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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.
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.
*citation needed
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.
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
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.
You can't. The accusations are primarily from butt-hurt Republicans who got pissed off that so many of Trump's lies were called out as lies on the site. Their 'proof' that Snopes is making political statements is basically just a bunch of "technically, it wasn't a lie because..." followed by an opium fever dream of hatred against everything and everyone that doesn't support Trump.
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.
Indeed, facts have a well-known liberal bias which only seems to become more pronounced over time! Those fact-checking sites don't even acknowledge alternative facts! Luckily there's conservapedia and infowars to bring some balance to the situation.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Here's an example: http://www.snopes.com/orlando-shooter-was-democrat/
Yeah, he was a Democrat. But you can't say he was a Democrat, you have to also say that a person's political affiliation could have changed, and we don't know what was in his heart, and-and... OBVIOUSLY THE DEMOCRATS ARE THE GOOD GUYS, SO HE WASN'T A TRUE DEMOCRAT, OKAY???
Ok, here is the content at the top of the link you gave...
In 2006 Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen registered to vote as a Democrat, but his recent political leanings are unknown.
And if you scroll down further, it has "claim" and the rating is mixture (not either true or false). So what are you trying to show 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.
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.
Did I miss some big news? When did snopes go back to being a fact checking site?
See that "Preview" button?
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?
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.
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]
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