to the ancient Greek engineer and writer Philo of Byzantium, likely dealing with curious or paradoxical mechanical and scientific phenomena.
-
D.
The Burden of Proof
The Burden of Proof is a 1992 television miniseries adaptation of Scott Turow’s legal thriller novel, starring Brian Dennehy as a defense attorney investigating his wife’s mysterious death.
-
E.
the Father of Lies
The Father of Lies is a biblical epithet for the Devil, emphasizing his role as the ultimate deceiver and source of falsehood.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
eponymous law
ⓘ
informal principle ⓘ internet adage ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
comment sections
ⓘ
internet forums ⓘ online discussions ⓘ social media ⓘ text-only communication ⓘ written communication ⓘ |
| coreIdea |
clear signals such as emoticons or disclaimers are needed to mark satire online
ⓘ
parodies of extreme views can be mistaken for genuine expressions of those views ⓘ without clear indicators of intent it is difficult to distinguish sincere extremism from parody ⓘ |
| firstFormulatedIn | 2005 ⓘ |
| firstFormulatedOn | ChristianForums.com ⓘ |
| hasAuthor | Nathan Poe ⓘ |
| hasCategory |
adages
ⓘ
informal laws of the internet ⓘ internet culture terminology ⓘ |
| hasDomain |
extremism
ⓘ
internet culture ⓘ online communication ⓘ religious debate ⓘ satire ⓘ |
| hasEffect |
high risk of misinterpreting genuine extreme statements as satire
ⓘ
high risk of misinterpreting satirical extreme statements as genuine ⓘ |
| hasFormulation | without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake it for the real thing ⓘ |
| hasLanguage | English ⓘ |
| hasMedium |
internet
ⓘ
online forums ⓘ social networking services ⓘ |
| hasUsage |
analyzing misread satire
ⓘ
critiquing online discourse ⓘ describing ambiguity between satire and sincere extremism ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Nathan Poe ⓘ |
| originalContext |
online debates about creationism
ⓘ
religious fundamentalism discussions ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Godwin's law
ⓘ
linked to:
Godwin's Law
Murphy's law ⓘ internet laws ⓘ irony ⓘ misinterpretation ⓘ online extremism ⓘ parody ⓘ religious fundamentalism ⓘ sarcasm ⓘ satire ⓘ |
| requires |
contextual cues
ⓘ
explicit markers of satire ⓘ indicators of intent ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Poe's Law Description of subject: Poe's Law is an internet adage stating that, without clear indicators of the author's intent, it is impossible to distinguish sincere extremism from parody of extremism online.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.