Snopes will probably rate the Buzzfeed claims as "False but Factual"
Literally true but misleading, 4/5 Pinocchios.
Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
151–160 of 417 posts
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#152A lot of the responses here seem to be attempting to sow Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) on the fact-checking articles themselves (which were not in any way implicated by the revelations of this article). As if there is some kind of "essence" that permeates an orgainization which either wholly condemns it or wholly justifies it. I reject this assessment. Every article stands or falls on its own.
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#153Outsourcing 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 th…
So if there is no clear authority on reality, that means that a single private site is? How does that argument make any sense?
The solution is the same as it’s always been: read multiple sources that have different viewpoints.
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#154Earlier 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-...
That was not the original lab leak article. The original article called it definitely false and racist.
Right, you can tell by the publication date (it's in the URL), why I say "they reference a medical journal article from 1.5 years ago as evidence."
What you said is not true, and their position hasn't shifted (they're critical of those that did). https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/16/lab-leak-evidence/
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#155The 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?
> Fact checkers reconcile memes/news media against primary sources/other news media
Yes, that's what they do. They should do this for every article in your publication.
> while adding context, references, and journalistic integrity.
No, this is editorial.
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you provide an example of an article that you feel has a clear political slant?
What about these? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-vaccine-passport/
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?
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#157Yeah I don't trust Mikkelson's writing very much because of this Snopes article: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/swallow-spiders/ (mentioned in the article).
It's not in the special section of their site marking it as satire or anything but it cites a nonexistent source ("Lisa Birgit Holst", anagram for "this is a big troll").
The weird thing is that … as far as I could tell the real origin of the "people eat eight spiders a year" thing was a 1992 campus humor column ( some notes at https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/80j3px/til_a... ). That would have been a perfectly fine story to write and I'm not sure why he just made something up instead, except as some kind of quiet prank.
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#158The biggest problem with Snopes is their unwillingness to rate something as opinion rather than fact. As a result they assign truth ratings to things that are mostly opinion pieces and those truth ratings are often accusing the opinion piece of making something up. The opinions in said pieces may or may not be well supported by facts but they are still opinions and calling one false is misleading at best and dangerous at worse. Especially when you have become a source for social media censorship.
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#159The biggest problem with Snopes is their unwillingness to rate something as opinion rather than fact. As a result they assign truth ratings to things that are mostly opinion pieces and those truth ratings are often accusing the opinion piece of making something up. The opinions in said pieces may or may not be well supported by facts but they are still opinions and calling one false is misleading at best and dangerou…
Can you provide a link to an article you feel is especially illustrative of this problem?
Re: Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name
#160Earlier 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.
> I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias Could you please elaborate? I have never seen them described like this.
I see it all the time... on the sorts of subreddits all the RWNJs hang out on.