The red-top look of the site means there have been cases of the site's fictional, satirical news stories being misinterpreted as real news items. In January 2012, a number of French news organisations including Le Parisien and L’Express reported on an August 2011 article by The Poke about a BBC Sign language interpreter being fired from her job for 'fabricating news' as a genuine story. French radio broadcasters RTL and France Info also reported the story as real, and television broadcaster Canal + featuring the fictitious 'scandal' on an evening news programme.
