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snopes.com's David Mikkelson Interviewed
pipingguy writes "Online Journalism Review interviews David Mikkelson of the Urban Legends Reference Pages. While the Internet has taken its share of knocks for helping scammers perpetrate e-mail and Web hoaxes (the Bambi hunt reportedly was staged to sell videos on the proprietor's Web site), not enough credit is given to the folks who are using the Internet to debunk them. Snopes.com is the work of the husband-and-wife team of David and Barbara Mikkelson, who have taken their passion for urban myths to the Web since 1995."
There's a matter of trust I'm wary about, when it comes to sites like snopes.com. How easy would it be for them to be 'infiltrated' somehow by a hack attempt or by bribery and the like, and pass off something that is a hoax or scam as being 'real'. or perhaps pass off something that's a real and present danger as being just another net hoax?.
I know about half the mindless net followers will believe everything they read in email. Most of those who follow up to check if something is valid or not turn to snopes. That's a big responsibility.
I remember reading that Snopes: The TV Show was in development but I never heard anything about it again. I was looking forward to that.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
holy animated gifs and midi soundtracks.. snopes.com looks like my mom's first website
bite my glorious golden ass.
It's still useful. They've been debunking articles hours after they've started, especially handy in the recent "Metallica sues Canuck band for the use of E and F chords".
You want to learn how to troll? GO HERE
DEFINATELY an URBAN LEGEND.
Really.
You are not the customer.
from the interview:
MG: "What about the role of the Internet in hoaxes?"
DM: "I think in general, nothing's changed but the technology. There's a lot on the Internet that you can't trust. But frankly, there's a lot on your bookshelf and the library shelves that you can't trust either. There are books on UFOs and alien encounters that require some examination. There's never been a medium that you could inherently trust. You still have to look at who's telling you this and why are they telling you this. Is there anything else they should be telling you? That concept hasn't changed. The Internet has made it easier to debunk hoaxes while at the same time making it easier to perpetrate them. Nothing's really changed but the technology."
The only other thing he could have mentioned is that people trust TV news and newspapers way too much also. 'nuff said.
Suicide Booth: You are now dead! Thank you for using Stop and Drop, America's favorite since 2008.
Or so they would have us believe... what if Snopes is a secret CIA plot to spread deliberate disinformation (the same CIA which is run by Masonic Lizards who would love nothing better than to enslare the world's population using advanced psychic mind-control tactics)
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
Or the false nostradamus prediction, debunked on snopes.com:
:)
In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos,
while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb,
The third big war will begin when the big city is burning.
*NOSTRADAMUS 1654
Written by a student to show how vague prophecies can be misinterpreted easily. Popped up after Sept11... now applies only a couple of years later to Uday and Qusay Hussein.
Just thought that curious
A good article at CommonDreams.org about how the fact that it turned out to be a hoax seemed to make it 'acceptable' according to mainstream news sources.
Right-wing misogynists need not apply....
Its not a real interview its a hoax.
The problem is that according to my wife, a podiatric (foot) surgeon, the recovery period following a phalangectomy (ampution of a toe (or finger)) is almost nil. The big toe, let alone a vestigial "pinky toe", is not crucial for balance or stability. You can verify this yourself; lift up your big toe and walk around. Bet you can still do it, can't you? Sure you can, especially if you're wearing a shoe with a sole that is even moderately stiff, which would replace some of the big toe's stabilizing influence.
I reported this via the Snopes.com comment form. After a couple of days, I received a reply that basically said "everyone knows you can't walk right if you have a toe cut off", and my wife's qualified medical opinion was pretty much ignored. Now, I really don't think that Marilyn Monroe had six toes. However, I stand by my assertion that at least one of the reasons they give opposing such an idea just doesn't work.
Why do I think that's important? Because I don't know anything at all about a lot of the subjects that they speak authoritatively about. Since I know of at least one topic where they discarded the opinion of a subject matter expert, I have no reason to believe that they haven't done so elsewhere.
An old saying, paraphrased, is that "the news is accurate, except for the parts you personally know about", and I now kind of feel the same way about Snopes.com. I agree with a lot of their findings, but I have to take it all with a grain of salt.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Right Now I am looking at my email. 75% of whats come in today is spam. Mozilla mail has caught 95% of that, classified it and moved it into my junk folder.
My Point is if you know people that believe half of what they read in their email do them a favor. Unplug their computers and reacquaint them with reality Its the kind thing to do before they start taking HGH, Viagra and herbal estrogen mixtures.
Claim: Linux can replace Windows as a desktop OS
Status: False
Example: Somebody installed Linux where they work and found they could answer email and visit Slashdot, thus claiming that the OS can replace the ever popular Windows.
Origins: Slashdot is the home of a number of self-righteous Linux zealots who...
Ya know, I really wanted to continue writing this but I'm not sure how to dodge a Troll moderation!
"Derp de derp."
I disagree, he's claiming that a (fictional!!!) movie about hunting women is equivocal to spouse abuse, or actually hunting women. First, there's a serious disconnect here, between fantasy and reality. A person who fantasizes about things that may not be politically correct, or even socially acceptable doesn't harm anyone so long as he doesn't force his fantasy upon anyone else.
Second, there's he's trying to claim fiction is the same as reality. His argument would have us banning movies like American History X, because there was racial violence in it, banning books like Jennifer Government because poor people are discriminated against, banning works of social commentary fiction because they happen to violate someone's sense of decency.
The actors(!!) in the movie were (presumably) not forced to run around naked while male actors simulated shooting them with paintball guns. They were paid for the service.
This, isn't to say that I condone the video, nor the use of violence against anyone (simulated or otherwise), I think that arguing against it only works when it exists though, and that you can't equate stylised violence with actual violence, none of the actresses were battered by the actors, nor were they actually shot with the paintball guns.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
Can be another way of phrasing "two brothers ripped to shreds by chaos".
I'm not clear on how they died, so I don't know if they were literally 'torn apart' or not.
What is THE strangest story that you thought couldn't POSSIBLY be true, but upon further research, was?
:)
BTW excellent site, been reading it for years
"Online Journalism Review", links to that periodical's site, which is logical enough -- but why would "David Mikkelson" link to anything but a page about Mr. Mikkelson? "Interview" should be the link to the interview.
Am I a crank? Or do I make sense? (Or both?)
I agree with you, as well. But, I would point out that his argument is useful in that it generates an opposing discourse. While I agree with your argument, and think that the video provides a valuable services to persons who get off on this sort of thing, it also could be extremely psychologically damaging to another set of persons. Both of these views need to be recognized. His view of sexuality and representations of sexuality are a bit conservative, but this no doubt comes from his work with battered women. So, no, clearly the video should not be banned, but I think his viewpoint is a valuable one.
I would hate to interrupt this self-congratulatory pat on the back, but "Hunting for Bambi" wasn't much of a hoax. A publicity stunt, yes. An hoax, not really. Assuming you have the money and assuming you have the desire, shooting paintballs at naked girls isn't something an *unlicensed* escort service would shy away from. Afterall, fullfilling sexual and/or sadistic fantasies is their business.
If we call "Hunting for Bambi" a hoax, we might as well call the Nike publicity stunts hoaxes as well. For example, the incident where they blocked traffic by setting up an impromptu tennis court. The news may be shocking to you, but that was staged -- even the outburst of the bus driver was carefully choreographed.
I found two major problems with this:
The funny part, to me, is that I pretty much agree with the conclusion he reached. The offered evidence, however, had little bearing on the theory being proved.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Look at his lecture Series, If he comes to your city it is well worth attending the lecture.
Help fight continental drift.
Granted, but those who would be psychologically scarred by watching the video aren't the target audience, and would be turned off from the video just by the cover--not to mention website, title, et cetera.
I don't think his viewpoint is as valuable as you do, if he were arguing against it rather than arguing against its being published, then perhaps I could see some value in it, but knee-jerk reactions like his (even PhDs can have knee-jerk reactions) don't help the argument. His viewpoint is more likely to create more people who are interested in it than people who want to avoid it. Just like the Holocaust-revisionists in the 1970s.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
What about leftist egalitarians?
My interpretation is that this man was simply hoping to get reactions from people like this man. I've heard rumor that it's actually an unliscened escort service, but I'd like to see more evidence of that before I decide either way.
I figure he was trying to get people to be enraged, a la a shock jock. He seems to have succeeded.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
If she won't cut it off, I'll be happy to drop a 25 pound weight on it - that's how I broke mine.
I mod down all the "free iPod"-sig losers.
Seems to be where new legends are discussed before they create a page for them.
Some of the other material is interesting as well.
I've been playing on the Foresight Exchange for a couple months now, and while it's no crystal ball it's an interesting way of making public polls that are weighted both towards how successful a prognosticator a respondant is and how strongly he feels about a particular issue. I'd expect that adding money to the mix in the case of terrorism forecasts would both make the game "more serious" and allow it to act as a sort of anti-terrorism insurance.
What I couldn't believe was that this was the mistake that forced Poindexter to resign! The man waded through Iran-Contra, tried to create Big Brother, but now he's finally getting pensioned off because he wanted to start an idea futures market? That's just weird.
I found snopes.com very helpful in determining the validity of the 809 area code scam. See, that site isn't worthless after all!
What's priceless was that Fox News ran a sensational story on their channel, asking women rights groups and showing video footage of these hunts. Boy, they sure got egg on their faces when this emerged to be phony. I remember it being shown as an outfit conducting hunts for men who pay "thousands of dollars" to participate.
Snopes rocks. I was particularly impressed by the explanation of the "police radar causes missile to be launched at it" urban legend. Where I've seen mainstream media utterly fail at describing the details modern weaponry (vagueness, flat-out inaccuracies or both), snopes.com provided a refreshingly detailed explanation that I found no errors in. It's nice that the author chosen for it was very informed in the subject.
I think the AC more or less nails it. The snopes people have very limited expertise and limited funding, and as it seems from the above email limited patience.
>That said, they are doing a good job at a herculean task.
This is spot-on. Any site that deals with countering disinformation on a wide scale has to contend with its own bias, laziness, and limitations. Look at the skeptdic or straightdope.com, they often revise after someone presents them with more information and some of the conclusions reached can be best described as "dunno."
www.snopes.com
Internet Explorer 6.0 shows just the background color of each page. No text. Mozilla displays the site correctly. Weird.
I visit it every few days to see what's new.
Though I was startled to find that there's a transsexual model out there who appeared in a James Bond film and is married to someone who has the same name as I do. I hope that if I ever become famous nobody will look back on that article and draw the wrong conclusions.
When I first started getting serous about Internet stuff, I signed up for the urban legends list server, but found that it was almost entirely folks commenting about what other folks had said. Dropped out. Did I miss something?
This is funny; not insightful, informative, or troll. Dumbass moderators, should be automatic one-year banishment from slashmod.
Remain calm! All is well!
That is not one of Nostradamus' predictions. Some student wrote it in an attempt to show how easy vague predictions are to make. Also, as another poster noted, the alleged prediciton is credited to have happened after Nostradamus died.
I don't know how many times I have referred my friends to snopes.com after hearing them recite to me an urban legend. Their response to me is "you believe this crap? You can't believe everything you read on the internet!"
I stumbled upon snopes.com for the first time while trying to determint whether the Peter Lynds story above was a hoax. I was searching for info about his publicist Brooke Jones, an Independent Communications Consultant. The google search leads to numerous links about urban legends. One site in particular http://www.truthminers.com/truth/jones.htm has a further link to snopes. Cool, eh? 6 degrees of internet separation.
Exactly what I was taking into consideration when I wrote this article for my employer. I read up on the subject, watched the KLAS-TV broadcasts and concluded that this was probably some promotion deal for their video deal.
However, I also understood that if someone would cough up USD 10 000, they would do it. That's why I wrote the article.
"Christians and Muslims both believe in the same God, just disagree in the nature of Jesus Christ. Chrisitians believe he was the Messiah. Muslims believe he was just another prophet. The two, combined with Judaism, are referred to Abrahamic, because they all worship the God of Abraham."
The Gods are different, the religions are different. They are logically contradictory. The Muslim god has a prophet Mohammed, the Christian god does not. The Christian god is in a trinity with his only Son Jesus. The Muslim god, of course, is not.
They cannot be the same, as they contradict each other.
Snopes.com is the work of the husband-and-wife team of David and Barbara Mikkelson, who have taken their passion for urban myths to the Web since 1995."
As A Folklorist, I really cringe when people use the term "Urban Myth." In a folkloristic sense (and this would require a folkloristic sense, I suppose, as Snopes.com is a sight about folklore, used by folklorists quite a bit) a myth is a narrative told about pre-historical times that pretains to the way in which the world as we know it was formed. So for something to be an "Urban Myth," it would have to be a contemporary narrative that describes the way that the world as we know it was formed. Perhaps the big bang qualifies? I really hate the term "Urban Legend" too (I use the term "Contemporary Legend" instead), as most of what falls into this category is not exclusively urban at all, but it, at least, is an acceptable term. Please, please, please, can't we be as precise with humanities and social sciences terminology as we are with technological terminology here?
Wadam
http://wadam.blogspot.com
Before I was introduced to Snopes by my humanities teacher 2 years ago, I had found a "Straight Dope" book that had some questions like those addressed by Snopes: urban legends & "my friend said" kind-of-stuff. Cecil Adams (no relation) and his crew publish their stuff online @ http://www.straightdope.com By the way, I've also been known to my friends to send them to Snopes on a regular basis for the "crap" they love to fill my email box with. There's a lot of disinformation floating around out there.
Life is irony, and nothing ever goes as planned.
No. You said that. She said that the recovery time is short, and that you can walk perfectly well, post healing, after having a toe amputated.
Hell, people limp after having a toenail removed.
Dammit, would people please read what I wrote? Favoring something because it is painful is not the same as being used to its absence. To go back to my dental analogy, you can eat perfectly well, post healing, after having a tooth pulled. You cannot eat perfectly well while having a toothache. In one case, you're adjusting to a part of your anatomy being removed. In the other case, you're avoiding a part of your anatomy that is in pain.
Toes are nice to have. I like mine. My wife likes hers. But losing one will not prevent you from walking normally.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Snopes also does not say that Gore created it either. Quite the opposite, they explain that even validating the claim is iffy, and they explain why.
Your characterization of Snopes' entry on this subject and accusation of them getting it wrong is in itself wrong, if you would read the actual entry:
"...it's hard to find any specific action of Gore's (such as his sponsoring a Congressional bill or championing a particular piece of legislation) that one could claim helped bring the Internet into being, much less validate Gore's statement of having taken the "initiative in creating the Internet."
It's true that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet) and has introduced a few bills dealing with education and the Internet, but even though Congressman, Senator, and Vice-President Gore may always have been interested in and well-informed about information technology issues, that's a far cry from having taken an active, vital leadership role in bringing about those technologies. Even if Al Gore had never entered the political arena, we'd probably still be reading web pages via the Internet today."
Nowhere in this entry does Snopes say that he created the Internet, or that even the claim he made is necessarily true. From their research, they find that even Al Gore's original claim is probably not true.
So, seriously.... read that entry and tell me exactly where Snopes got anything wrong? Do you just have some bone to pick with Snopes, and don't care about the accuracy of your accusations against them?
All I can think is that perhaps you are confusing the listing of their entry as False? Note that the entry is about whether it's true that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet. If you read the entry, they start off showing that that claim that has been attributed to him is false. But they they go on to research the actual quote and point out that whatever role he might have played, they don't find any evidence to support even the notion that he helped to create it in any way by supporting legislation, etc. since much of the legislation and work had happened before his time anyway.
-Tom
Hillary vs. Hillary
But I don't see this as saying she has never lied.... in fact, they even seem to say that the claim seems to have been a lie, although they characterize it as a harmless one (which, frankly, it is).
The other three items were all demonstratably false.
So, how is she using the site as a political tool? She doesn't seem to make the claim she has NEVER lied, just that these particular examples can be looked at for themselves. That they might come up when elections come near has more to do with the fact that false e-mails about Hillary Clinton are inherently going to come about around elections (because people want to spread these around to show she is a liar and shouldn't be voted for or whatever).
-Tom
Indeed! You can look at my website, The Uncoveror, then look at Snopes. My stories are not debunked, they are therefore true.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
"Please" has only one syllabil.
Yeah? And "syllable" doesn't have an i.
It was easier than attaching an animation of me rolling my "i"s
Of course anyone who does not share your faith is "Deluded".
No, someone is "deluded" when the opening statement, that "I don't agree with you" is twisted into meaning that, somehow, you really do.
Show me ANY kind of proof, and I would reconsider my world view. Whereas, there is no amount of contrary evidence that would sway a delusional person.
It is not only possible, it is prevalent and quite common. Do you see the air between yourself and the monitor?
Of course, air's not a dense ordered substance. There's a big difference between air and a living thing, and the compounds that make up living things are not transparent or even translucent.
It is still logic. Theology is a rigorous and logical field. Just because you might not agree with it does not mean it is not logic.
It has no formal basis, nor does it use formal means to arrive at its conclusions, so it's not a branch of logic. It uses no experiments, or any other tests or proofs, so it's not rigorous.
There is nothing responsible about injesting toxins that cause brain damage (even if the brain damage is temporary).
Everything is a toxin. Unless you subside on a precisely controlled diet of low fat organic foods, you're doing more damage to your body then you need to be. A responsible person can chose how and when to use toxins - like alcohol, aspirin, fatty meats and mercury-heavy fish - reasonably.
What were Christ's last words on the cross? Depends on which gospel you read.
You'd think they'd at least get *that* right.
So you believe in a invisible pink unicorn, just on the off chance?
Keep your faith to yourself.