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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.
... by going to snopes?
Already debunked by snopes.
publishing for the DNC, good. We need biases sites like this off of the Internet. They only hurt our side against Trump instead of helping since they're so well-known at being wrong when it supports our agenda.
Only Crooked Hilary Clinton supporters would get their facts from a site like Snopes. I get my alternative truth direct from the great oompalumpas tweets.
Only Trump has the cajones to speak the truth in this corrupt government.
all in the subject...
After claiming to be "unbiased" and "neutral" only to be caught red-handed publishing political propaganda for the DNC, all I can say is "good riddance."
The vendor continues to insert their own ads and has been withholding the advertising revenue from us.
How is this not outright theft? If they are failing to pay you money they are contractually obligated to pay, wouldn't that invalidate the contract, or put them in an actionable position for damages?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
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.
There's almost always 2 sides of the story, and Snopes isn't doing themselves any favors failing to acknowledge the other side's grievances. I'd sure want to understand the big picture here before donating.
This is precisely why you must always OWN your DNS and Hosting yourself. Never, EVER let someone else register and host your domain for you. Always DO IT YOURSELF or find yourself in the same boat with Snopes.
That this is not true. It's a rehashed story from a couple of years ago.
Just redeploy the damn thing somwhere else. WTF, who gives control of their website to a 3rd party?
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.
The dude dumped his wife and married an overpriced Indian hooker. What a loser!
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.
Domain registrar is Network Solutions. Contact support, take control the domain after confirming ownership and copy the site to another vendor or host and change DNS. I had a small business admin contact pass away once and I KNOW Network Solutions will work with you to get control back to the appropriate party.
They can't manage their domain, but we're supposed to believe that if we send them $10 they can manage that?
nope.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Snopes is way overrated. Relying on Snopes as an authority for fact checking news is foolhardy.
Snopes often provides few, if any, additional details beyond what has already been published 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.
As companies move to the cloud, expect more of the same. Sure, you can have the data but we own the url and the app. Or sure we'll give you the app code but exporting all the data into something convertible to a new cloud dbs provider is going to be expensive.
In other worlds, same old same old. Vendor-lockin isn't a new concept any more than fake news is (National Enquirer)
...and is no longer unbiased as a "fact" checker.
Unfortunately, most of the "Fact Checker" sites out there have some pretty obvious bias.
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.
Then help snopes.com to rebuild the site with them holding the full ownership.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
More like propaganda propagation website.
Citation needed.
Not an assertion, a citation: who said exactly what and when, and show me a link.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Can't they just make a call to George Soros and get whatever money they need to keep their propaganda machine running?
I know for a fact that Johnny Carson had a woman (not that clown Gabor, but another with a white dress) on that asked him, "Do you want to pet my p@ssy?". The segment was broadcast on a tribute to the man like 20+ years ago, but it happened. Snopes stated that it wasn't true. Good riddance. http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/...
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.
I used to use Network Solutions. They started pulling all sorts of garbage once they joined with web.com (and fired a lot of their staff). Turned into a cash grab, charging for services whenever they can get away with it, like double rates for automated domain renewal. Trying to transfer away from them caused all sorts of nightmares and bogus charges (eventually reversed), and they had to be constantly phoned in order to relinquish control. They probably had a lawyer determine that they might be able to get away with grabbing advertising revenue.
Consistently rated poorly, some with situations similar to snopes:
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/internet/network_solutions.htm
Fallout from Barbara and David Mikkelson's divorce (the Bardav company) - Proper Media who bought Barbara Mikkelson's 50% share vs David Mikkelson's other 50%. Proper Media alleges David misused funds from Snopes to pay for the divorce and honeymoon with new wife/Snopes employee Elyssa Young. Proper media also claims one of its shareholders - Vincent Green - secretly conspired to help David get control of Snopes. David says he terminated Proper Media's contract fair and square.
So basically...sounds like a story that needs fact checking...
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/24/snopes-seeks-crowdfunding-in-ownership-battle/
https://www.poynter.org/2017/snopes-is-locked-in-a-legal-battle-for-control-of-its-website/465615/
https://www.courthousenews.com/fact-checker-snopes-owners-accused-corporate-subterfuge/
mod parent up informative
Why pretend that the couple that runs it didn't admit to a bias and to intentionally lying?
I'm not pretending anything. You are asserting a fact. I want a source for that fact.
Since you don't seem to be able to come up with a source, I assume you don't have one, and you're making it up.
If you do show a source, I'll look at it.
bias is irrelevant when sources that can be vetted are provided. If you have a specific problem with something snopes has presented, then you have all the information to counter it.
http://www.naturalnews.com/2016-12-25-snopes-fact-checkers-actual-whores-david-mikkelson-elyssa-young-presstitutes-fraud.html
Did I miss some big news? When did snopes go back to being a fact checking site?
See that "Preview" button?
Snopes lost their reputation with most of us long ago. Sad, since I liked them early on had some fun with facts like "John Wayne didn't die with 40lbs of red meat in his colon".
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
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?
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That's one way to choke the Snopes liberal agenda.
Citation needed. Not an assertion, a citation: who said exactly what and when, and show me a link.
Why do you people keep spewing that nonsense?
I'm not sure what "nonsense" you're referring to. I asked for a citation, telling me who said what, and asking for a link. Asking for a citation is "nonsense"?
They admitted to it in an interview. They admitted to it.
Yes: that is exactly what I asked for a citation for. Who "admitted it"? What interview? When? Where was it published?
Show me a link.
If you are allowed to install those... or themes...
That link, is a complaint from Proper Media to the courts, saying that:
- at first, Snopes.com was owned by David and Barbara Mikkelson
- the two divorced, and Barbara held on to her 50% of the company
- then she effectively sold her 50% to Proper Media, a company
- but technically she couldn't do that, because Snopes.com had to be owned only by people, not by companies
- so, she sold it to 5 people who owned/ran/were Proper Media company. These 5 people pinky-promised that it would be just like Proper Media itself held the shares.
- so then, it was 50% David Mikkelson, 50% Proper Media
- but then one of the Proper Media people by the name of Green conspired with / got seduced by David Mikkelson, and went over to the dark side! (cue dramatic music)
- now, with David's 50% plus a little bit more from Green who quit Proper Media and is now in David's employ, David controls more than 50%!
- that's not fair!! Green *promised* that he was holding the shares for Proper Media!
Personally, I'm not sure that Proper Media has a case. If there was a legal requirement that shares couldn't be sold to a company, only people, then there was a reason for this, exactly so that individuals could make decisions and not have to act like a coordinated legal entity. If Proper Media says that Green "should have" done such and such ... well, that's going to be hard to argue. So, legally, I think David Mikkelson has better standing.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
See subject: They constantly preach "good things" about that megalomaniacal whacko who thinks he's a God & sold fellow jooz out to the Nazis - he also pays for (backs) BLM, Antifags, Open Society Foundation (all "anti-trump").
* SOMEBODY NEEDS TO PUT HIM OUT OF THE PICTURE...
APK
P.S.=> Personally, I'm surprised that RAT BASTARD's still alive (not for long though, thank God)... apk
The first three links you give don't assert that the couple (that run Snopes) "admitted to fake news". You did read the title on this thread, right? The articles assert the "some of the people" involved "are biased"-- but, oddly, they don't cite any examples of biases in any actual Snopes articles. So we can ignore these all as irrelevant to the subject.
The last two don't include a citation to "the couple admitting to fake news", but at least are slightly relevant.... but all they are is (in your words) "people calling them liars." The actual details in the Snopes articles critiqued... don't show any lies.
The first one is about Democrats purportedly failing to stand during a Navy Seal tribute. The Snopes article is here. The article you linked was primarily criticizing Politifact, and only briefly mentions Snopes... but nevertheless, it ends with the following statement: "The Daily Wire, PolitiFact and Snopes ALL described the events in the exact same way; exactly as they happened." The phrase "describing the events exactly as they happened", to me, reads as a statement that the site is accurate.
The second link you give has a bad flaw. The Snopes article being critiqued is here. Notice that the photo-meme that they're debunking is at the very top of the article. But the article criticizing them leaves this out, and pretends Snopes is debunking a somewhat truncated version. Nope. They criticize Snopes for "moving the goalposts"... while themselves moving the goalposts.
In either case, though, none of the citations answers the request for a citation of the purported fact that "the couple admitted to fake news."
They were based near me and I recall the divorce of the owner, Dennis Hayes, led to the breakup of the company.
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
From reading the complaint, since the shares could not be sold to a corp, they were given to idnividuals at the LLC under the agreement they would be holding it for the LLC (whether that is really clean and ethical is another question). But one of them "green" was convinced by the 50% owner to side with him, what proper LLC in their complaint see as conspiracy. If it is true and legal, then he HAS more than 50% under control and therefore proper media llc cannot force anymore those holding more than 50% to do anything whatsoever. Now I am neither a lawyer nor i play one on TV so I have no idea who is on the good side/bad side or even if there is one, but it does not seem as easy as a 50/50 share holder dispute.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
any back doors with doing SQL injection on http://message.snopes.com/?
I just use Adblock and no one gets the ad revenue.
This Slashdot discussion now seems to be plumbing the depths of the Devil's rectum to argue Clinton versus Trump.
WTF? What is wrong with you people?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
https://www.reddit.com/r/Kotak...
Say what you will, those guys are meticulous about details.
Snopes is a mouthpiece for the left wing agenda. In no way, shape or form is Snopes a non-biased, impartial site.
Research the founder and you will understand.
I always go to Robtex.com to check on a site (maintain my hosts file) at this time there is nothing about snopes.com, other sites register just fine.
Don't register to this site, it's a social site.
Especially to people that know better.
My girlfriend asked me about this earlier. I read an article and a PDF of the complaint (in court, against Mikkelson) and the best summary I could come up with was this:
1] He owned the company (Company A, which owns Snopes) 50/50 with his wife
2] They divorced badly, she sold her shares to Company B
3] Company A was founded such that a COMPANY cannot hold shares in it for smallprint legal reasons. So the 5 owners of company each INDIVIDUALLY got some shares of Company A
4] Company B has been doing a lot of the running of the Snopes.com website and controlled some aspects of it (this is unclear)
5] He (Mikkelson) has recently been courting one of the 5 owners of Company B to come over to his "side" so that he controls more than 50 per cent of Company (controls, not owns) and can do what he wants
6] The other four owners of Company B are angry, as the 5th guy appears to have defected. They claim variously that Mikkelson has used company funds to pay for personal stuff, that the 5th guy was legally bound, via an agreement, not to act against the interests of the other 4 guys, and that Mikkelson has done something wrong in enticing him to move to the "other side".
Mikkelson is now appealing on GoFundMe for money... so he can fight for ownership of the company and defend himself from the lawsuit brought by Company B.
And people are throwing money at him, a quarter of a million dollars in just 9 hours.
I don't know who is right, who is wrong, and what claims from the PDF are factual or not, but the general feel of the GoFundMe page is slimy. He is not raising funds to pay off some debt that Snopes owes (like Wikipedia), he is instead RAISING MONEY SO HE CAN FIGHT FOR OWNERSHIP OF THE BUSINESS THAT PAYS HIS SALARY. And if wins, the rest of the money is pure profit, which he could then pay himself with.
PDF of complaint:
http://www.poynter.org/wp-cont...
See subject: You're a LOW skulking little unidentifiable anonymous WEASEL & I'm not. I speak my mind & id myself. You don't.
* How DARE a no-good DO-NOTHING "ne'er-do-well" WORM like YOU (or "your kind") even SPEAK to the likes of myself?
APK
P.S.=> Facts, are facts & truth IS truth - & the truth here is above about YOU & "your kind" (low weasels & whimps)... apk
As far as I can tell, it will turn out that the sale of Barbara's share never happened, as no fractional shares were issued, none of the five Proper Media owners actually owns any part of Bardav and the difficult question will be who's in control of Bardav, since Barbara resigned from the board. What a shit show.
Might want to read this too, as it has a lot more background on the case and lawsuit.
You need to find an alternate source. Never get your information from one source. They are left leaning, just as some sites are right leaning.
what a joke, snopes
The 5 people pinky-promising actually matters quite a bit for legal issues.
Because Green was party to the Operating Agreement of Proper Media, he is legally-bound to certain duties (see pgs 3-4 from link). Those duties include not competing with the interests of Proper Media.
Specifically, Green agreed that he (as a Member) would "refrain from dealing [...] as or on behalf of a party having an interest adverse to the Company unless a majority of the Members excluding the interested Member, consents thereto."
Which...is exactly what Proper Media alleges that Green did. And it's hard to see how that isn't the case (based only on what's in the complaint).
-----
As an aside, HOW ON EARTH did the Plaintiffs "recently discover" that the Snopes bylaws do not exist. Bylaws are like, the VERY FIRST DOCUMENT an investor (or an investor's lawyer) would review before sending any money to buy into a partnership or an LLC. Not legal advice, but if Proper Media is still using the same lawyers: please stop.
That's what you get for going with a Turkish company and not buying American. Turkey's known for human rights violations, you think they're going to give a fuck about anything else while they can get money from you?
Snopes better fact-check its fucking self.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
before running your know-nothing big mouth.
Good. Fuck them and the liberal horse they rode in on.
I hope they lose everything.
Your assessment seems reasonable: *legally*, David Mikkelson seems to be off the hook. If he has 50%+ of the companies shares, he can do whatever he wants.
On the other hand, given how morally dubious (i.e. shady as fuck) David Mikkelson's conduct seems to be in this whole affair (including the part where he's clearly distorting what really happened to try to gather some sympathy/money), one would have to be stupid to donate anything to this guy.
Post links on every page to a new domain, clearly explaining what the hoster is doing to you and place all new content on the new site in the meantime.
Sorry, but fuck snopes. They're a bunch of ideologs that fold a lot of questionable shit into their "fact" finding. Snopes can eat a dick. Time to find a real job, chucklefucks.
This. Snopes is invaluable for a quick "That is not true" link for that kind of stuff. For political stuff... it's a maybe. If they debunk some slanderous rumor about a conservative or Republican, that's pretty definitive. Slanderous rumors about liberals or Democrats... maybe still useful; read the article carefully and check their sources. I've found that though they have a bias, they aren't liars. (At least, I haven't caught them in a lie.)
That's the highest on my list of criteria. I'm more interested that the facts are correct (and getting links to sources). I can form my own opinions once I have facts, but I do want the facts to be accurate.
Example I recall from way back when -- there was some utterly idiotic rumor that Ashcroft was terrified of calico cats because he thought they were minions of the Devil or some such. At first, Snopes marked that one "unconfirmed", though they did report that Ashcroft laughed out loud when asked about it.
That's praise in my opinion. If they did not have a definitive source saying that Ashcroft was not afraid of calico cats, nor one showing that the rumor was made up, "unconfirmed" is accurate. Reporting that Ashcroft laughed at the rumor allows me to form my own opinion (that the rumor is absurd and I personally rate it "pants on fire")-- but if they simply stick to the facts, good for them.
A week or so later, it had been improved to "False".
Corrected incomplete information with more detailed information: excellent.
I very strongly suspect a rumor of similar stupidity about a Democrat would have been stamped "False" from the very beginning.
That seems like speculation. May be true, but it's hard to fault them for something that they didn't do that you speculate that they might have done.
Any topic that shines negative light on the Left is always labeled FALSE.
In general I try to not get my news or even my news analysis from comedians, left nor right.
However, reading the Daily Mail article, the "Louder with Crowder" article, and the Snopes article, the one that has facts in it is: the Snopes article.
Crowder isn't quite saying that the Snopes article is inaccurate, he is saying he doesn't like the spin (not quite the same thing as saying it's inaccurate) and complaining that in rating the article "mostly false" people won't read the whole article: his exact quote (not what Snopes actually says, but a parody of what he says Snopes says) is "but screw it, you’re not going to read our explanation below". But the "explanation below" is all I care about. I don't care about other people not reading the whole article. I care about whether the facts are accurate.
So, if what you're saying is "I don't like the spin Snopes puts on the fraction of their articles that deal with politics, but they do get the actual facts right": well, ok, I can deal with that.
No, it's obvious bias. All available information point to him being a Democrat, there's not a single piece that says otherwise. Thus, it's dishonest to say "mixed".
The third line of their article told me that he had registered as a Democrat ten years ago. The very third line.
They gave me the facts. That's what I care about.
I think they could have gone a long way towards seeming unbiased by putting a little research into their words:
I don't care whether they "seem" unbiased. I care whether their facts are correct. They told me that the fact behind the snark was that he had registered to vote as a Democrat ten years ago. That's the factual basis for the internet rumor, and that's what I call "informative."
The rest of your post seems to say "if they had added some information that they didn't have, it would have been a better article," On that point, I'm "yeah, whatever." I don't even think it would have been a better article; I think it would have turned a straightforward article into a confused article that now uses dubious information from unreliable (political) sources to make some sort of point of unknown use. I just want the facts.
... With one piece of data, "unknown" in the summary sounds too much like "nothing is known" instead of "it's old data."
They told me that it's old data. That is useful information. And since there only is "one piece of data," telling me what that one piece of data is, is also useful.
And, a big paragraph of explanation with no new data comes across as someone trying to justify a bias. I'm not saying that they were trying to justify a bias, just that this writing gives that impression.
We care about different things. What I care about is are the facts correct, or not?
Supporting the fake news narrative: a bad idea since 2016!
The third line of their article told me that he had registered as a Democrat ten years ago. The very third line. They gave me the facts. That's what I care about.
They buried the facts deep into the article, downplaying them in the headline. And the headline is the only piece most people see.
Buried the fact in the third line of the article.
Facts are what I want. If you can't even bother to read to the third line of an article when looking something up (because three lines is "buried deep" in the article), it doesn't matter what the article said, you're not going to learn anything.
So, when I said they needed more facts that were relevant to the sentences they wrote, your response is:
On that point, I'm "yeah, whatever."
and then you write
We care about different things. What I care about is are the facts correct, or not?
So, you're indifferent to whether all the relevant data is present, but you really care about facts that are correct.
No. In this particular case, you told me that if they added additional information which they did not have, their article would have been better. I don't expect them to report information that they don't have. I don't even have any reason to believe that information is available at all-- you told me that you speculate that this is a subject "on which political parties must have done a lot of research", but you don't cite any source suggesting that "the political parties" have released this analysis... and even if you had, I don't trust political parties as a source of unbiased information.
Bottom line, Snopes gave me the relevant fact: they told me upon what information the original claim was based. Everything else is commentary, in which I am uninterested.
I register as an unaffiliated voter, but that makes it impossible to then work to try to get acceptable candidates nominated in the primaries of EITHER of the two major parties. A third party vote virtually ensures that my vote does not count in the Electoral College (which, as we all know, is where the real presidential election is made). So as an unaffiliated voter, I can register with the party I most disagree with in order to try and get a better (worst of two evils) candidate of only one side of any election. This is the result of a "winner-take-all" counting of the electoral vote, which is how most of the states have chosen to count their EC results. From my viewpoint, neither party represents me and my vote in the primaries, where my so-called choices are picked in the presidential elections, even if I try to pick the worst of evils from the only two choices that have a chance at winning in the actual Electoral College count. Either way, my vote does not count for my true political choice. So much for the fallacy of American Exceptionalism.
PlaynBass
It sure would be nice to have access to the 'other' side of this story.
I value a reputable fact-checking resource, yet it seems uncharacteristic (of snopes.com) that only very general info regarding the issue is offered.
For example:
- If a contract term expiry is nearing, why were steps not taken in a timely manner?
- What is the 'vendor' side of the issue?
- Do you own the SNOPES.COM domain?
- What is preventing you from pointing your DNS record to another host, and circumventing that vendor's theft?
I would gladly donate if I knew more about the issue.
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.