Co-founder of Snopes was writing plagiarized articles under a fake name • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by mzs » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #169

Clewza313 wrote: post #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...

Thanks for this, I had no idea why the site went downhill, and that dates it in my memory. Barbara Mikkelson was the only byline I actually remembered from Snopes, and was probably what I liked about it. I didn't know the other co-founder was an ex-usenet troll who started aggressively raising money right after she left, but it explains a lot.

also from the BF article (which also links to a wired story involving the divorce) which explains snopes direction:

>Mikkelson described his vision for the site’s future “as a platform for traffic-generating junk that people would complain about if it were on ‘classic’ snopes,” including articles copied from "viral item of the day" sites.

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

#202

Post by colechristensen » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #13

danso wrote: post #5

> Marchionni is reevaluating decisions Mikkelson made years earlier to not allow Snopes stories to be archived on the Wayback Machine and is empowered to make any changes necessary. Not the most immediate important thing, but hiding content from the Wayback Machine that is purported to be factual record is very problematic, to say the least

I’m still struggling to understand why they’d want to block that. Edit: on re-reading I realize it’s so that they don’t get caught for this plagiarism since their modus operandi was plagiarize first rewrite slowly.

>plagiarize first rewrite slowly

Obviously publishing work that isn't your own is wrong, but "plagiarize then rewrite" is a very effective method of developing a creative skill. There is a question about when the transformation really becomes "yours".

An example: Radiohead - "Creep" was a tranformation for The Hollies "The Air that I Breathe", Radiohead later went to sue Lana Del Rey for "Get Free" which seemingly was built with one of the two as a starting point.

The moral question is... when is copying actually ok? How much do you have to transform something until you don't "owe" the result to someone else... or more fundamentally, to what extent should any of us be able to own intellectual property? There are some valid arguments towards "none at all".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaXFc4Zb78s

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

#203

Post by kenjackson » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

tablespoon wrote: post #161

readthenotes1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: On Jan 6, NPR published an article with a 10AM headline and timestamp about the upcoming Trump rally. Later in the day, they changed the headline to be something like "Insurgents invade Capital building", but did not change the 10AM timestamp up top. One had to read the article to find the update timestamp. Newsmaxx, and thus many if its viewers looked at the headline and headline timestamp and trumpet…

> Later in the day, they changed the headline to be something like "Insurgents invade Capital building", but did not change the 10AM timestamp up top. One had to read the article to find the update timestamp. News websites really need to stop continuously rewriting their articles. It's a PITA if you want to cite them as a source, then all the sudden what you cited isn't there. I've had NY Times articles get completel…

This isn’t any different than Wikipedia. If the news article was more like a Wiki (with revision history), would that be sufficient for you?

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

#204

Post by a_conservative » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #142

readthenotes1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: On Jan 6, NPR published an article with a 10AM headline and timestamp about the upcoming Trump rally. Later in the day, they changed the headline to be something like "Insurgents invade Capital building", but did not change the 10AM timestamp up top. One had to read the article to find the update timestamp. Newsmaxx, and thus many if its viewers looked at the headline and headline timestamp and trumpet…

This is the exact same because "conspiracy theorists might use it" reasoning just flowing in the opposite direction. Conspiracy theorists with conspiracy theorize regardless of the level of transparency provided by journalist organizations.

What!? NPR's website contains articles with false time stamps. Are you ok with this? Why does the conspiracy theorist angle matter at all?

Knowing when an article was written is a useful piece of information that is being destroyed by these always evolving articles. It might not be full on Orwell yet, but these always-mutating-articles are opening the door to an Orwellian future.

We need to be able to go back and look at the past unfiltered and unmodified.

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

#205

Post by betwixthewires » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #103

moolcool wrote: post #84

This article is ironic coming from Buzzfeed

buzzfeednews is a different thing entirely than buzzfeed

Diet Coke has literally nothing at all to do with Coca Cola whatsoever.

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

#206

Post by Natsu » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

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.

I've found that they don't generally omit stuff, but the headlines and overall evaluations they give are suspect on more contentious items, almost to the point of a motte and bailey. So someone looking at the summaries will be mislead, but there's a more defensible opinion in the article proper.

Now, they do pull tricks like choosing which version of a claim to debunk and sometimes seemingly hunting for more obscure weak man versions of a claim than the more popular ones. Or they will "fact check" something that is clearly an opinion, like someone's read of someone else's motives.

The way I see it, though, they're hardly unique in this. Anyone skimming headlines is going to be badly mislead from nearly any source whatsoever.

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

#207

Post by tannhauser23 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #91

1over137 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> An example being SPLC labeling ex-muslims as hateful "islamophobes". Why is that an example? Plenty of ex-whatever-religion (or even ex-particular-denomination) people turn right into the most extreme and hateful bigots against the group they departed. It’s a frequently commented on phenomenon among religious people, often not focussing on betrayal by departing members (where the bias of attachment to their own ide…

They had to pay $3.4 million and apologize for defaming a secular Muslim critic as an "anti-Muslim extremist": https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2018/06/20/southern-pover...

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

#208

Post by jollywate » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

kalium-xyz wrote: post #199

aalam wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a term for that in journalism: "matching" a story. This traditionally involves legwork, such as contacting the same sources quoted in the first article to verify that facts are true. This legwork is usually done by traditionally respected publications (i.e. not just copying and pasting). Other outlets and blogs with different goals do blatantly copy and paste, which produces articles less valuable than those…

Ive not ever seen the positive effects of this on internet journalism rather than echoing with less details and obfuscating actual information.

There can be positive effects of matching a story, but it depends on the journalists and the publication. Let's say The Wall Street Journal publishes a major investigative scoop, but you only pay for a Washington Post subscription. The Washington Post then matches the story to give readers access to the information, maybe with additional information or a unique angle, and sends a push notification to readers with the app. The WaPo article cites, and likely links, the WSJ if readers want to read the original report, and its readers become aware of the news.

That is the high-quality, professional version of matching. The low-quality, unprofessional version is echoing a story for clicks, but you're less likely to run into this if you are a newspaper subscriber who reads reports from publication apps (or alternatively, a reader who curates high-quality sources of reporting without paywalls).

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

#209

Post by betwixthewires » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

argomo wrote: post #137

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?

> ...do you really think we shouldn't have some folks doing that job?

Yes. 100% it should be nobody's job to do this for you. Everyone should be doing that job for themselves. A society devolves to madness when people delegate verification of their world view to people chosen specifically for this purpose.

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

#210

Post by kstrauser » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

I really want to like Snopes, but I'm not convinced that they weigh evidence correctly. For example, they debunked the myth that Marilyn Monroe had 6 toes. First, I don't believe that she did. Or even care, for that matter. But at the time, one of their "facts" was that if she'd had a toe removed, she'd basically have to learn to walk all over again because it would throw her balance completely off. (Note: the article no longer includes this fact. It did at one time, though.)

However, my wife's a podiatrist. Part of her job is amputating parts of feet when they're damaged or infected beyond repair. I asked her what it's like for an otherwise healthy adult to recover from a pinky toe amputation, and she said it's basically a matter of waiting for the wound site to heal and then they continue with life as normal. Contrary to popular belief, even a big toe amputation isn't that disruptive. A vestigial 6th toe hanging off to the side? You'd never notice it was gone.

I emailed Snopes and said hey, while I agree with your conclusion, this particular supporting fact is invalid according to an expert in the field. They replied basically that I was an idiot for believing she had 6 toes, and they left the article as-is.

That's not at all what I thought, and I actually agreed with their conclusion. I just didn't like that they were using incorrect facts to support it, and especially didn't like that they reacted poorly to a well-meant correction.

Since then, I've been skeptical of Snopes. Although I think they're probably right most of the time, that left a bad taste in my mouth. Are other people sending them corrections about their own fields of expertise and having them rejected? I have no way of knowing.