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

#181

Post by kmeisthax » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

busymom0 wrote: post #105

qkqk wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me of their narrative again? They say that > "Trump did not explicitly tell people to 'storm' or 'breach' or 'break into' the [US] Capitol." and included the reasoning that > the president called on supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” march or walk to the Capitol ...but wait, their far-left narrative! Why didn't they omit those references and reasoning?! https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-tell-su…

Almost all these “fact checkers” exposed themselves on the lab leak theory which they had to redact after 1.5 years. Relying on any of them as a source of “truth” is asking for trouble. They are more of a narrative check.

The problem with fact checkers is that they're being brought into a different problem domain than what their practice is designed to combat. Social media companies more or less deputized them to be sources of truth; which carries bigger implications (albeit not as bad as people make it out to be) than just giving your opinion about a particular bit of information.

When Snopes says "the lab leak theory isn't real", they're basing it off of scientific research carried out early in the pandemic which claimed that the virus didn't look engineered. That is, effectively, an expert opinion - something close to truth but still subject to change should new information come to light. It's entirely reasonable for a fact checker to rely on that information at that time, as well as change their opinion in response to new information.

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

#182

Post by least » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

ezekiel68 wrote: post #152

A 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.

Sort of. In a vacuum it can certainly function that way, but people in reality don't necessarily have the time to distill pure water from poisoned wells, especially when there's a well that is reputably pure right next to it.

That being said, I think that buzzfeed news has actually earned a reputation of producing some good journalism despite it being an offshoot of Buzzfeed. Simply the irony is not lost on these people.

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

#183

Post by headmelted » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

corndoge wrote: post #58

headmelted wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I can almost imagine a way to arrive at this conclusion without it being shifty (although no idea what the case actually is here). If you're going to debunk an article about something like a lack of vaccine safety and need to retract a couple of sentences later, but the overall conclusion is the same, then the conspiracists will be right on you with a diff of the changes from the archive trying to piece toge…

That is a good thing. I want to see those changes. Preventing people from seeing the change log of a page because "conspiracy theorists might use it" is dangerous thinking. Saying that it's okay to forego transparency because it could be used to bolster people who disagree with you is backwards. That's precisely why transparency should be retained - when you're the person disagreeing, it benefits you.

Totally agree. If someone’s hell bent on seeing conspiracies they’re going to see them everywhere. Better to be transparent.

Just saying I can see how you could rationalise this decision, even if it’s a terrible idea.

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

#184

Post by betwixthewires » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

stimpson_j_cat wrote: post #95

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.

> I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias Oh, they said Trump told the truth when he said "Murders this year have spiked 27% in Philadelphia." https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/24/donald-tru... Why didn't anyone remind them of their bias before this got published?

I love how ever single reply to the parent mentions Trump, as if anyone that thinks snopes is full of shit must be a Trump supporter. It's almost as if there's a group of people out there who all think exactly alike and knee jerk to defend these organizations out of some strange sense of loyalty.

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

#185

Post by chipotle_coyote » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

soheil wrote: post #121

danso wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reprinting and attributing is allowed. Copying and not attributing it isn’t, because besides the whole theft aspect, it implies that you yourself observed or researched the given assertions.

I don't think attribution is as necessary as you make it sound like at least when it comes to AP/Reuters stories used by news orgs that are in partnership with them.

Generally you'll see that when an article is simply copied from AP or Reuters, it's credited that way; if it's used as a source or being rewritten, it'll be credited with a phrase something like "Wire stories from Reuters were used in this report".

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

#186

Post by frumper » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

mavhc wrote: post #145

frumper wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're very much quibbling on the definition of terrorist. She was convicted of having hundred of pounds of explosives while being an active member of a group that did bomb government buildings is good enough for most people to colloquially agree that is she is a convicted terrorist.

But was never convicted, or even prosecuted, for the bombing the original tweet mentioned. And never prosecuted for terrorism.

By your line of thinking Timothy McVeigh is a murderer, but not a terrorist. Terrorism related charges changed in 2001.

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

#187

Post by SllX » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

velcii wrote: post #143

SllX wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can print a retraction if you need to. Nothing wrong with fessing up and saying “we made a mistake, here’s the correction”, and reputable newspapers/news sites do this as a matter of course. Conspiracy nuts are going to do their own thing no matter what you do or say and if they’re determined enough, will have their own record, so you can only act in good faith for people who are willing to look at you and receiv…

>Nothing wrong with fessing up and saying “we made a mistake, here’s the correction” Sadly if you do retractions, you are not qualified for the name "fact checker". Because "facts" are not retractable. And fact-checkers are just the tip of the iceberg, and if you care to look, there are many things that are peddled as being "fact" when there is not enough credible evidence to say so.. For example the statement "Vacci…

You’ve touched on a basic problem with claiming to be a fact checker where it intersects with science, because “fact checking” is a journalistic tool decent for checking he said/she said BS, but science is an ongoing and continuous process that has its own form of review not assisted by the fact (fact check this!) that most science reporting is crap.

That said, fact checks are typically written by journalists or institutions claiming to serve a journalist function; and so are fully governable by common journalist practices such as retractions.

Retractions are nice because they acknowledge that there was a human error somewhere in the organization’s processes, memorialize the error but then correct the record with supplementary and reviewable matter. Doing this also provides a signal to readers that even though this particular institution filled with these imperfect humans made a mistake on the record, they sufficiently value their reputation to own the mistake and correct it on the record.

Good faith and honesty can take you far.

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

#188

Post by pembrook » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #173

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?

Here's an example of what you're talking about: The original r/AskReddit thread ("What feels illegal, but isn't?"): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aszfh3/what_feel... The Buzzfeed repurposing of that thread ("19 Things That FEEL Illegal Even Though They Definitely Aren't"): https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/if-you-have-a-guilty... And a r/mildlyinfuriating thread about Buzzfeed's repurposing ("Buzz…

So using your logic, I'm totally free to copy-paste the entirety of a New York Times article onto my website and sell ads on that content...as long as I credit the author?

I think the lawyers of the NYT may have a different opinion about that.

The fact is, Buzzfeed was able to get away with stealing content from reddit and selling ads on it because no reddit user was ever going to hire a lawyer to sue them over it.

Also, I've certainly seen Buzzfeed content that was taken from Reddit without attribution.

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

#189

Post by max46 » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #138

nsizx wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>You can, but it will then be obvious to anyone familiar with the references

The whole point of "fact checkers" is to be used by people who are not expert on the subject

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

#190

Post by betwixthewires » Fri, Aug 13, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

JohnTHaller wrote: post #48

ramraj07 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One possible scenario that's not evil: If they get something wrong and correct it, people that don't believe the correction can pass around links to the archive.org version before the correction. Not saying I agree with the decision or that's why they did it, just a possible reason.

The fact that we have had good version control for decades and the journalism industry has not adopted it tells you their motives. It's like a godsend to someone who views themselves as a journalist, the ability to always be able to demonstrate their integrity. It almost takes more effort to not adopt it.