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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.
First, snopes.com is registered with networksolutions.com, not their hosting provider (Peer 1). It's not clear here that there's anything stopping Mikkelson et al from grabbing a backup (or even live version) of the site, getting set up on a new web host, and then switching the IP, like many others who have had a hosting provider suddenly go crap on them. Snopes appears to run on Wordpress, and, well, it's really not that hard to yank a Wordpress site from one provider and get it up on another.
Second, they're looking for $500k. $500k? Because of problems at their web host?
And... if they're not migrating to a new web host, won't most of the $500k being donated go back to the web host that is ostensibly holding their data hostage, rewarding that web host for being jerks?
This really doesn't make sense.
Do the owners of Snopes.com own and control the snopes.com domain name? If so, move the site, and redirect the DNS to point to your own servers. Do the owners of Snopes.com have a copy of the site? It's their copyrighted code and content. A vendor can't "hold it hostage", or even hold it at all without explicit rights to do so. If the vendor doesn't have a valid contract (i.e.; if the contract expired or was legally terminated), hosting Snopes.com without permission is a copyright violation... which is a very expensive problem for that vendor. Any number of lawyers would take this case on a contingent fee basis... no up-front money needed... if it's such a clear cut case of a vendor having no rights to host snopes.com, but refusing to give snopes.com access to their code and content, or to their domain or DNS. Some details are clearly missing here... or the owners of snopes.com are technically and legally illiterate.
As mentioned somewhere below (citing Techcrunch) - this isn't a vendor/contract issue. The two equal owners of Snopes (via Bardav, Inc.) divorced, and one sold their share to the company running the web site. Now, the other owner apparently wants to move the website elsewhere.
It's a dispute between two equal parties in a company trying to take it in different directions. Since the party seeking donations isn't being upfront and honest about things, and actually seems to be deliberately deceptive, I tend to support the other side.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
They have an article debunking the myth that Marilyn Monroe had six toes. As part of the evidence against this, they wrote:
The problem is that isn't true. My wife is a podiatrist who amputates toes routinely as part of her job. I discussed this with her and she said that the whole "relearning to walk" thing is in itself a myth, and that even people who have their big toes removed generally do just fine in no time. Try it yourself: walk across the floor with your big toe pulled upward so it doesn't hit the ground. Easy, right? And that's the big toe; a vestigial extra-pinky toe hanging off the side would contribute almost nothing to balance or your gait.
I wrote them with this information. They replied, quite defensively, that I was wrong and that she did not have six toes. Uh, yeah, I totally agree! I still think they should have removed the invalid evidence that contradicts expert testimony. If you're proving that "1 + 1 = 2 because cats have wings", and I tell you cats don't actually have wings, it doesn't invalidate your premise but it does suggest that you'd want to update your proof.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Snopes Co-Founder Embezzles $98,000, divorces Fat Wife, And Marries A Prostitute
https://ibankcoin.com/zeropoin...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
Sounds to me more like Snopes was always mainly Milkkelson's creation. And he got stiffed by his wife when they divorced.
I say this for 2 reasons. Snopes was Mikkelson's username on Usenet which he used for debunking myths before the couple ever met.
And now, the site continues to be run, just as before editorially by Mikkelson, without input by his ex-wife, and certainly no input by Proper Media, who's connection was only ever as the buyer of the wife's share.
Mikkelson is Snopes. It wouldn't be Snopes any more if the site was wrestled away from him. In much the same way that Slashdot isn't really the old Slashdot anymore after it's being bought out and run be different people at least twice over.
Clearly there needs to be some kind of financial settlement, as Proper Media bought a share, and have since been taking the entire advertising revenue. But it would be wrong if the site were taken away from Mikkelson, or if he was left with no way of running it as a financially viable site.
Might want to read this too, as it has a lot more background on the case and lawsuit.
Someone posted a linkbelow with both sides of the story. If I understood correctly, his ex-wife sold her 50% of the company to that very "outside vendor" so they are really co-owners now. He is being accused of gross mismanagement, possibly because he felt it was still his company and tried to get the money out. (That's just my assumption based on their story which I may have misunderstood, by all means read the linked article)
Not taking sides here, just pointing out that other opinions exist.
No, nothing so obviously as pizzagate. Snopes is very subtle when they politicize things.
Sometimes they debunk the spirit of the claim, rather than the facts (which may be true). Sometimes they invalid a claim by pointing out that some details are wrong, even though the origin of the claim is generally true.
Here's an example of the first: "Claim: Hillary Clinton successfully defended an accused child rapist and later laughed about the case." http://www.snopes.com/hillary-...
The stated claim is 100% true, yet snopes calls it "mostly false". She got the defendant a better deal and later laughed about it on film. Also notice the claim does not match the URL ("freed" versus "successfully defended"; they do not mean the same thing.) Now, Snopes has all the details on why this particular event does not make her an evil person, but lists the claim as "mostly false".
By labeling a claim "mostly false" that is 100% factually true (even if the spirit of claim is false), they are inserting their own biases into the discussion and not merely presenting facts. They are also throwing red herrings unrelated to the original claim into the mix to make the "mostly false" claim more defensible. They are editorializing.
(Disclaimer: This is neither an anti- nor pro- Hillary Clinton post. This is merely a convenient example that I could remember off the top my head.)