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This is really sad to me. Snopes, for the most part, is pretty impartial with their fact-checking and I think it's an invaluable resource. If it were to go away

This is really sad to me. Snopes, for the most part, is pretty impartial with their fact-checking and I think it's an invaluable resource. If it were to go away and be replaced with something less established, it would be the end of an era and all because they don't have enough money to protect themselves from the litigation of a larger company. If that doesn't show you our legal system is effed, then I don't know what does. Victims can literally be silenced simply by being drowned in litigation by someone with more money.

wayoutthere 7y ago
Snopes stopped being impartial a few years ago in favor of being more clickbaity. There was a whole lot of drama and it's been under different ownership since.
- mcv 7y ago
  My impression is that only part of the ownership has changed, and that's part of the reason for this lawsuit. David Mikkelson owns 50%, while Barbara Mikkelson sold her 50% to the shareholders of the company that handled Snopes' advertising. Those people have since been in a legal battle with David and/or Snopes, and now acquired Salon, which apparently they're now using to continue their legal battle? It's not really clear what Salon has to do with the whole thing, other than that it got acquired by the people suing David Mikkelson/Snopes.
  - throwaway1777 7y ago
    Both are true, only part of the ownership changed, but it’s not the site it was before.
    - dkonofalski 7y ago
      >it’s not the site it was before How so?
      - beerandt 7y ago
        Well for one thing, the majority of the articles seem to be done by completely 3rd party authors, without mention of vetting, conflicts, or bias. >More troubling is that we simply don’t know who contributed to a given fact check. David noted that Snopes’ “process is a highly collaborative one in which several different people may contribute to a single article,” but that “the result is typically credited to whoever wrote the initial draft.” David did not respond to a request for comment on why Snopes only lists a single author for each of its fact checks, rather than provide an acknowledgement section that lists all of the individuals who contributed to a given fact check. It's the same problem Wikipedia sometimes has. Selectively pick sources that confirm the story you want to convey, and ignore the others. The other big problem recently is to spin something that's true as being false, by slightly changing the question, to be broad enough to encompass an "out." Also this story covers most of the history of what's in the linked article, from over 3 years ago. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-daily-mail-snopes-story-and-fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/#1766211b227f https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-dai...
        dkonofalski 7y ago
        >spin something that's true as being false, by slightly changing the question Do you have an example of this?
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Here's an example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/02/bernie-sanders-claim-that-the-worlds-six-wealthiest-people-have-as-much-wealth-as-half-the-worlds-population/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/... The claim is correct, and the article even acknowledges that. They then throw in a bit about "negative wealth" amongst the world's poor and somehow award it "Three Pinocchios" as a result.
        dkonofalski 7y ago
        This article is not from Snopes. The question is about the integrity of Snopes and whether or not they re-frame questions to fit a political spin. The Washington Post has been found to have done this on numerous occasions.
wl 7y ago
Snopes fact-checking the satire site Babylon Bee suggests to me that their days of being a valuable resource are over. Any reasonable people at Snopes apparently no longer have any influence.
- dev_dull 7y ago
  I’m glad I’m not the only one wondering what was up with that. Also, snopes is not an innocent reference site. Their “debunking” of satire like Babylonbee can cause those sites to be deplatformed.
  - michaelbuckbee 7y ago
    This seems less like Snopes being at issue than Facebook not understanding nuance.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - wl 7y ago
      Snopes chose to target, among other things, a Babylon Bee article talking about how CNN bought industrial laundry equipment to spin their news. The only people who could possibly be confused that this is real news are toddlers who have not yet developed abstract thinking and would be confused by the whole thing anyway. It's a strong indication that Snopes is engaging in the culture war as an interested party. It's not a good look for a supposedly disinterested fact checker.
      - pwinnski 7y ago
        > The only people who could possibly be confused that this is real news are toddlers Have you been away from the internet for the last couple of years? There is literally nothing on the internet so fantastical that it won't be posted to social media stripped of context and believed by somebody.
yawboakye 7y ago
Personal bias: Snopes is a legitimate fact-checker. That said, for a so-called fact-checker, "pretty impartial" is not acceptable.
- jsight 7y ago
  Until there is such a thing as 100% flawless people, pretty impartial is as good as we can get.
alecco 7y ago
Snopes has been used against right wing sites and in favour of left wing controversies. For example, they labelled a clearly satire site Babylon Bee as "fake news". Downplaying Antifa violence. And outright lying about a woman being punched in the face who was throwing glass bottles. I'm pretty sure there are more cases but those come up with a quick search. Note: I'm not from USA/UK, not white, not right wing, I think Trump is unqualified to say the least. But Snopes, like many other sites, is no longer unbiased or objective. So long.
- Vomzor 7y ago
  It says a lot about the current political climate when people feel the need to add a disclaimer like that.
- belltaco 7y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/domain/babylonbee.com/ https://www.reddit.com/domain/babylonbee.com/ Clearly many right and alt right subreddits are taking stories from there seriously, including r/conservative. https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/duy4x5/nazis_clarify_theyre_only_calling_for_democratic/ https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/duy4x5/nazi... Look at the comments there. In only a few places it's marked as Satire. They publish a very agenda driven news that's taken literally very commonly, unlike the Onion which is well known to be satire and does not have an overt extreme bias. It's a very good call to call it fake news since mainstream social media is taking it for real.
  - wl 7y ago
    I spent about five minutes reading the discussion at your r/JordanPeterson link. While I see the link has spurred some substantive discussion stemming from the "ha ha only serious" Babylon Bee article, I'm not seeing anyone confused that this is real news.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      Doesn't seem to be unlike HN where we basically just kneejerk respond to titles and titles are more like open-ended writing prompts for us that mainly have the purpose of introducing a topic like "javascript sucks" or "weight loss is just CICO" or whichever hobby horses we have chomping at the bit.
brlewis 7y ago
People could do fact checking on https://www.kialo.com/ https://www.kialo.com/ which is set up in a way that reduces the effect of bias.
- fastball 7y ago
  I find it weird that Kialo uses true or false for everything, even the much more subjective questions which should really be yes or no.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  Well it looks interesting, but the intro video states that it is, "The only platform designed specifically for rational debates." This is not true; HN is an example of another forum with such a purpose. Others exist, though they periodically get "Eternal September'ed" once enough people join and have to be abandoned.
  - brlewis 7y ago
    Forums are for chronological discussion. New comments bury old comments. People talk past each other or in circles. A platform designed for rational debate puts a statement at the top and collects pro/con arguments under it. You win such a debate by curating a concise list of effective statements, not by talking longer than your opponent can. Rational debate can happen in a discussion forum, but forums aren't really designed for it.
    - P_I_Staker 7y ago
      It'd be an interesting idea. I'm not sure about all of the features needed. I'd add that it'd be helpful to have a place to post sources, possibly with dedicated discussion. Both sides would have a chance to critique each others sources before the debate completes.
      - ChrisKor 7y ago
        On Kialo the sources in the arguments are normally discussed in pros and cons underneath the argument they are in, or in the comments of a claim, sort of a meta discussion where folks discuss how to best formulate a claim. Some of their argument trees nest 10 levels deep.
smilbandit 7y ago
Last week tonight just did a segment on SLAPP lawsuits
mxd3 7y ago
I've found them to have a consistent bias, often claiming things are "partially true" when they conflict with the site's overall left-leaning narrative. I noticed this during the 2016 election, so that may have changed.

wayoutthere 7y ago

Snopes stopped being impartial a few years ago in favor of being more clickbaity. There was a whole lot of drama and it's been under different ownership since.

mcv 7y ago
My impression is that only part of the ownership has changed, and that's part of the reason for this lawsuit. David Mikkelson owns 50%, while Barbara Mikkelson sold her 50% to the shareholders of the company that handled Snopes' advertising. Those people have since been in a legal battle with David and/or Snopes, and now acquired Salon, which apparently they're now using to continue their legal battle? It's not really clear what Salon has to do with the whole thing, other than that it got acquired by the people suing David Mikkelson/Snopes.
- throwaway1777 7y ago
  Both are true, only part of the ownership changed, but it’s not the site it was before.
  - dkonofalski 7y ago
    >it’s not the site it was before How so?
    - beerandt 7y ago
      Well for one thing, the majority of the articles seem to be done by completely 3rd party authors, without mention of vetting, conflicts, or bias. >More troubling is that we simply don’t know who contributed to a given fact check. David noted that Snopes’ “process is a highly collaborative one in which several different people may contribute to a single article,” but that “the result is typically credited to whoever wrote the initial draft.” David did not respond to a request for comment on why Snopes only lists a single author for each of its fact checks, rather than provide an acknowledgement section that lists all of the individuals who contributed to a given fact check. It's the same problem Wikipedia sometimes has. Selectively pick sources that confirm the story you want to convey, and ignore the others. The other big problem recently is to spin something that's true as being false, by slightly changing the question, to be broad enough to encompass an "out." Also this story covers most of the history of what's in the linked article, from over 3 years ago. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-daily-mail-snopes-story-and-fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/#1766211b227f https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-dai...
      - dkonofalski 7y ago
        >spin something that's true as being false, by slightly changing the question Do you have an example of this?
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Here's an example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/02/bernie-sanders-claim-that-the-worlds-six-wealthiest-people-have-as-much-wealth-as-half-the-worlds-population/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/... The claim is correct, and the article even acknowledges that. They then throw in a bit about "negative wealth" amongst the world's poor and somehow award it "Three Pinocchios" as a result.
        dkonofalski 7y ago
        This article is not from Snopes. The question is about the integrity of Snopes and whether or not they re-frame questions to fit a political spin. The Washington Post has been found to have done this on numerous occasions.

wl 7y ago

Snopes fact-checking the satire site Babylon Bee suggests to me that their days of being a valuable resource are over. Any reasonable people at Snopes apparently no longer have any influence.

dev_dull 7y ago
I’m glad I’m not the only one wondering what was up with that. Also, snopes is not an innocent reference site. Their “debunking” of satire like Babylonbee can cause those sites to be deplatformed.
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  This seems less like Snopes being at issue than Facebook not understanding nuance.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - wl 7y ago
    Snopes chose to target, among other things, a Babylon Bee article talking about how CNN bought industrial laundry equipment to spin their news. The only people who could possibly be confused that this is real news are toddlers who have not yet developed abstract thinking and would be confused by the whole thing anyway. It's a strong indication that Snopes is engaging in the culture war as an interested party. It's not a good look for a supposedly disinterested fact checker.
    - pwinnski 7y ago
      > The only people who could possibly be confused that this is real news are toddlers Have you been away from the internet for the last couple of years? There is literally nothing on the internet so fantastical that it won't be posted to social media stripped of context and believed by somebody.

yawboakye 7y ago

Personal bias: Snopes is a legitimate fact-checker. That said, for a so-called fact-checker, "pretty impartial" is not acceptable.

jsight 7y ago
Until there is such a thing as 100% flawless people, pretty impartial is as good as we can get.

alecco 7y ago

Snopes has been used against right wing sites and in favour of left wing controversies. For example, they labelled a clearly satire site Babylon Bee as "fake news". Downplaying Antifa violence. And outright lying about a woman being punched in the face who was throwing glass bottles. I'm pretty sure there are more cases but those come up with a quick search. Note: I'm not from USA/UK, not white, not right wing, I think Trump is unqualified to say the least. But Snopes, like many other sites, is no longer unbiased or objective. So long.

Vomzor 7y ago
It says a lot about the current political climate when people feel the need to add a disclaimer like that.
belltaco 7y ago
https://www.reddit.com/domain/babylonbee.com/ https://www.reddit.com/domain/babylonbee.com/ Clearly many right and alt right subreddits are taking stories from there seriously, including r/conservative. https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/duy4x5/nazis_clarify_theyre_only_calling_for_democratic/ https://www.reddit.com/r/JordanPeterson/comments/duy4x5/nazi... Look at the comments there. In only a few places it's marked as Satire. They publish a very agenda driven news that's taken literally very commonly, unlike the Onion which is well known to be satire and does not have an overt extreme bias. It's a very good call to call it fake news since mainstream social media is taking it for real.
- wl 7y ago
  I spent about five minutes reading the discussion at your r/JordanPeterson link. While I see the link has spurred some substantive discussion stemming from the "ha ha only serious" Babylon Bee article, I'm not seeing anyone confused that this is real news.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Doesn't seem to be unlike HN where we basically just kneejerk respond to titles and titles are more like open-ended writing prompts for us that mainly have the purpose of introducing a topic like "javascript sucks" or "weight loss is just CICO" or whichever hobby horses we have chomping at the bit.

brlewis 7y ago

People could do fact checking on https://www.kialo.com/ https://www.kialo.com/ which is set up in a way that reduces the effect of bias.

fastball 7y ago
I find it weird that Kialo uses true or false for everything, even the much more subjective questions which should really be yes or no.
big_chungus 7y ago
Well it looks interesting, but the intro video states that it is, "The only platform designed specifically for rational debates." This is not true; HN is an example of another forum with such a purpose. Others exist, though they periodically get "Eternal September'ed" once enough people join and have to be abandoned.
- brlewis 7y ago
  Forums are for chronological discussion. New comments bury old comments. People talk past each other or in circles. A platform designed for rational debate puts a statement at the top and collects pro/con arguments under it. You win such a debate by curating a concise list of effective statements, not by talking longer than your opponent can. Rational debate can happen in a discussion forum, but forums aren't really designed for it.
  - P_I_Staker 7y ago
    It'd be an interesting idea. I'm not sure about all of the features needed. I'd add that it'd be helpful to have a place to post sources, possibly with dedicated discussion. Both sides would have a chance to critique each others sources before the debate completes.
    - ChrisKor 7y ago
      On Kialo the sources in the arguments are normally discussed in pros and cons underneath the argument they are in, or in the comments of a claim, sort of a meta discussion where folks discuss how to best formulate a claim. Some of their argument trees nest 10 levels deep.

smilbandit 7y ago

Last week tonight just did a segment on SLAPP lawsuits

mxd3 7y ago

I've found them to have a consistent bias, often claiming things are "partially true" when they conflict with the site's overall left-leaning narrative. I noticed this during the 2016 election, so that may have changed.