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Fact-checking and Rumor-dispelling Site Snopes.com Held Hostage By vendor (savesnopes.com)
Snopes.com, which began as a small one-person effort in 1994 and has since become one of the Internet's oldest and most popular fact-checking sites, is in danger of closing its doors. From a report: Since our inception, we have always been a self-sustaining site that provides a free service to the online world: we've had no sponsors, no outside investors or funding, and no source of revenue other than that provided by online advertising. Unfortunately, we have been cut off from our historic source of advertising income. We had previously contracted with an outside vendor to provide certain services for Snopes.com. That contractual relationship ended earlier this year, but the vendor will not acknowledge the change in contractual status and continues to essentially hold the Snopes.com web site hostage. Although we maintain editorial control (for now), the vendor will not relinquish the site's hosting to our control, so we cannot modify the site, develop it, or -- most crucially -- place advertising on it. The vendor continues to insert their own ads and has been withholding the advertising revenue from us. Our legal team is fighting hard for us, but, having been cut off from all revenue, we are facing the prospect of having no financial means to continue operating the site and paying our staff (not to mention covering our legal fees) in the meanwhile.
Yes, "debunked" here:
http://www.snopes.com/save-sno... :-/
In August of 2015, Snopes entered a revenue-share/content and ad management agreement with a company called Proper Media, formed earlier that very year. In early 2016, Proper arranged to buy Barbara’s [Estranged wife of the owner] share of Bardav [the company they two started, owner of Snopes], replacing her as co-owner of the company.
The vendor continues to insert their own ads and has been withholding the advertising revenue from us. How is this not outright theft?
Because they are half-owners of the site (Barbara Mikkelson sold her share) and in the middle of a lawsuit.
The gofundme is here, for what it's worth, with more information: https://www.gofundme.com/saves...
It's worth understanding that there are, as always, two sides to the story. You can get a sense of the side of the "vendor" (otherwise known as 50% shareholder) by reading this.
Just "give us money to file a lawsuit".
More like, "give us money to defend against a lawsuit that was filed against us months ago, which we're not going to mention because it might make us sound unsympathetic (at the very least)." The complaint is here.
Snopes is way overrated. Relying on Snopes as an authority for fact checking news is foolhardy.
I think you're missing the point. You don't use Snopes to fact check the news-- there are sites like factcheck and politifact for that. You use Snopes for debunking those god-damned "memes" that fly around like mosquitoes, like (the front page on Snopes today) the photo of a whale in a Venice canal, or don't buy Kelloggs Bran flakes because they contain dried ground-up cow dung, or that Donald Trump married Madonna in a secret ceremony in Utah.
Snopes often provides few, if any, additional details beyond what has already been published elsewhere.
Most of these idiotic internet rumors aren't debunked elsewhere.
Difficult to effectively fact-check CNN, NY Times, Washington Post, etc without field reporters to gather details on the ground and various quality sources. Simply regurgitating and comparing what other news sources have published, alone, isn't much of a fact-check.
This isn't the site to fact-check CNN or the NY Times. This is a site that debunks idiot email "memes" showing me a civil-war era photograph of soldiers that shot a pterodactyl.
From the legal documents I can see, The parent company split with the divorce of the two mikkelsons. Because the way the company is structured, the shares could not be bought directly by a corporation. The company that bought in (Proper Media) split their shares with 5-6 people. One of those people defected, and voted with mikkelson to oust Proper Media. According to the contract that was signed, he was not allowed to do that, nor leave Proper Media and work directly for Mikkelson, which violated his non compete. It sounds like Mikkelsen is in the wrong here actually. http://www.poynter.org/wp-cont...
So to summarize:
Ex partner / ex wife sells her half of Bardav(Snopes) to Proper Media.. but not really because that would illegal since companies can not own shares in type S corporations.. so instead she cut her share up between Proper Media's owners as an end run around the law.
She told them it was permitted according to Snopes bylaws but now there is a question if that's true, in which case they should be suing her.
They accuse Green from Proper Media of working exclusively on Snopes and not other projects.
Green (and partial stock holder) jumps ship after the fight and aligns with Mikkelson giving Mikkelson just over 50% and control of Bardav (Snopes).
Green takes 3 employees and their equipment with him. Proper media considers it theft.
A bunch of angry ramblings about Expenses they don't think should have been permitted.
Accusations of Fraud for wanting a larger salary than they think is appropriate
There is nothing here that makes me want to take Proper Media's side in this. From their own words, they put themselves into the middle of a messy divorce by offering to buy out the ex wife and were shocked when that didn't go over well.
Pretty sure being a Registered Democrat makes a person a Democrat. In fact, pretty sure that it is the only thing that makes a person a Democrat.
I'm a registered Democrat, but that's because my state automatically registers you for a party when you vote in the primaries. Since I voted in the Democratic primaries this last time around I'm now registered as a Dem, but I've been registered as a Republican before when I've voted in the Republican primaries. Point being, I think Snopes was right about the fact that being registered to a particular party doesn't mean you are really an adherent to that party.
The claim that Snopes was supposed to judge was whether the man was a registered Democrat, not if he had voted recently, and not if he committed the crime in the name of the Democratic party.
Well, by the standards you claimed, voter registration in 2006, President Donald J. Trump is also a registered Democrat.
What could possibly go wrong?
They admitted he was a registered Democrat, then lied and said "His U.S. political affiliation (if any) at the time of the shooting is unknown."
This is called BIAS.
They told the exact truth, led with it in fact, and then pointed out that it was 10 years out of date and could easily have changed. This is called responsible reporting.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
But only one side of the information.
The two and a half month old complaint makes for interesting reading: http://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Snopes-COMPLAINT.pdf