Did snopes debunk itself?

[Augustus]

Poll: Voters don't trust media fact-checkers

People only trust facts and fact checkers that tell them they were right in the first place.

People care very little for establishing the truth of an issue they are emotionally invested in.

 

[YmirGF]

People only trust facts and fact checkers that tell them they were right in the first place.

People care very little for establishing the truth of an issue they are emotionally invested in.

Bingo!

 

[Ouroboros]

"Facebook 'fact checker' who will arbitrate on 'fake news' is accused of defrauding website to pay for prostitutes - and its staff includes an escort-porn star and 'Vice Vixen domme'"

• Facebook has announced plans to check for 'fake news' using a series of organizations to assess whether stories are true
• One of them is a website called Snopes.com which claims to be one of the web's 'essential resources' and 'painstaking, scholarly and reliable'
• It was founded by husband-and-wife Barbara and David Mikkelson, who used a letterhead claiming they were a non-existent society to start their research
• Now they are divorced - with Barbara claiming in legal documents he embezzled $98,000 of company money and spent it on 'himself and prostitutes'
• In a lengthy and bitter legal dispute he is claiming to be underpaid and demanding 'industry standard' or at least $360,000 a year
• The two also dispute what are basic facts of their case - despite Snopes.com saying its 'ownership' is committed to 'accuracy and impartiality'
• Snopes.com founder David Mikkelson's new wife Elyssa Young is employed by the website as an administrator
• She has worked as an escort and porn actress and despite claims website is non-political ran as a Libertarian for Congress on a 'Dump Bush' platform
• Its main 'fact checker' is Kimberly LaCapria, whose blog 'ViceVixen' says she is in touch with her 'domme side' and has posted on Snopes.com while smoking pot

Facebook 'fact checker' Snopes.com accused of defrauding website to pay for prostitutes | Daily Mail Online

So which part is false? Am I missing something? And how did Snopes get debunked by any of these facts?

 

[Ouroboros]

I don't know about you, but I don't trust the word of an embezzeler.

So all the snopes articles are fact checked by the owners?

 

[buddhist]

So all the snopes articles are fact checked by the owners?

They're ultimately responsible for its content.

 

[james bond]

Yesterday it pointed out he was a known prankster with a history of faking stories of prejudice, so found the claim 'unproven'.

Today it changed to 'false'

Why does that constitute 'sucking it up'?

Because it's not really important news and could be fake news, but it was on their front page. It turned out to be fake news.

This is evidence that snopes should not be the judge of fake news. They get faked out too easily.

 

[Augustus]

Because it's not really important news and could be fake news, but it was on their front page. It turned out to be fake news.

This is genuinely one of the most bizarre criticisms I've ever heard.

You do understand that the purpose of the website is literally to evaluate potentially fake news don't you? What you are doing is like criticising a doctor for giving you medical advice.

And by 'not really big' you mean covered widely on international media?

And seeing as the front page a list of all recently added stories, you find it somehow 'biased' that when this story was recently added it appeared on a list with other recently added stories?

This is evidence that snopes should not be the judge of fake news. They get faked out too easily.

No single source should be the judge, but it is fairly reliable as a judge. Of course, you still have to apply your critical reasoning as you would with any source though.

Seeing as you are attacking a site that exists purely to fact check potential news because it got 'suckered in to' fact checking some major, but potentially fake news, not sure your critical reasoning is working too well at the moment though. Seems like you have been told Snopes has a nasty liberal bias so you are desperate to attack everything it.

There may be legitimate criticisms of the website, but this certainly isn't one of them.

 

[james bond]

This is genuinely one of the most bizarre criticisms I've ever heard.

You do understand that the purpose of the website is literally to evaluate potentially fake news don't you? What you are doing is like criticising a doctor for giving you medical advice.

And by 'not really big' you mean covered widely on international media?

And seeing as the front page a list of all recently added stories, you find it somehow 'biased' that when this story was recently added it appeared on a list with other recently added stories?



No single source should be the judge, but it is fairly reliable as a judge. Of course, you still have to apply your critical reasoning as you would with any source though.

Seeing as you are attacking a site that exists purely to fact check potential news because it got 'suckered in to' fact checking some major, but potentially fake news, not sure your critical reasoning is working too well at the moment though. Seems like you have been told Snopes has a nasty liberal bias so you are desperate to attack everything it.

There may be legitimate criticisms of the website, but this certainly isn't one of them.

You're missing the point that it's liberal fake news. The criticism was snopes = liberal and thus biased.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Because it's not really important news and could be fake news, but it was on their front page. It turned out to be fake news.

This is evidence that snopes should not be the judge of fake news. They get faked out too easily.

The entire reason Snopes exists is to evaluate whether a news story is real or not.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

You're missing the point that it's liberal fake news. The criticism was snopes = liberal and thus biased.

And as I pointed out earlier, it shouldn't be thought of as a political source. Politics are only secondary to it's purpose and function.

 

[james bond]

The entire reason Snopes exists is to evaluate whether a news story is real or not.

Biased. Are you saying the fake news is mostly liberal? We had WND.

 

[james bond]

And as I pointed out earlier, it shouldn't be thought of as a political source. Politics are only secondary to it's purpose and function.

Most fake news is political. Enough about snopes. FB is saying they're going to purge fake news. How are they going to do this? Do you know?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Biased. Are you saying the fake news is mostly liberal? We had WND.

That doesn't make any sense. They aren't a source of fake news, but rather a databases of stories they have evaluated and determined to be true, false, mixture, or mostly/half true, or whatever other labels they apply to a story after having researched it.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Most fake news is political. Enough about snopes. FB is saying they're going to purge fake news. How are they going to do this? Do you know?

It's not a news source either.

 

[Augustus]

You're missing the point that it's liberal fake news. The criticism was snopes = liberal and thus biased.

You're missing the point that what you posted has literally nothing to do with any liberal bias whatsoever.

An attention seeking **** pulled off a prank on a plane and a fact checking website rapidly debunked it as a publicity stunt carried out by an attention seeking ****.

You claimed that even them covering the story in the first place = liberal bias and getting 'faked out', and that the story appearing in their timeline of recent stories magnified this flagrant bias??

Most fake news is political. Enough about snopes. FB is saying they're going to purge fake news. How are they going to do this? Do you know?

They are going to employ multiple fact checking organisations, including Snopes I believe. If a story is reported as fake news, then they will get multiple organisations to independently check it.

Anyway, you have no problem with bias, as long as the bias is right wing. So if Facebook won't publish right wing fake news because of 'liberal bias' you can always get your fake news elsewhere.

 

[Ouroboros]

They're ultimately responsible for its content.

Fair enough.

But I don't think his behavior warrants to discredit the whole website. The only thing he did that was criminal was embezzling, which is serious, but has nothing to do with fact checking urban myths. The second thing he did wasn't criminal, unethical perhaps, but not extremely serious. Millions of men hire prostitutes (I don't, but I don't judge them either) and we don't discredit every company they work in. It wouldn't surprise me if there are at least one person who has some shady background in every company, but still, we don't distrust every company for that reason. We still read news from CNN, NBC, and other news sites and assume their news are somewhat fairly reported, even if there's been reports in the past of indiscretions, lying, manipulation, and much more in every single one of them. So, even though it's serious, I wouldn't say that everything on snopes now suddenly are lies just because the owner had done some stupid things. The bottom line is that we always have to be on watch and judge what we read, whatever source it is, even the religious holy books.

 

[buddhist]

Fair enough.

But I don't think his behavior warrants to discredit the whole website. The only thing he did that was criminal was embezzling, which is serious, but has nothing to do with fact checking urban myths. The second thing he did wasn't criminal, unethical perhaps, but not extremely serious. Millions of men hire prostitutes (I don't, but I don't judge them either) and we don't discredit every company they work in. It wouldn't surprise me if there are at least one person who has some shady background in every company, but still, we don't distrust every company for that reason. We still read news from CNN, NBC, and other news sites and assume their news are somewhat fairly reported, even if there's been reports in the past of indiscretions, lying, manipulation, and much more in every single one of them. So, even though it's serious, I wouldn't say that everything on snopes now suddenly are lies just because the owner had done some stupid things. The bottom line is that we always have to be on watch and judge what we read, whatever source it is, even the religious holy books.

Embezzling is fraud, and fraud is a form of deception. If the head is rotten, then so is the rest of the body, IMO.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

They are going to employ multiple fact checking organisations, including Snopes I believe. If a story is reported as fake news, then they will get multiple organisations to independently check it.

Anyway, you have no problem with bias, as long as the bias is right wing. So if Facebook won't publish right wing fake news because of 'liberal bias' you can always get your fake news elsewhere.

If that's actually going to happen, it worries me. Ultimately, reality itself is heavily biased against many Conservative values, such as biology, LBGT-psychology, "Reaganomics," and environmental science. But to the eyes of the believer, how do you explain this as anything less than an attack, and how should we predict them to behave when so many of them who would take offense to such a thing voted for the next President? What is to prevent this precedence from having consequences that extend far beyond the realms of Facebook and cybernetic communications?
As for for the other, it is mind boggling someone can be so bound that a non-political source that fact-checks news stories, urban legends, chain emails, and other such things gets called biased for doing what it is that they do. Just for existing.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Embezzling is fraud, and fraud is a form of deception. If the head is rotten, then so is the rest of the body, IMO.

Except Snopes hasn't been debunked, and they few things online that try to debunk them are not themselves accurate. And even if those criticisms were true, a few things out of the thousands, if not millions, of stories they have fact checked is, overall, very damn impressive. Like it or not, the non-political Snopes is a remarkably non-biased and highly credible source, especially because politics is not a primary concern of theirs. It only comes up like it does because it's what their users are submitting to them. It really helps and goes a long way when it's just not really an issue.

 

[Ouroboros]

Embezzling is fraud, and fraud is a form of deception. If the head is rotten, then so is the rest of the body, IMO.

So you're saying that all articles in Snopes are all wrong?