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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

#281

Post by ErikVandeWater »

S_A_P wrote: post #273

Fact checking all the facts is an extremely broad scope. A small mom and pop company is hardly able to support such a mission unless they happen to be multidisciplinary experts/geniuses. I always seemed a bit doubtful about some of the conclusions drawn from that site.

The only facts they could debunk would be the truly absurd (e.g. that this smoothie will extend your life by a decade!)

Or instances where insufficient evidence is used to draw an absolute conclusion.

I've seen them actually commit the latter where they fact check a politician's prediction based on an expert projection as if the expert is infallible.

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

#282

Post by ErikVandeWater »

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.

The Department of Truth would most certainly be worse.

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

#283

Post by unclebucknasty »

harpiaharpyja wrote: post #264
j_m_b wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one time, Snopes was part of the fact-checking team at Facebook. This comment goes to show that having an arbiter of truth is a bad idea considering it's hard to accurately know everything. Imagine Doctors trying to debunk the official fact-checker statements and being labeled as misinformation simply due to the fact that they disagree with the fact-checker!

Fact-checking is a dead end, a poor substitute for development of critical thinking skills in the broader population. It may be more challenging, but that's what we need to start working towards.

But, even critical thinking ability relies on good inputs. There must be some baseline of facts to work with.

I do agree however that fact-checking is extremely challenging, but for different reasons. That is, in a society that is being programmed to choose the reality/truth they prefer, you'll end up with cult-like belief systems that no amount of fact-checking will break through.

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

#284

Post by jawns »

sdljfjafsd wrote: post #269
pembrook wrote: post #144

All modern media companies today have been built by using these kinds of shady "growth hacks." Doesn't anybody see the irony of Buzzfeed calling out a fellow media company for using such tactics? Buzzfeed's entire growth strategy for years was copy-pasting content from trending reddit threads and turning them into "listicles" with clickbait headlines, then feeding them into Facebook. Was that not also plagiarism?

Buzzfeed is a weird Jekyll & Hyde business. They have two businesses i) the typical buzzfeed junk - Buzzfeed - This group follows no journalism practices, steals content from other sites, doesn't attribute, writes click bait articles, rebrands ads as articles, etc. ii) the investigate journalism department - Buzzfeed News - this team has top notch investigative journalism. They actually do tons of original research,…

Lots of other organizations who operate this way establish two separate brands so that the sleazy one doesn't sully the other. I'm kind of surprised that Buzzfeed News hasn't ditched the "Buzzfeed" name, even if it's still run by the parent company.

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

#285

Post by ralph84 »

harpiaharpyja wrote: post #264
j_m_b wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one time, Snopes was part of the fact-checking team at Facebook. This comment goes to show that having an arbiter of truth is a bad idea considering it's hard to accurately know everything. Imagine Doctors trying to debunk the official fact-checker statements and being labeled as misinformation simply due to the fact that they disagree with the fact-checker!

Fact-checking is a dead end, a poor substitute for development of critical thinking skills in the broader population. It may be more challenging, but that's what we need to start working towards.

Has there ever been a time in history when those in power desired critical thinking skills in the broader population? Those in power want a compliant population, not a questioning one.

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

#286

Post by meragrin_ »

teddyh wrote: post #164
bifrost wrote: post #128

I initially thought Snopes was a great idea, and in the early days it seemed quite handy. Now its only really minorly credible. My personal experience was finding an article that talked about something I was directly involved in, and it was clearly wrong. I basically lost most trust in its ratings however it does seem to basically cover the issue in text. My main quibbles are with when the article covers something su…

> My personal experience was finding an article that talked about something I was directly involved in, and it was clearly wrong. Snopes can only go by what other sources have written, since they weren’t there. If you have direct personal experience, it’s certainly likely that your view will differ from the one reported by Snopes, for two reasons: Firstly, your view is by definition limited and personal, and is likel…

> Snopes can only go by what other sources have written, since they weren’t there.

I have supplied information to correct articles. They were never updated. This information was easy to come by. One in particular involved timelines/history of bills in the US Congress which they were very wrong about. All you have to do is go to Congress's website and look up the history. The "fact checker" could not even bother to do this. They had a narrative to push and the were going to push it.

Snopes is garbage for anything political.

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

#287

Post by javert »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #283
harpiaharpyja wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fact-checking is a dead end, a poor substitute for development of critical thinking skills in the broader population. It may be more challenging, but that's what we need to start working towards.

But, even critical thinking ability relies on good inputs. There must be some baseline of facts to work with. I do agree however that fact-checking is extremely challenging, but for different reasons. That is, in a society that is being programmed to choose the reality/truth they prefer, you'll end up with cult-like belief systems that no amount of fact-checking will break through.

For a critical thinker, the baseline facts come from the person's own direct experience. They have to.

For example, I probably wouldn't 100% believe that hundreds of people can cross the sky in a metal tube (i.e., modern jet airplane) if I had only been told about it. But I've seen it myself.

Another example: I've learned enough about technology to think the moon landings were feasible, and I've learned enough about society to think that a successful conspiracy around the moon landings is implausible. So I believe the moon landings happened.

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

#288

Post by ALittleLight »

kstrauser wrote: post #210

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 artic…

I think Snopes has pretty clear political biases that detract from their ability to fact check. An example is their article on "Sweden is the rape Capitol of Europe"[1] which they rate false. Their article talks about Trump and immigration and Farrage and doesn't really get to what they are supposed to be debunking, which is the rape Capitol thing.

Sweden does have the highest rate of rape per capita in Europe. This is possibly due to how Sweden and other European countries collate rape statistics but also possibly due to Sweden having more rapists or some combination of the two things.

I think an article that tried to investigate how to compare rape rates between European countries and where we should fairly consider to Sweden to be in that ranking would be both challenging to write and interesting to read. Instead, Snopes just says Trump is a dumb racist and therefore the claim is false.

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

#290

Post by lolc »

undecisive wrote: post #98

Given how much mudslinging has gone on with Snopes over the years, and how little I know about Buzzfeed News' journalistic integrity, I really wish there was a factchecking page about this on an established factchecking website...

What do you make of the statement published on snopes.com itself?

https://www.snopes.com/2021/08/13/snopes-writers-condemn-pla...

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