So, yesterday I was completing an opt-out test for a computer basics class that's required for my school, and one of the questions was something like If someone online makes a claim starting with "This totally happened to someone in my town..." then what do you know? 3 of the 4 answers were clearly wrong (everything on the internet is true, etc.), and the only one that could possibly be the answer the teacher was looking for was "Verify the information on snopes.com before sharing."
As I emailed the teacher, if this answer had simply said to verify the information, then it would have been correct. Even better if it clarified that you need to verify the information with primary sources/first-hand witnesses... but it didn't. It specifically pointed you to a website that is long known for simply parroting whatever the official story is, regardless of the truth. Snopes has long been the non-researcher's go-to site to quickly "de-bunk" anything that doesn't fit their narrative of how benevolent & magical authoritarian governments, corporations, and individuals are.
Happily, this test gave me some inspiration for an article! So, let's talk a little bit about Snopes, and the other "Fact Checkers." If you're not interested in reading the whole piece, I recommend scrolling to the bottom and watching the @CorbettReport video Who Will Fact Check the Fact Checkers?
Snopes is a website started in 1994 by David and Barbara Mikkelson, who ran the site together for years. When they divorced in 2014, Barbara's shares were sold to Proper Media, and in 2017 Proper Media filed a lawsuit against Mikkelson's company, Bardav “because there was a sense that David is siphoning money from the business to fund a fairly extravagant lifestyle,” said Stephen Fox, a Dallas-based attorney representing Proper Media.
As the Daily Mail reported, at the time of Facebook's appointing Snopes to their "fake news" panel, David was "involved in a bitter divorce battle in which he was accused of embezzling nearly $100,000 in company funds to spend on personal expenses and prostitutes."
If you're interested in checking for yourself just how establishment-supporting and anti-truth Snopes is, just go take a look for any of those "conspiracy theories" that we know to be true, or anything that goes against the Pharmaceutical/Chemical-Industrial-Complex. Some examples might be the fake attack at the Gulf of Tonkin, the lies of 9/11, Mk-Ultra, the Northwoods Documents, SV40 in Polio vaccines, the safety testing of vaccines, the long-term effects of GMOs, etc. I can guarantee that in every case, Snopes will either try to cover up the truth, or they simple won't touch the topic at all.
Hilariously, AllSides, a site that claims to provide "media bias ratings," put at the top of the Snopes page that they provide a centrist point of view (though they do say they only have medium confidence)... and then go on to immediately point out things like how "Snopes' claim that mail-in ballots do not increase risk of voter fraud omitted evidence that mail-in voter fraud does occur."
In 2016, EthicsAlarm published this piece breaking down Snopes' fraudulent "de-bunking" of Hilary Clinton's defense of a child rapist, and later laughing about the case. No, we're not talking about her good friend Jeffrey Epstein this time.
On July 25, 2019, the Daily Wire posted this article, pointing out Snopes' not-very-professional "debunking" of a Babylon Bee article. If you're not familiar with the Babylon Bee, it is an openly, obviously, and unquestionably satirical website, mostly poking fun at technocrats and other authoritarian garbage. The Daily Wire pointed out that Snopes had called this article "false," as well as adding their own extremely editorial sub-title, and including almost no details about the story being satirized. Just 5 days later Snopes edited their article, removing the things that were pointed out, and changing their claim from "false" to "labeled satire."
This of course isn't the only time we've seen the authoritarians' pet "fact checkers" claiming that comedy & satire are false. JP Sears has had many of his videos censored this year, as he pointed to data published on the CDC's website. In some wonderful alignment, JP just recently posted this video, Facts About the Fact Checkers:
All of these "fact checkers" may be somewhat reminiscent of 1984 (because they are exactly what George Orwell was warning of/preparing us for. Here's the description of the Ministry of Truth, according to Wikipedia. Let's see if any of it sounds familiar:
The Ministry of Truth (Newspeak: Minitrue) is the ministry of propaganda. As with the other ministries in the novel, the name Ministry of Truth is a misnomer because in reality it serves the opposite: it is responsible for any necessary falsification of historical events. However, like the other ministries, the name is also apt because it decides what "truth" is in Oceania.
As well as administering "truth", the ministry spreads a new language amongst the populace called Newspeak, in which, for example, "truth" is understood to mean statements like 2 + 2 = 5 when the situation warrants. In keeping with the concept of doublethink, the ministry is thus aptly named in that it creates/manufactures "truth" in the Newspeak sense of the word. The book describes the doctoring of historical records to show a government-approved version of events.
The real-world version of The Ministry is most likely the The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), created by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. According to their website:
Among other things, the IFCN:
- Monitors trends and formats in fact-checking worldwide, publishing regular articles on the dedicated Poynter.org channel.
- Provides training resources for fact-checkers.
- Supports collaborative efforts in international fact-checking, including fellowships.
- Convenes a yearly conference (Global Fact).
- Is the home of the fact-checkers’ code of principles.
Now, if you hop over to the "Major Funders" page of their site, you'll find a list of about 40 funders, including Facebook, Google, TikTok, Charles Koch Foundation, and a whole bunch of other "foundations."
Further Reading on "Fact Checkers"
This Is Why You Can't Trust The Fact Checkers
Do You Trust Snopes? You Won’t After Reading This.
Snopes and Editorializing Fact Checks
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