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Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

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Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#71
post #16

Snopes lost credibility when they teamed up with Facebook

Snopes lost credibility when they "fact checked" the Babylon Bee, a site which is clearly labeled as satire and never claimed to be real news. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/07/31/fact-c...

Part of that was prompted by certain segments sharing Babylon Bee's posts unironically.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#72
post #36
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're a sham fact checking website and they don't want a paper trail.

How is this not a better established position? I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias. Honestly, I see all those fact checking websites the same way. Which is fine, though humorously this pairs nicely with another thread on HN this morning about HS critical thinking courses around journalism, quite well.

Really? So you think Trump was wearing his pants backwards at this rally?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-wear-pants-backwards...

Snopes says he wasn't, and shows evidence why. That's just "pure, unadulterated bias" though, right? His pants are on backwards?

Otherwise "I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias" would be such a broad generalization it's meaningless!

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#73
post #64

Plagiarism is wrong. It also isn't the same thing as publishing false or misleading information about the topic of the article plagiarized . In other words, the articles plagiarized don't become false or misleading because of the plagiarism.

It's misleading if it implies the plagiariser witnessed, researched, or analyzed an event, when all he did was copy someone else who did those things.

Well, if the credibility of the content depends on its having been witnessed or analyzed at all, this should be immaterial.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#74
post #20
post #11

Snopes is truly disappointing and slanted. It’s early days it was a good reference tool… sadly in our divided times Snopes has clearly a political slant.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a sadly similar story. They're downright extreme nowadays.

An example being SPLC labeling ex-muslims as hateful "islamophobes".

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#75
post #34
post #15

Can someone explain what the difference between this and pulling stuff off the AP machine is? I see almost identical news articles all the time across major news outlets. My partner used to work at a company and would write all their news, spotlights and press releases. They commonly would see paragraphs taken by major news outlets without attribution. She tells me that’s just how it was. I’m not in the industry but…

Media orgs will have a commercial deal with AP or Reuters that lets them more or less cut and paste whatever they want. Here the guy got lazy and started copying filler from media without any agreement I don’t see how it puts into question any fact checking though - the guy was just taking shortcuts to build articles, by plagiarising reliable journalists

Snopes is fundamentally trafficking in "trust". People refer to them with the question if something heard or seen should be trusted. Plagiarism is fundamentally a violation of trust: it represents work as original when it is not. If trust is violated in the production of the work, why would you believe that the facts presented are themselves trustworthy? Even if the plagiarist doesn't desire to mislead factually, they've already taken shady shortcuts to save some time... why wouldn't they also take shortcuts on diligence or verification? The problem is once trust is lost, you can't take for granted any measure of reliability given that trust verification is their product.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#77
post #16

Snopes lost credibility when they teamed up with Facebook

Snopes lost credibility when they "fact checked" the Babylon Bee, a site which is clearly labeled as satire and never claimed to be real news. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/07/31/fact-c...

I don't know how long they have been doing this for, but the two Snopes articles that this article links to use the rating "Labeled Satire", which seems accurate.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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.

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#79
FWIW, the Mikkelsons (couple originally behind the site) had a messy divorce and the lawsuits between their various entities continue to this day. The plagiarism here does seem pretty clear cut, but it's likely the funders of investigation have their own axe to grind.

https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/539576135/fact-checking-websi...

Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name

#80
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of those are Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz?

According to the SPLC, their addition was a mistake, and the retraction seems honest and reasonable. [0] Now, me, I like my organizations to never admit-- uh, I mean make mistakes. [0] https://www.splcenter.org/splc-statement-video

They settled a defamation lawsuit. The settlement terms included an apology and payment of $3 million.
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