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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

#131

Post by jazzyjackson »

rglover wrote: post #66
dfee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because people believe what they want to believe. I'm being downvoted because what I said is hurting people's feelings and sensibilities, but it's the truth. The people who run it are, well... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fa... .

Downvoting you for complaining about downvoting

And also for linking the daily mail

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

#132

Post by encoderer »

rootusrootus wrote: post #110
ceilingcorner wrote: post #87

Outsourcing reality checks to private organizations is a serious problem with 21st century America. The Southern Poverty Law Center is another similar org that is treated as authoritative yet has zero safeguards or unbiased processes.

What is your solution? Every single source of news, every last one, will have perhaps 1/3 or more of the population calling it fake news.

Worth remembering that the term “fake news” did not exist in the mainstream until 6 years ago. It used to be called “liberal bias in the media” but fake news is a political slogan like Death Tax or Cancel Culture and like political slogans of previous generations I am optimistic we will not be stuck here forever.

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

#133

Post by mavhc »

spiderice wrote: post #115
qkqk wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snopes didn't, they reference a medical journal article from 1.5 years ago as evidence. Which presumably you agree with...oops! [1] Back on topic: why didn't they omit those references and reasoning regarding the Capitol?! https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/06/02/covid-19-why-the-lab-...

> why didn't they omit those references and reasoning regarding the Capitol?! Your argument seems to be: Because Snopes didn't omit references in this one case, they don't omit references ever. I've got no dog in this fight, but please, the logical fallacies are hurting my brain.

The lack of evidence is your evidence?

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

#134

Post by ezekiel68 »

nradov wrote: post #85
Borgz wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Snopes altered those pages when they got called out for it.

Or perhaps they changed their minds once they realized the error? Just because something seems obvious to you doesn't mean it must seem obvious to anyone else. When friends of friends on my social media networks started posting links to their articles (without any context) I certainly got caught "refuting" more than a few of them in the comments until someone pointed this out to me.

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

#136

Post by __s »

rootusrootus wrote: post #110
ceilingcorner wrote: post #87

Outsourcing reality checks to private organizations is a serious problem with 21st century America. The Southern Poverty Law Center is another similar org that is treated as authoritative yet has zero safeguards or unbiased processes.

What is your solution? Every single source of news, every last one, will have perhaps 1/3 or more of the population calling it fake news.

CSPAN has less than 1/3

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

#137

Post by argomo »

bobthechef wrote: post #83

The notion of "fact checker" is semantic slight of hand meant to give such people an undeserved veneer of special credibility beyond the weak credibility of journalists. It lulls people into a false sense of security. "He's not a journalist. He's a FACT CHECKER. Oooo, trustworthy!" It's an arrogant title that arrogates the supposed authority to check facts and offer pronouncements on them. All journalists, for exampl…

Fact checkers reconcile memes/news media against primary sources/other news media while adding context, references, and journalistic integrity. Yes, they're human and inevitably bring their own biases, but do you really think we shouldn't have some folks doing that job?

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

#138

Post by dragonwriter »

nsizx wrote: post #10
m0llusk wrote: post #9

Snopes provides references and reasoning. It can be wrong, but the references can be checked by anyone interested in a subject. If Snopes were relying instead on because I said so then this might make sense, but it isn't. Maybe previous experience with fakery may have contributed to inspiration for a fact checking service?

You can just omit the references and reasoning that go against your narrative.

> You can just omit the references and reasoning that go against your narrative.

You can, but it will then be obvious to anyone familiar with the references or who has the power of reasoning that you have failed (innocently or not) to consider them, not that you have found something that debunks them.

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

#139

Post by toast0 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #87

Outsourcing reality checks to private organizations is a serious problem with 21st century America. The Southern Poverty Law Center is another similar org that is treated as authoritative yet has zero safeguards or unbiased processes.

Who/what is the propery authority on reality?

It certainly isn't government sources, and it's not traditional news sources, and big technology isn't a good choice either.

Snopes used to be a pretty good place to link to dispute clearly bullshit stuff that idiots would forward around the internet as if it had any chance of being true, but at some point there was just too much of that. And they also seemed to expand their scope into things that were more nuanced and easier to get wrong.

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

#140

Post by qkqk »

spiderice wrote: post #115
qkqk wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snopes didn't, they reference a medical journal article from 1.5 years ago as evidence. Which presumably you agree with...oops! [1] Back on topic: why didn't they omit those references and reasoning regarding the Capitol?! https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/06/02/covid-19-why-the-lab-...

> why didn't they omit those references and reasoning regarding the Capitol?! Your argument seems to be: Because Snopes didn't omit references in this one case, they don't omit references ever. I've got no dog in this fight, but please, the logical fallacies are hurting my brain.

> the logical fallacies are hurting my brain

Like your "they don't omit references ever" straw man?

"This one case" meaning one of the most significant and contested events of the US election? Surely their far-left agenda would prevent them from publishing this?

This isn't "Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer" level of insignificance.

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