5 ms·

What about these? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ https://www.snopes.com

What about these? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-vaccine-passport/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-vaccine-passport/

mjburgess 5y ago
I agree that the first should be "YES" and the second "Mixed". The question is now whether you can find similar "right-friendly" stories that show a similar "hesitation" in the labelling. Probably you can.
- h_anna_h 5y ago
  Yes, I remember a site listing the most evil people that ever existed and decided to place Marx at the top. It is not exactly the same thing (as it was not a fact-checking site) but it was similar enough. Although, is it really that the question? We have known that "both sides" have been bullshitting their way for ages. It's not as if this is a secret. The only reason that people care about Snopes having a political slant is because 1: it is popular and 2: it pretends that it is not (by being a fact checker). I am not aware of any similar popular and generally considered credible right wing site.
  - jrgoff 5y ago
    I think you misunderstood the point you were responding to. I don't think they were suggested there are right leaning sites with similar type of bias, I think they were suggesting Snopes may have articles with similar right-friendly bias.
majormajor 5y ago
What do you think the errors are? The first one says "definition of 'convicted terrorist' is fuzzy, here are the specific convictions, which are different from what was claimed, which were dropped charges" which seems accurate for a "mixed" review - if the words you use are literally incorrect, how can you expect to have them reviewed as "true" even if you think it's a technicality. If they have a "mostly true" then there's a good argument that they should've used it; I don't know if they have that or not. But the second one looks just plain correct. Here we are 5 months later and no Biden-mandated federal vaccine passports, after all.
- frumper 5y ago
  You're very much quibbling on the definition of terrorist. She was convicted of having hundred of pounds of explosives while being an active member of a group that did bomb government buildings is good enough for most people to colloquially agree that is she is a convicted terrorist.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    But was never convicted, or even prosecuted, for the bombing the original tweet mentioned. And never prosecuted for terrorism.
    - frumper 5y ago
      By your line of thinking Timothy McVeigh is a murderer, but not a terrorist. Terrorism related charges changed in 2001.
      - mavhc 5y ago
        Did he cause much terror? Wasn't he arrested soon after he murdered people?
- strangeattractr 5y ago
  Yes I just looked, they do have 'mostly true' and they didn't use it. Honestly, if that first one doesn't make you roll your eyes I don't know what to say. Would a reasonable person consider a person who was a member of a terrorist group that bombed the senate and was subsequently convicted of being in possession of large amounts of explosives and firearms a domestic terrorist? I think it's an emphatic yes. It's like arguing that a man caught by police attempting to have sex with a 16 year old girl from the internet shouldn't be considered a sexual predator because he didn't succeed and there is no single universally-agreed definition for the age of consent.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Fair argument around "mostly true." I would've probably chosen that myself. But again, "convicted" is a big, specific, technical word, and it's hard for me to get past that, especially around potential liability issues of making such a claim, especially when the shown tweet specifically says she was convicted of three specific bombings that she very much wasn't. Flip it on its head: can you claim with a straight face that "She was convicted for the 1983 bombing of the United States Capitol Building, The US Naval War College and the New York Patrolmen's Benevolent Assoc" is not a blatant lie? It's a straightforward claim that would've been trivial to verify and correct before by the person who tweeted it, without even losing THAT much impact towards the argument they want to make, yet... they didn't. So to establish bias... do we know of any right-wing terrorist-esque folks that Snopes is either less or more wishy-washy on? Seems like too specific a scenario to find anything direct on, the closes I can come up with is something like https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kelly-loeffler-kkk-member-photo/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kelly-loeffler-kkk-member-... . There's a somewhat-close comparison https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-kkk-klan-wizard/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-kkk-klan-wizard/ here but the part claimed false there is the exaggerated claim of "grand wizard." (And are we agreeing that the Biden/vaccination one shows no bias at all?)
jyounker 5y ago
The core of their argument for the first is in the following section, and it rings pretty true for the mixed label: However, prosecutors dropped those charges in 1990 as part of a plea deal involving other suspects in the bombings. As a result, Rosenberg was never tried or convicted on any charges relating to the 1983-1985 bombing campaign. The claim, made in @asdomke’s tweet, that Rosenberg was “convicted of” several 1983 bombings, was therefore false. The claim in the headline of an article on Wayne Dupree’s website that Rosenberg “carried out” the bombings stands in contrast to the fact that she was never tried or convicted in relation to those incidents. During her 16-year incarceration, Rosenberg renounced the use of political violence, though her political beliefs appear not to have changed significantly. In a radio interview shortly after her release in January 2001, she said she “rejects” the “potential for violence in my past actions,” saying her view of violence as a strategic tool had undergone an “enormous change,” but that she retained “a political view that is certainly progressive and radical in a certain sense.”
ajross 5y ago
Both those articles seem.. pretty good to me? The claims being debunked are clear spin, and the Snopes treatment gives important and reasoned context to explain things without engaging in blanket denialism. Certainly someone who reads only the original partisan sources and NOT Snopes is going to be less informed about the truth. You'd admit that much, right?
jccalhoun 5y ago
I have seen some entries on snopes that seem to be trying very hard to be technically correct even though the story is substantially correct. I think the Rosenberg one is one example. I would say it was "mostly true" but I think they are trying to parse the meaning of words overly closely. Yes, technically she wasn't convicted of terrorism and the definition of terrorist is vague. I would be interested if there are examples of conservative topics where they have either been as hair-splitting as in this example or if they were not as hair-splitting.

mjburgess 5y ago

I agree that the first should be "YES" and the second "Mixed". The question is now whether you can find similar "right-friendly" stories that show a similar "hesitation" in the labelling. Probably you can.

h_anna_h 5y ago
Yes, I remember a site listing the most evil people that ever existed and decided to place Marx at the top. It is not exactly the same thing (as it was not a fact-checking site) but it was similar enough. Although, is it really that the question? We have known that "both sides" have been bullshitting their way for ages. It's not as if this is a secret. The only reason that people care about Snopes having a political slant is because 1: it is popular and 2: it pretends that it is not (by being a fact checker). I am not aware of any similar popular and generally considered credible right wing site.
- jrgoff 5y ago
  I think you misunderstood the point you were responding to. I don't think they were suggested there are right leaning sites with similar type of bias, I think they were suggesting Snopes may have articles with similar right-friendly bias.

majormajor 5y ago

What do you think the errors are? The first one says "definition of 'convicted terrorist' is fuzzy, here are the specific convictions, which are different from what was claimed, which were dropped charges" which seems accurate for a "mixed" review - if the words you use are literally incorrect, how can you expect to have them reviewed as "true" even if you think it's a technicality. If they have a "mostly true" then there's a good argument that they should've used it; I don't know if they have that or not. But the second one looks just plain correct. Here we are 5 months later and no Biden-mandated federal vaccine passports, after all.

frumper 5y ago
You're very much quibbling on the definition of terrorist. She was convicted of having hundred of pounds of explosives while being an active member of a group that did bomb government buildings is good enough for most people to colloquially agree that is she is a convicted terrorist.
- mavhc 5y ago
  But was never convicted, or even prosecuted, for the bombing the original tweet mentioned. And never prosecuted for terrorism.
  - frumper 5y ago
    By your line of thinking Timothy McVeigh is a murderer, but not a terrorist. Terrorism related charges changed in 2001.
    - mavhc 5y ago
      Did he cause much terror? Wasn't he arrested soon after he murdered people?
strangeattractr 5y ago
Yes I just looked, they do have 'mostly true' and they didn't use it. Honestly, if that first one doesn't make you roll your eyes I don't know what to say. Would a reasonable person consider a person who was a member of a terrorist group that bombed the senate and was subsequently convicted of being in possession of large amounts of explosives and firearms a domestic terrorist? I think it's an emphatic yes. It's like arguing that a man caught by police attempting to have sex with a 16 year old girl from the internet shouldn't be considered a sexual predator because he didn't succeed and there is no single universally-agreed definition for the age of consent.
- majormajor 5y ago
  Fair argument around "mostly true." I would've probably chosen that myself. But again, "convicted" is a big, specific, technical word, and it's hard for me to get past that, especially around potential liability issues of making such a claim, especially when the shown tweet specifically says she was convicted of three specific bombings that she very much wasn't. Flip it on its head: can you claim with a straight face that "She was convicted for the 1983 bombing of the United States Capitol Building, The US Naval War College and the New York Patrolmen's Benevolent Assoc" is not a blatant lie? It's a straightforward claim that would've been trivial to verify and correct before by the person who tweeted it, without even losing THAT much impact towards the argument they want to make, yet... they didn't. So to establish bias... do we know of any right-wing terrorist-esque folks that Snopes is either less or more wishy-washy on? Seems like too specific a scenario to find anything direct on, the closes I can come up with is something like https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kelly-loeffler-kkk-member-photo/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kelly-loeffler-kkk-member-... . There's a somewhat-close comparison https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-kkk-klan-wizard/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-kkk-klan-wizard/ here but the part claimed false there is the exaggerated claim of "grand wizard." (And are we agreeing that the Biden/vaccination one shows no bias at all?)

jyounker 5y ago

The core of their argument for the first is in the following section, and it rings pretty true for the mixed label: However, prosecutors dropped those charges in 1990 as part of a plea deal involving other suspects in the bombings. As a result, Rosenberg was never tried or convicted on any charges relating to the 1983-1985 bombing campaign. The claim, made in @asdomke’s tweet, that Rosenberg was “convicted of” several 1983 bombings, was therefore false. The claim in the headline of an article on Wayne Dupree’s website that Rosenberg “carried out” the bombings stands in contrast to the fact that she was never tried or convicted in relation to those incidents. During her 16-year incarceration, Rosenberg renounced the use of political violence, though her political beliefs appear not to have changed significantly. In a radio interview shortly after her release in January 2001, she said she “rejects” the “potential for violence in my past actions,” saying her view of violence as a strategic tool had undergone an “enormous change,” but that she retained “a political view that is certainly progressive and radical in a certain sense.”

ajross 5y ago

Both those articles seem.. pretty good to me? The claims being debunked are clear spin, and the Snopes treatment gives important and reasoned context to explain things without engaging in blanket denialism. Certainly someone who reads only the original partisan sources and NOT Snopes is going to be less informed about the truth. You'd admit that much, right?

jccalhoun 5y ago

I have seen some entries on snopes that seem to be trying very hard to be technically correct even though the story is substantially correct. I think the Rosenberg one is one example. I would say it was "mostly true" but I think they are trying to parse the meaning of words overly closely. Yes, technically she wasn't convicted of terrorism and the definition of terrorist is vague. I would be interested if there are examples of conservative topics where they have either been as hair-splitting as in this example or if they were not as hair-splitting.