The king of mockery has himself fallen a victim of mockery - Sacha Baron Cohen’s heated rant about Facebook’s failure to stop “lies” about the COVID vaccine has received a number of trolling comments.
The legendary comedian behind ‘Borat’ went on a verbal tirade against Mark Zuckerberg on Twitter, slamming the Facebook CEO for the platform’s algorithms failing to tackle coronavirus misinformation.
“Mark Zuckerberg, how do you sleep at night?” Cohen asked, attaching a photo of work from an Australian mural artist known as “Lushsux” that featured prominent vaccine cheerleader Bill Gates.
In the drawing, Gates was portrayed with a needle and a vaccine bottle in his hands alongside the flamed message: “Time to install your update.”
“This is on Facebook's Instagram right now,” Cohen raged.
funny how the guy who does satire for a living couldnt spot a satire ahahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahjahahahshabahshahahabbabababbahah
— @lushsux (@lushsux) March 9, 2021
But his recital has soon got a reply from the artist himself – Lushsux mocked the comedian for failing to see the irony behind his work.
“Funny how the guy who does satire for a living couldn't spot a satire,” he wrote, adding multiple laughs to his post.
"This a joke piece you dork," the artist fumed.
Lushsux then moved to his Twitter page to share few mocking graffities of the actor in his famous Borat character and with Cohen’s face superimposed on Mark Zuckerberg’s body.
i trolled borat VERY NICEEEEE pic.twitter.com/qM5Hn41bpK
— @lushsux (@lushsux) March 9, 2021
VARY NICE SACHA WEEK WA WA WEE WA MY WIFE SAY IN MY COUNTRY THERE A NO FREE SPEECH, GREAT SUCCESS pic.twitter.com/vDGyG0TP5B
— @lushsux (@lushsux) March 11, 2021
Other social media users joined the graffitist in calling out Cohen – an actor who developed a controversial reputation over his jokes and parodies many have seen as offensive – for presenting the artist’s satire as COVID misinformation.
“The art he is calling out is literally satire. Cohen, the king of satire, couldn’t even recognize actual satire lmao,” one user commented on the actor’s post.
The dude that played Borat got offended by a graffiti?
— Don Pan Seco (@Felix_Cvz) March 10, 2021
This is a street artist from Melbourne, Australia. It’s a joke, it’s not a literal concern but more a swipe at those who believe this shit in a funny visual form. I understand people searching through Insta wouldn’t know the difference if they’re easily influenced but still...
— Josh (@littlej5) March 9, 2021
"Jokes on the internet should be illegal!"
— Aaron Kinney (@aaron_kinney) March 9, 2021
-Sacha Baron Cohen, Famous Comedian
— Buh’Buh Benny (@benjammin2277) March 9, 2021
— Justin Whang 🐙 (@JustinWhang) March 9, 2021
I got my second dose about 10 days ago. I woke this morning and my arm looked like this. Is this normal? pic.twitter.com/H1ykxeDrH4
— bootsy bandon (@BandonBootsy) March 9, 2021
Two years ago Cohen famously attacked Facebook and other platforms for enabling the spread of misinformation through “not vetted” political ads. Speaking at an Anti-Defamation League gathering, Cohen dubbed Facebook “the greatest propaganda machine in history”, claiming that it could have allowed Hitler to run anti-Semitic posts if the platform had existed at that time.
