I no longer trust Snopes... and neither should you

ModernConservative.com ^ | Christopher Cook

[connell]

...For the Boudreaux photo, one would have to assume that Lance Cpl. Ted J. Boudreaux Jr. is pretty darned stupid to have 1) written a sign saying that he had killed the boy's dad and then impregnated his sister, 2) posed for a photo next the boy holding that sign, and 3) allowed the photo to become public.

Given the disparity in the status assigned the two entries, one has to assume that the Mikkelsons believe that it is at least possible that LCpl. Boudreaux is that stupid, but that it is not at all possible that the Muslim protesters could be that stupid....


...There are approximately one zillion people who---lacking girlfriends or gainful employment---have nothing better to do than to skulk about the Internet creating hoxes and altering photos. What, LCpl. Boudreaux is supposed to know which particular acne-faced loser was the one who altered this photo?

[connell]

Oh, by the way---if any of y'all have other examples of Snopes having a slant, please let me know!

[theDentist]

Hey, even snopes gets it wrong sometimes. They're usually fairly dependable, and its fun to read.

[trisham]

Good article.

[highball]

Wow. He's really reaching there, trying to find a bias. Says more about him than it does Snopes.

I'm not suggesting that they don't have a bias, but if that's the best he can do, he hasn't demonstrated it.

[connell]

Wow. He's really reaching there, trying to find a bias. Says more about him than it does Snopes.

As I stated in the article, I am not claiming my case to be dispositive, just suggestive (though perhaps, with that in mind, my title is worded somewhat strongly).

Not exactly sure what it "says...about [me]," but hey---thanks! : )

[Freeport]

After reading your article and the Snoops one, I think your stretching a bit.

[Vision]

The first time I went there I was looking for the story of Hillary's involvement with the Black Panthers. They clam it's false, but go and read their very long explanation. If you can take enough pain to read it all, you'll find they never give any evidence as to why they believe it's false.

I've never trusted them.

[connell]

You may be right---I'm not sure yet. In the article, I admit to not having made a solid case, but the title seems to indicate that I have (I guess I was doing a little headline sensationalism *hangs head in shame*). Perhaps a better title might be...
Bias at Snopes?
(Facts in evidence not dispositive, but suggestive...)

...or something like that. That might more accurately reflect the content.

[connell]

Thanks, Vision, that's exactly the sort of thing that I am looking for. I remember having noticed little things at Snopes in the past, but as I state in the article, I didn't keep track of them at the time. I will look into the Black Panthers thing!

[highball]

You're right - the headline makes a claim that you don't even come close to supporting.

What it says is that you're looking too hard for a bias that doesn't appear to actually be there (since you cannot support it with anything other than suppositions).

In other words, you reveal your own bias through insisting that someone else is biased.

[DesScorp]

I've asked Snopes twice now to debunk the "Ann Coulter is a man" thing that the DUers keep trying to spread. Not even a reply from their editors. She's a big, controversial public figure, so you'd think she's be worth the time. Not for Snopes, though. Can't help but wonder if they like that nasty accusation floating around out there.

[weegee]

This picture, if taken at face value, seemingly confirms the worst of what is rumored about U.S. servicemen in Iraq — not only has the Marine pictured killed a man (presumably a civilian), but he has also impregnated the dead man's daughter, then proudly and grinningly advertised his deeds, humiliating the Iraqi family even more by enlisting two of their young sons as unwitting accomplices. But should the photograph be taken at face value, or was it the product of some kind of a staged set-up? Is the photograph genuine or the product of digital manipulation? If real, was it on the level, was it a joke pulled off by the Marine pictured, or was the Marine — like the two Iraqi boys in the picture — the victim of a callous prank?

LCpl. Boudreaux has told reporters that the sign in the picture originally read "Welcome Marines!" but was altered by someone else. He has not, however, (publicly) produced a version of the original photograph or identified who might have altered it. (If the photo was indeed manipulated, someone involved in the process had to be sufficiently acquainted with Boudreaux to be able to match his name and rank with his picture.)

This photo has surfaced numerous times with various slogans that make it obvious that people are changing the text there. Snopes is run by idiots with an evil agenda.

This isn't the only such example of Snopes' bias. They shrug off complaints saying that validity of the statement is determined by the framing synopsis.

As someone framed it on another thread: "On some debunks, they exagerate by calling something "False" when after you read the thing, you find some truth and some exageration."

They still refuse to call Hillary a liar over the "Sir Edmund Hillary" comment. They say that maybe her mom was lying. Claim: Hillary Clinton was named after world-famous mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary. Status: Probably not.

Hillary Clinton didn't technically claim the story of how she came by her first name was literally true (at least in any of the accounts we've found); she said her mother told her it was true — a minor but important distinction given how often parents make up harmless little fibs to amuse their children or misremember past events.

Claim: John Kerry's Vietnam War service medals (a Bronze Star, a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts) were earned under "fishy" circumstances.
Status: False.

Snopes: "T Kerry donates millions to fringe political groups through the Tides" = Urban Myth

Claim: Photograph shows school buses caught in a flooded New Orleans parking lot. Status: True.

"Whether this photograph truly represents a lost opportunity to have evacuated a substantial number of New Orleans residents ahead of Hurricane Katrina is difficult to assess."

Online Rumor Mill Spins Its Own Myth(Snopes.com's leftwing bias undercuts its credibility)

Yet Snopes seems to have different standards in evaluating stories involving conservatives. Take a bizarre new rumor asserting that Attorney General John Ashcroft believes that calico cats are a sign of the devil. This claim was first made in November by liberal financial writer Andrew Tobias, the treasurer of the Democratic National Committee, on his Website (andrewtobias.com). To say the least, Tobias was vague about his sources, writing only that "I got this odd story from someone who was definitely in a position to know and then confirmed it with someone else, also in a position to know." Given the stringent Mikkelson standards about anonymous sources in evaluating Metcalf's story, one would have expected them to classify the preposterous Tobias story as false. Instead, they labeled it undetermined. "What the game is here — if indeed there is one — we can't fathom," they wrote of the silly Tobias smear of Ashcroft, a cum laude graduate of Yale with a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

To be sure, Snopes has quelled some rumors about President George W. Bush, such as the one about him having the lowest IQ of modern presidents. But it has split hairs trying to protect Clinton and Al Gore. For instance, Snopes flags the claim that Gore said he "invented" the Internet as false, and signaled it with a red light. The reason given is that Gore actually said he "took the initiative in creating the Internet." Never mind that many dictionaries and thesauruses list the words "invent" and "create" as synonyms. Snopes also lists as false the claim that "the Clinton administration failed to track down the perpetrators of several terrorist attacks against Americans." The Mikkelsons echo the dubious claim by Clinton's defenders that the missile strike in Afghanistan in 1998, widely thought to have been launched to distract the public from the Monica Lewinsky affair, reportedly "missed bin Laden by a few hours" and cite a Washington Post story claiming that the federal antiterrorism budget tripled to $6.7 billion on Clinton's watch.

But the biggest criticism Snopes has attracted for defending the Clintons involves Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and the Black Panthers. Differing sharply from news and historical accounts, and even from another urban-legends Website, TruthOrFiction.com, Snopes maintains that it is false that "Hillary Clinton played a significant role in defending Black Panthers accused of torturing and murdering Alex Rackley."

[connell]

Yes, the "neither should you" part is something for which I do not provide adequate support. In an effort to maintain high standards, i.e., to avoid the kind of headline sensationalism I find reprehensible in the MSM, I have altered the headline at the site.

That said---bias is often hard to identify beyond suppositions. Many members of elite media somehow manage to maintain just enough "plausible deniability" to keep intact their patina of objectivity... and yet lots of us see right through it. We know it's there, and yet we are never actually given enough evidence to form an iron-clad case that would, for example, stand up in a court.

In the case of Snopes, I suspect that that the facts will eventually create enough of a case to indicate that they lean left. As I mention, I have seen other indications, but I didn't document them, so I am now going to have to go back and do more research. But it is not much of a stretch, in general, to assume that they lean one direction or the other (there are very few people truly in the center). They may be, of course, or they may be politically iconoclastic or uninterested, but the odds are much better that they either lean generally left or generally right. So, let's give them a 40% chance that they lean left. Those are decent odds. Something I believe very strongly is that there is virtually no one alive who is able to keep their bias out of their work, when that work involves politics.

On the subject of my bias---I never tried to hide it. I am a center-right conservative, a partisan Republican, and a staunch opponent of left-of-center ideas in almost every form they have ever taken. We on the right are far more likely to be open about our biases. Those on the left, especially in the MSM, try so hard to hide their partisanship, while cowering behind a less-than-convincing veil of objectivity.


Congratulations on the birth of Highball, Jr.

[weegee]

Not so much that they like the accusation hanging around out there as maybe they don't want to admit that there are some on the left saying such things.

They did use the spoof photo of Kerry together with Jane Fonda to taint the real photo of Kerry together with Jane Fonda.

And I seriously doubt they ever paid Corbis to license the photos for use on their site (in part because Corbis DOES NOT own the license to the spoof photo, that belongs to some prankster who was likely a FReeper even though he does not own the license to the actual images that make it up, as a digital creation and in the absence of a court ruling giving Corbis the rights, they are not to be licensed, plus Corbis would be unlikely to license such a hoax). Meanwhile Corbis prohibits FR from even using a URL reference to post even the valid pictures.

I was the one who tipped off Corbis' lawyers to Snopes illegal hosting of the images (real and hoax) and Snopes only response to was add a copyright credit. The left look out for their own, apparently.

[connell]

Now we're cooking with gas!

[weegee]

Jan Brunvand was the foremost authority on Urban Legends (and it is his research and multiple books that supply the basis for debunking things like alligator in sewer stories).

He seemed to be fairly objective when I read his work (and even communicated with him on the internet 20 years ago).

I don't know how he is now that the left has become completely unhinged. Even more rational Democrats (and I am not certain of his political affiliation, just referring to Rats I know) are spouting some absurd and rotten things these days.

[highball]

In the case of Snopes, I suspect that that the facts will eventually create enough of a case to indicate that they lean left.

IMHO, that's when you should write this type of article. Until then, it's just raving.

Thanks for the kind words.

[connell]

Maybe all this recent partisanship, the discontiguous information streams, etc. will be good for America. Maybe we can finally get away from this absurd notion that objectivity is possible, or that the meanstream flow of information is somehow "clean" and free of bias. Maybe we can retreat to our corners for a while, and then everyone can look for the truth in each side's information stream. I think I know which side would win that fight.

I am thinking I would like to update the article with some of the information provided by others, including the FR folks herein. Any objection if I include some small portions of what you provided in your long reply post above?

[weegee]

You should be able to provide examples without needing to quote FReepers. And If you read through some of those linked threads (some are Snopes links and some are FR threads about Snopes links), you will find even more examples (just follow the rabbit down the hole).

The more you can do to quote Snopes' own statements, rather than a FReeper's interpetation of their statements, the more people will agree with what you present as evidence of Snopes' bias.

I only learned about their take on the buses today (when searching for some examples). There was an FR thread. You might try searching threads for headlines with the word Snopes or keyword Snopes.