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Looks like this needs updating now https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chinese-cargo-seattle-tariffs/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chinese-cargo-seattle-tari
by ljf 1y ago
Looks like this needs updating now https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chinese-cargo-seattle-tariffs/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chinese-cargo-seattle-tari...
- BJones12 1y agoNo, the original claim was "as of April 29, 2025", which was false and will always be false. Perhaps they should make another page for the newest claims. But again, the situation is very different than this article's headline.
- tokai 1y agoSeems like they are debunking that port is empty, while the article of this thread states that there are no container ships. Lots of cargo isn't moved by container ships.
- kristjansson 1y ago> In fact, the Northwest Seaport Alliance … said it was so far seeing more vessels call into port in 2025 than in 2024, with three more calls in the first quarter of 2025 than during the same period in 2024. > However, the ships calling into port were arriving with unpredictable volumes of cargo — sometimes 30% less than anticipated And Snopes felt comfortable rating “mostly false” to the top level claim? I get that they’re trying to navigating treacherous waters, but “there’s still ships, they’re just 1/3 empty” is as much support for the top level claim as it is contradiction
- echoangle 1y agoNot really, the claim was „the port is empty“, not „the ships arriving are empty“. If there are still ships arriving, the claim is false.
- kristjansson 1y agoMost of what comprises a port is infrastructure for handling containers and bulk cargo. If cargo volumes are down, some fraction of that infrastructure is disused, or used below its capacity. That a ship was at berth is cold comfort to the longshoremen, truck drivers, etc. who expected to work that cargo, nevermind to the people that expected to, y’know, purchase and consume those goods. Is 30% underutilized / partially disused tantamount to empty? Maybe not. But it’s in the ballpark in a way the snopes rating undersells.
- lurk2 1y ago> But it’s in the ballpark It is not remotely in the ballpark. The word “empty” is not understood to mean “70% full” anywhere in the English-speaking world.
- michaelt 1y agoThere are websites that provide tracking for a lot of ships. For comparison here's Tilbury, near London in the UK: https://www.vesselfinder.com/?p=GBTIL001 https://www.vesselfinder.com/?p=GBTIL001 you'll note that big cargo vessels are shown in yellow. And here's the port of Seattle: https://www.vesselfinder.com/?p=USSEA001 https://www.vesselfinder.com/?p=USSEA001 You'll note a distinct lack of yellow. If you zoom out a bit you can find some 'bulk carriers' but those aren't container ships. So when the article quotes the Seattle port commissioner who says "we currently have no container ships at berth" that might be literally true right now at that specific port. Other US ports seem to be doing better - Perhaps Seattle is badly located or expensive, and has taken a disproportionate fraction of the 30% drop in volumes? There are certainly larger ports on the same coast https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Top_container_ports_by_TEUs.webp https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Top_container_ports_...
- kristjansson 1y agoOne sets off for a morning drive on Thanksgiving. Upon entering the freeway, they find the normally traffic-congested road smooth and free-flowing. The journey takes a little more than half the time it usually would. They exclaim "Wow, the roads are empty this morning!" I'm playing a bit of devils advocate, but it's not inconsistent to observe a typically congested resource X operating at a fraction of its capacity, and note the observation with "wow, X is _empty_".
- echoangle 1y agoAnd if you’re snopes and the claim you’re checking is „the road is empty“, you would rate it as true?
- HotHotLava 1y ago
- watwut 1y agoThe claim was "at this moment right now, the port is empty". The article then talks about 35% drop of "shipments" and "imports".
- lowbloodsugar 1y agoSnopes has been pwnd. It now adheres to the standard of literal truth with a political bias. So if someone posts “Bernie Sanders has 30,000 at a rally” (true) but the image is of a different (also true) rally but on a different date, then Snopes just says “it’s false”. Not “true, but the image is wrong”. Not informative, like “Bernie did have 30,000 people attend but this image is from XYZ”. Just says FALSE! Same here.
- mikem170 1y agoThey've always seemed informative and do a good job of showing their sources. How big a deal is the single-word true/false judgement for an ambiguous claim if all the relevant details are summarized?
- lowbloodsugar 1y agoThey weren’t.
- mikem170 1y agoIs this [0] the Snopes article you were talking about, on the Bernie Sander rally? They rate it "mostly true" and in the summary mentioned the true attendance and the false photo, just like you said they should have. I don't get what you are saying. They seem on the ball. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/27000-people-came-to-a-bernie-sanders-rally-in-california/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/27000-people-came-to-a-ber...
- mtillman 1y agoPerfect use of treacherous waters. Kudos.
- lurk2 1y agoIf I drink 30% of a glass of water, is the glass of water empty?
- plopz 1y agoits closer to empty than before you drank
- Retric 1y agoThese aren’t static systems. Keep removing 1 cup of water and add 2/3 cups and eventually it goes to zero. For a port that very well may be sending people home early on an ‘empty’ port. Even if tomorrow brings in new ships for now it looks like a ghost town. And then at one port on one day zero cargo ships showed up.
- lurk2 1y ago> These aren’t static systems. That is irrelevant.
- gamblor956 1y agoNo, but if the claim is that the glass no longer has any boba it's irrelevant how much liquid you drink. The specific claim was that the port no longer had any container ships on that specific day. And that claim was true. Yes, there were other ships in the port. But that's irrelevant. A container ship is a specific kind of cargo ship used for international cargo shipments. In an article about international shipments, that distinctions matters.
- ok_dad 1y agoIf I drink 30% less water overall, I’d be pretty unhealthy.
- lurk2 1y agoThat is irrelevant. The question was weather or not the ports can be considered empty if some ships are up to 30% empty, which is not the case. Emptiness can be more encompassing than 0% (there is still some residual water in an “empty” glass of water), but it isn’t so expansive as to range from >0% to 70%.
- anigbrowl 1y agoNot the first time their headline has been at odds with their content. I've never really been a fan of this particular outlet, even in their early days I found their self-absorbed writing style insufferable. They strike me as pedantic rather than informative.
- danesparza 1y agoThe slopes article was about a claim in April. This article was written in May, and directly quotes Seattle port commissioner Ryan Calkins.
- TheBozzCL 1y agoAbsolutely off-topic, but I started browsing Snopes’ tracking consent options and they use an insane amount of vendors. It took me longer to scroll through the list than reading the article itself.