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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?
Yes, "debunked" here:
http://www.snopes.com/save-sno... :-/
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.
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.
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.
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
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???
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?
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.
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!