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This video apparently shows Fox News saying the metric system is bad and giving arguments on why the current US customary system is better.

I do not come from the USA and have never watched Fox News, but I've often heard that they are capable of delivering dumb things in a serious manner, and are sometimes being taken seriously.

It seems to me that 20% of the comments on the video think it is fake or satire, and the community I initially got the youtube link was also unanimous that the video is in fact satire.

On top of this the hosts sometimes smile lightly, like one would when telling a joke but trying to keep a straight face.

Is this an actual news segment or is it a deep fake?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cPeZLCVWTw

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    The video seems to be an opinion piece, as to it being satire, the lines are blurred. If it had factual claims in it which were obviously incorrect or were able to be checked as incorrect then it might have been more obvious. I'm not sure that the issue of this vid being satire or not counts as a "notable claim" per se.
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Jun 9, 2020 at 21:09
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    Is there some reason we're questioning the authenticity of this recording instead of looking at the version of this clip posted on the Fox News site? video.foxnews.com/v/6045110807001#sp=show-clips
    – jeffronicus
    Jun 9, 2020 at 22:10
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    Hmm, without someone claiming it's fake, does that mean this isn't notable? There's currently a close vote. @Oddthinking
    – user11643
    Jun 18, 2020 at 2:43
  • @fredsbend: IMO, it is a total trainwreck, but 5 users with >5k rep voted to reopen, and I am very reticent to go against community votes in such cases.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Jun 18, 2020 at 2:49

2 Answers 2

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The original question asked whether the video is satirical. The answer to this is no. We can prove this on the strength that the arguments made by Tucker Carlson's guest have been published non-satirically in print.

James Panero, who proudly promotes this interview video on his personal website, claims in the interview that customary measures come from "ancient knowledge, ancient wisdom. From the Romans, 12. From the Babylonians, 60."

This argument was also made by John Michell in his 1988 book The Dimensions of Paradise.

As we have seen above, the English units relate numerically to the earth's dimensions through the powers of 12 [...] Greek and Roman units, being based on those numbers [5,040 and 7,920], had the maximum numbers of subdivisions.

Michell's book is sometimes taken as pseudoastronomy. Regardless, it shows that the argument that customary measures are "natural" is a real minority view in the Anglo-Saxon world.

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This link, titled "Can the US continue to stand alone against the metric system?", is from foxnews.com, and has been there for several days that I know of. It is apparently the same video as the YouTube link, so one must assume that it is "authorized" by Fox News.

Of course, this doesn't prove that it's not intended as satire, but the odds of it being a "deep fake" are vanishingly small.

enter image description here

(I'll note that the above link doesn't work with Firefox or Edge -- you must use "Internet Explorer".)

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  • It is a shame to see this question reopened after being edited to a strawman claim, and this answer that doesn't address the OP's question.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Jun 16, 2020 at 23:57
  • @Oddthinking - The OP's question (after editing) is "Is this an actual news segment or is it a deep fake?" I think my answer makes it clear that it's not a deep fake.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Jun 17, 2020 at 0:08
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    @Oddthinking I agree, but at the same time, apparently some people around the world don't believe American attachment to their customary measures is a real thing, despite the well-known fact that America still uses them for most things. I'd rather the question were more focused on the claim (is this a real position and not a satire) vs the current focus on the source (did Fox really run this segment). Indeed, there are plenty of genuine arguments to keep the customary measures, and an answer outlining a few of them is far more interesting than a link to the exact same video in the question.
    – user11643
    Jun 17, 2020 at 0:18
  • @DanielRHicks: I agree it answers the edited question, but the whole "deep fake" angle was never even touched on by the OP. That's a false dilemma raised by editors.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Jun 17, 2020 at 0:23
  • You could also mention Poe's law when you mention it is hard to know if it is satire.
    – bradbury9
    Jun 17, 2020 at 6:29

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