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SNOPES.COM Exposed

From: http://thehuffingtonriposte.blogspot.com/2010/05/snopes-exposed.htm...

For the past few years (http://www.snopes.com/ has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the 'tell-all final word' on any comment, claim and email. But
for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com.
Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it - kinda makes you wonder
what they were hiding. Well, finally we know. It is run by a husband and wife
team - that's right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of
lawyers. It's just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby. David and
Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website
about 13 years ago and they have no formal background or experience in
investigative research. After a few years it gained popularity believing it to
be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking
questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation?


The reason for the questions - or skepticisms - is a result of snopes.comclaiming to
have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have
been proven wrong. Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really
investigating and getting to the 'true' bottom of various issues.


A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political
sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the Internet,
'supposedly' the Mikkelson's claim to have researched this issue before posting
their findings on snopes.com. In their statement they claimed the corporate
office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact
nothing of the sort 'ever' took place. I personally contacted David Mikkelson
(and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this
and I gave him Bud Gregg's contact phone numbers - and Bud was going to give him
phone numbers to the big exec's at State Farm in Illinois who would have been
willing to speak with him about it. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned from
Bud Gregg that no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State
Farm.


Yet, snopes.com issued a statement as the 'final factual word' on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things -
not!


Then it has been learned the Mikkelson's are very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal. As we all now know from this presidential
election, liberals have a purpose agenda to discredit anything that appears to
be conservative. There has been much criticism lately over the Internet with
people pointing out the Mikkelson's liberalism revealing itself in their website
findings. Gee, what a shock?


So, I say this now to everyone who goes to snopes.com to get what they think to be the bottom line fact 'proceed with
caution.' Take what it says at face value and nothing more. Use it only to lead
you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself.
Plus,you can always Google a subject and do the research yourself. It now seems
apparent that's all the Mikkelson's do. After all, I can personally vouch from
my own experience for their 'not' fully looking into
things.


I have found this to be true also! Many videos of Obama I tried to verify on Snopes and they said they were False. Then
they gave their liberal slant! I have suspected some problems with snopes for
some time now, but I have only caught them in half-truths. If there is any
subjectivity they do an immediate full left rudder.


Truth or Fiction, is a better source for verification, in my
opinion.
http://www.truthorfiction.com/


I have recently discovered that Snopes.com is owned by a flaming liberal and this man is in the tank for
Obama. There are many things they have listed on their site as a hoax and yet
you can go to You tube yourself and find the video of Obama actually saying
these things. So you see, you cannot and should not trust Snopes.com, ever for
anything that remotely resembles truth! I don't even trust them to tell me if
email chains are hoaxes anymore.


A few conservative speakers on MySpace told me about Snopes.com. A few months ago and I took it upon myself to do a
little research to find out if it was true. Well, I found out for myself that it
is true. Anyway just FYI please don't use Snopes.com anymore for fact checking
and make your friends aware of their political leanings as well. Many people
still think Snopes.com is neutral and they can be trusted as factual. We need to
make sure everyone is aware that that is a hoax in itself.


Thank you,
Alan Strong


Alan Strong CEO/Chairman
Commercial Programming Systems, Inc.
4400 Coldwater Canyon Ave. Suite
200 Studio City, CA. 91604-5039

Read more: http://thehuffingtonriposte.blogspot.com/2010/05/snopes-exposed.htm...

Tags: Snopes.com

Views: 160

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jeannine on August 14, 2010 at 7:56am
Any website claiming knowledge... uses search engines whether it be google...
A persons "supposed" political views being pointed out is lame and unprofessional. They aren't running for office.
Add that to the fact that your link is to a blogger website. One persons view? One person's claim being he is freinds with the person in question?
Do you know how many people make these claims? Think more than 1000s...
You have to take the whole site at Snopes into view. Not just one report, or one persons hissy fit point of view.
Another thing to look at is Snopes's record of correcting wrongs when found.
I already knew who ran the website. That's not really news.
So, there's a margin for human err.
They have legitimately saved many people from scams...
Permalink Reply by Elphaba Broome on August 14, 2010 at 9:05am
I also believe that Snopes builds credibility by admitting mistakes and correcting wrongs. Here is an interesting article that addresses the above opinion by Mr. Strong.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/
Permalink Reply by Russell Dominique on August 14, 2010 at 9:13am
It is a hoax email being circulated and virtually every sentence is false. Factcheck.org tears it apart. I fail to understand why the right wing tends to rely primarily on falsehoods in making their case.

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/

-----
I see I was beaten to the punch by Elphaba by a couple of minutes while I was researching. I believe that such hoaxes should not be propagated or giving any airing such as in this forum without being researched first. How many people will read the headline or article and not know it is false?
Permalink Reply by Russell Dominique on August 14, 2010 at 10:28am
I assume it is right wing because the right wing hates fact checking or facts for that matter. It has nothing to do with whether or not snopes is left wing. As one of Bush's advisors said "we make our own reality." For people who want to make their own reality via propaganda any organization that provides fact checking is the enemy. The right hates the facts of climate change and evolution; that doesn't mean that climate change and evolution are left wing.

So what did your cross checking across more than one source reveal about this post?
Permalink Reply by JS on August 15, 2010 at 2:38pm
Dude. There isn't anything more right wing than this article.
Permalink Reply by JS on August 15, 2010 at 2:54pm
Unlikely, as I am characterised as being Left-Of-Centre. It would be quite impossible for me to be the most left wing person in the world.

And, to be honest, I would never characterise myself as either left or right wing. I am a supporter of a fifth (well, third and fourth are taken) way. Capitalism isn't working. Socialism isn't working. We must figure out another way forwards.
Permalink Reply by JS on August 15, 2010 at 2:58pm
You're not right of centre. You're right wing. Not far right wing. Not centre-right. Just right wing.
Permalink Reply by Russell Dominique on August 15, 2010 at 5:09pm
I know what I am but what are you?

Oh yeah, it takes one to know one!

How childish can you get and you still haven't answered the question of what your honest and researched opinion of the article is.
Permalink Reply by llsee on August 14, 2010 at 11:13am
Well lets look at facts. Snopes is run by the Mikelsons, CANADIAN citizens who can't even vote in US elections. TruthorFiction is run by Rich Buhler, a Southern California radio talk-show host, who is known as the "Father of modern Christian Talk-Radio" http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2008/s08080087.htm. Buhler himself even denounced the Snopes rumors: http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/s/snopes.htm. This sort of attack is a typical right-wing tactic. When the facts don't fit their personal beliefs, rather than offer a rebuttal, they attack the messenger. Interestingly, the quoted source, "The Huffington Riposte" is yet another conservative Attack-the-Messenger site. The author might want to read this article: http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/40861, but it would probably conflict with his beliefs!
Permalink Reply by Russell Dominique on August 14, 2010 at 11:46am
listening for the author's rebuttal or retraction

(crickets)
Permalink Reply by Gavin Roskamp on August 14, 2010 at 1:06pm
Excuse me, but if it IS in fact false, then why should he NOT denounce it? This 'tactic' is not limited to conservatives. Liberals do it just as much, if not more.
Permalink Reply by Robert Quance on August 14, 2010 at 6:36pm
In truth what has been found out about Snopes.com is that you can get the same results as they post by looking around on the internet and as we all know anything found on the internet should be taken with a bucketfull of salt. As an example it was found that Snopes.com posted erroneous information as to the current Presidents birth location and they refused to refute their statements even when it was proven they were incorrect.

Snopes.com does seem to be correct much of the time but please always consider they are only human and are biased and make human errors often.

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