Snopes exposed


How's that go: Believe half of what you read and none of what you hear? Or is it the other way round!:biggrin:
 

For those of you that think snopes is god when it comes to knowing the truth or not. By the way you might want to check this out on snopes.:biggrin:

I present this for your own evaluation.
Who "Snopes" are was written up in READERS DIGEST and agrees with this account.
(no politcal bias was mentioned in the article).

SNOPES EXPOSED




For the past few years (Link Removed 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.com claiming 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.

Link Removed or Link Removed

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.
TruthOrFiction.com-Is that forwarded email Truth or Fiction? Research into stories, scams, hoaxes, myths, and urban legends on the Internet

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 aboutSnopes.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

Alan, why do you not supply links to the many claims you are making? I'm not doubting your claims but anyone willing to research them would have to spend hours doing so since you have not supplied links to the claims.

My opinions:
1) Wikipedia should not be the sole source for anything, but it's pretty good for getting the "gist" of a varity of subjects.
2) Snopes should not be the sole source for anything, but it's pretty good for getting the "gist" of a varity of subjects.
3) People should not care who runs either site.
4) People should get their opinions from a variety of sites... and base their opinions on what they found from a variety of sites... and pay close attention to references, links and citations... and give "extra credence" to Reliable Sources.

To be honest, I only made it through your first two paragraphs.

Can you summarize your point in a sentence or three?

All consumers and readers of anything should beware: Just because someone says something in a book, magazine or website does not mean that it is true. Folks need to research a variety of sources, give more credence to "reputable sources" and then make their decisions, and/or take action, from there.
 
From California none the less. I wonder if they are citizens? :biggrin: At the risk of being redundant... I'm not surprised.
 
You can not trust Snopes.

I have been telling people not to trust snopes for two years now. I saw first hand during the 2008 election the out and out bias snopes has.
I passed on the e-mail showing Obama NOT putting his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem. My brother sent an e-mail back saying it is false, and had a link to snopes so I could look it up myself! I clicked it and it said it was “FALSE“, “a picture is NOT worth a thousand words. He may not have put his hand up yet, or he might have just lowered his hand before the picture was taken“. Snopes went on to say there is no law that you have to. THEN they gave a link to a Video showing from start to finish, everyone put their hand over their heart, except Obama.
I began to look at more Obama and McCain claims saw more flat out lies. All the Obama post were slanted in his favor.
Example 2; McCain used the “N” word when referring to Obama. Snopes said, They could not find anyone that could confirm he didn’t say it. So they listed it as “probable”
After the election, I went back to look up some of the many I had looked at before and the post were removed or changed.
 
I have been telling people not to trust snopes for two years now. I saw first hand during the 2008 election the out and out bias snopes has.
I passed on the e-mail showing Obama NOT putting his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem. My brother sent an e-mail back saying it is false, and had a link to snopes so I could look it up myself! I clicked it and it said it was “FALSE“, “a picture is NOT worth a thousand words. He may not have put his hand up yet, or he might have just lowered his hand before the picture was taken“. Snopes went on to say there is no law that you have to. THEN they gave a link to a Video showing from start to finish, everyone put their hand over their heart, except Obama.
I began to look at more Obama and McCain claims saw more flat out lies. All the Obama post were slanted in his favor.
Example 2; McCain used the “N” word when referring to Obama. Snopes said, They could not find anyone that could confirm he didn’t say it. So they listed it as “probable”
After the election, I went back to look up some of the many I had looked at before and the post were removed or changed.

That's odd. Maybe you should take a look at this Snope's which says it's True:

snopes.com: Barack Obama and the National Anthem
 
No, at least one is Canadian if I remember correctly without looking it up.

Maybe Guido Sarducci was on to something when he said "We shouldn't worry about Russia WAY over there, but we should NUKE Canada looming over us." :laugh:
 
Huh?

I have a few questions for you...

Could you please post examples of those 'multiple times being flat out wrong or just plain lieing' you mentioned?

If Snopes is a 'liberal media tool', then does that mean that there's a 'liberal conspiracy' to decieve to us?

If that's true, then my next question is... are these the same 'liberals' who couldn't get organized enough to overcome the minority conservative oppostion in the last two years? Is there a group of better organized 'liberals' out there running things behind the scenes? Why aren't they in Washington enacting the 'liberal agenda'? What, exactly, is the 'liberal agenda'? Who is behind it?

I'd really like to know.



they are and continue to be a liberal media tool.... I have caught them multiple times being flat out wrong or just plain lieing....
 
I have a few questions for you...

Could you please post examples of those 'multiple times being flat out wrong or just plain lieing' you mentioned?

If Snopes is a 'liberal media tool', then does that mean that there's a 'liberal conspiracy' to decieve to us?

If that's true, then my next question is... are these the same 'liberals' who couldn't get organized enough to overcome the minority conservative oppostion in the last two years? Is there a group of better organized 'liberals' out there running things behind the scenes? Why aren't they in Washington enacting the 'liberal agenda'? What, exactly, is the 'liberal agenda'? Who is behind it?

I'd really like to know.

Can you say Communist Socialism Marxism??? Do you not see that the Marxist has surrounded himself with a bunch of communist???? They will protect their own.
 
Eric Shinseki
U.S. Army general

Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Shinseki graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1965 with a bachelor's degree. He earned an M.A. in English literature from Duke University. He has also taken the Armor Officer Advanced Course and attended the Army Command and General Staff College and the National War College. He received two Purple Hearts and four Bronze Star Medals for his service in Vietnam. He then served for more than ten years in Europe. Shinseki was named a lieutenant general and deputy chief of staff for operations and planning in 1996. The following year, he was promoted to general, later being made commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, the allied land forces in Central Europe, and the NATO force in Bosnia. In 1998 he was named vice chief of staff of the army, and was chief of staff from 1999 until he retired in 2003.


This is a communist?


Can you say Communist Socialism Marxism??? Do you not see that the Marxist has surrounded himself with a bunch of communist???? They will protect their own.
 
Some People Just Have Their Minds made Up

Some interesting details in this Time Magazine article:

All of the subjects were given full, written rebuttals of the rumors, as provided by the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org, as well as by the St. Petersburg Times's Politifact, which has won a Pulitzer Prize for its accuracy as a fact-checking source. After reading the material, however, only 28% of the subjects rejected the rumors, while another 35% at least acknowledged that there was some merit to the new information. (More on Time.com: Photos: The Health-Care Debate Turns Angry)

How the subjects received the information, however, made a big difference. Volunteers who were also shown a picture of Rauf in the company of people in Western style clothing were likelier to reject the rumors than people who merely read the rebuttals. The picture, Garrett said, provided visual corroboration for idea that Rauf "is an American, just like the rest of us."

Subjects who read the rebuttals and were shown a picture of Rauf in the company of people in Arab-style dress, by contrast, were less likely to reject the rumors — even though they already surely knew that such traditionally garbed people would heavily populate Rauf's world. Rejection of the rumors also plummeted among subjects who read the rebuttals along with Rauf's words about America's shared responsibility for 9/11.

What was most disturbing to the researchers was not just how easy it is to manipulate people's belief systems with insinuating pictures or inflammatory quotes — if it weren't easy, negative political ads wouldn't work. More troubling was that, even in the best of circumstances, fewer than a third of people were willing to reverse their positions, regardless of the contradictory evidence they were given. Part of this was almost certainly due to the limitations of the study itself. (More on Time.com: Never Mind the Tea Party. Can a 'Liberal Gene' Make You a Party Animal?).
 
If you believe it, then you must not believe it.

For those of you that think snopes is god when it comes to knowing the truth or not. By the way you might want to check this out on snopes.:biggrin:

I present this for your own evaluation.
Who "Snopes" are was written up in READERS DIGEST and agrees with this account.
(no politcal bias was mentioned in the article).

SNOPES EXPOSED

...

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 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.
TruthOrFiction.com-Is that forwarded email Truth or Fiction? Research into stories, scams, hoaxes, myths, and urban legends on the Internet

I can't believe no one has yet pointed out that TruthOrFiction.com, the "better source for verification", says that the claim in the Internet rumor about Snopes.com is false.

TruthOrFiction.com: Snopes.com is a secret tool of the Democratic Party to promote Barack Obama- Fiction!

TruthOrFiction-Article said:
One of the versions of the eRumor mentions TruthOrFiction.com and recommends our site. We appreciate that, but we want to say for the record that we've had nothing to do with this eRumor about Snopes.com and we condemn it.

So the Internet Rumor says that Snopes.com is untrustworthy because it promotes false information, and TruthOrFiction is better because it does not promote false information. However, TruthOrFiction says that Snopes.com is trustworthy. Therefore, if you believe this Internet Rumor, then you must not believe this Internet Rumor, because the Internet Rumor promotes the "false idea" that TruthOrFiction provides truthful information, which makes the Internet Rumor (by its own internal logic) untrustworthy.

An Internet Rumor being logically inconsistent? Say it ain't so!

In any case, FactCheck.org contacted State Farm and Link Removed. They even posted the letter they got from State Farm (PDF link) confirming that what Snopes.com said was true: Gregg was asked by State Farm to take down the sign. So the Internet Rumor itself promoted false information right from the start.
 
Eric Shinseki
U.S. Army general

Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Shinseki graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1965 with a bachelor's degree. He earned an M.A. in English literature from Duke University. He has also taken the Armor Officer Advanced Course and attended the Army Command and General Staff College and the National War College. He received two Purple Hearts and four Bronze Star Medals for his service in Vietnam. He then served for more than ten years in Europe. Shinseki was named a lieutenant general and deputy chief of staff for operations and planning in 1996. The following year, he was promoted to general, later being made commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, the allied land forces in Central Europe, and the NATO force in Bosnia. In 1998 he was named vice chief of staff of the army, and was chief of staff from 1999 until he retired in 2003.

This is a communist?

Aha! He got a humanities degree from a university. Universities are all run by Commies! They got to him there and made him a sleeper agent in the U.S. Military. In Vietnam his Commie friends helped him get his medals, so no one would have any reason to suspect his veneer of patriotism. Europe, home of Socialists, only strengthened his Commie resolve. Bosnia, as we all know, used to be a land of Commies, so his handlers transmitted secret messages to him without anyone knowing about it (because Commies are all amazingly smart until we need them to be amazingly stupid) through the secret Bosnian Commie Peoples Resistance Movement!

Thus he is a COMMIE!

Q.E.D.

(or something like that... :wacko: )
 
Be truthfully annoying.

I heard an internet rumor that all these internet rumors were being spread by former USA Carry member theicemanmpls. :sarcastic:

Just sayin' that it doesn't make any sense to rant about things you read about on the Internet without doing a little fact checking. Eventually you'll get past the belief point of no return (where you believe the Internet Rumor even after having Bud Gregg tell you in person that State Farm told him to take down the sign) and be stuck saying things which aren't true for the rest of your life.

Far better to rant about true things. Then people will still find you annoying but they'll still have to grudgingly admit you are right about those things.
 
Then in a nutshell, if you:

1. Make people angry
2. Make people affraid
3. Appeal to their prejudices

then emotion will most likely outweigh reason. What a novel idea! Who else in history knew about this and was a master at using such tactics to further his party's agenda? Joseph Goebbles perhaps. The minister of what?

Has anyone else noticed that the political party who seems to benefit the most from these things isn't going out of its way to condem those who make such allogations or deny them as false.

Did anyone catch Bill O'Reilly of Fox News on Bill Maher's Real Time trying to explain, basically, that there was a difference between 'the'opinion people' and 'the hard-news people' when it came to journalistic integrigity and being responsible for reporting facts correctly.

Here's a link to the full interview:

Bill Maher Takes Bill O'Reilly to Task for Fox's 'Reporting' of Obama's $200M a Day Trip to India | Video Cafe

Some interesting details in this Time Magazine article:

All of the subjects were given full, written rebuttals of the rumors, as provided by the Annenberg Public Policy Center's FactCheck.org, as well as by the St. Petersburg Times's Politifact, which has won a Pulitzer Prize for its accuracy as a fact-checking source. After reading the material, however, only 28% of the subjects rejected the rumors, while another 35% at least acknowledged that there was some merit to the new information. (More on Time.com: Photos: The Health-Care Debate Turns Angry)

How the subjects received the information, however, made a big difference. Volunteers who were also shown a picture of Rauf in the company of people in Western style clothing were likelier to reject the rumors than people who merely read the rebuttals. The picture, Garrett said, provided visual corroboration for idea that Rauf "is an American, just like the rest of us."

Subjects who read the rebuttals and were shown a picture of Rauf in the company of people in Arab-style dress, by contrast, were less likely to reject the rumors — even though they already surely knew that such traditionally garbed people would heavily populate Rauf's world. Rejection of the rumors also plummeted among subjects who read the rebuttals along with Rauf's words about America's shared responsibility for 9/11.

What was most disturbing to the researchers was not just how easy it is to manipulate people's belief systems with insinuating pictures or inflammatory quotes — if it weren't easy, negative political ads wouldn't work. More troubling was that, even in the best of circumstances, fewer than a third of people were willing to reverse their positions, regardless of the contradictory evidence they were given. Part of this was almost certainly due to the limitations of the study itself. (More on Time.com: Never Mind the Tea Party. Can a 'Liberal Gene' Make You a Party Animal?).
 
Wikipedia isn't exactly a bastion of truth. It is also suspect, and prints opinions supposedly "verified" by the authors. This all sounds like a bit of paranoia to me. Liberals could say the same thing about conservatives that the conservatives are accusing the liberals of. Even if the Mikkelsons are a "mom & pop" operation with no experience in investigative research, that doesn't necessarily discredit their work on snopes.com. Heck, Obama got elected President of the USA with less than 2 years of experience as a senator. For now, I'll still check snopes for reliability....but I'm not drinking Dr. Pepper because they subliminally print atheist quotes on their cans. I know this is true because my second counsin's sister's neighbor's hair dresser had a client who told her.
 
Last edited:
Wikipedia isn't exactly a bastion of truth. It is also suspect, and prints opinions supposedly "verified" by the authors. This all sounds like a bit of paranoia to me. Liberals could say the same thing about conservatives that the conservatives are accusing the liberals of. Even if the Mikkelsons are a "mom & pop" operation with no experience in investigative research, that doesn't necessarily discredit their work on snopes.com. Heck, Obama got elected President of the USA with less than 2 years of experience as a senator. For now, I'll still check snopes for reliability....but I'm not drinking Dr. Pepper because they subliminally print atheist quotes on their cans. I know this is true because my second counsin's sister's neighbor's hair dresser had a client who told her.

Wait a minute, Dr. Pepper too. I knew that Proctor and Gamble did it but had not heard about DP. I know that the owner's or P&G are satan worshipers because my sister's Sunday School teacher told her that 30+ years ago and that was before Snopes or the Internet so it has to be true.
 
I'm sorry but I take 99% of the stuff I read on the internet with a grain of salt. Anybody can write/make up facts and post them as truth. You should always look into the facts of anything you are interested in. Blindly believing what someone says has always been the downfall of a society.
 

New Threads

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
49,542
Messages
611,250
Members
74,961
Latest member
Shodan
Back
Top