Snopes: Website’s Political ‘Fact-Checker’ Is Just A Failed Liberal Blogger

That Snopes favors the Left is a long-standing accusation. What do you think, does it it go out of its way to defend the Left? Or as the Left says does reality have a liberal bias?

http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/17/f...act-checker-is-just-a-failed-liberal-blogger/

DailyCaller
Fact-Checking Snopes: Website’s Political ‘Fact-Checker’ Is Just A Failed Liberal Blogger
Photo of Peter Hasson
PETER HASSON
Reporter, Associate Editor
8:57 PM 06/17/2016
7312346 7312346 Share
noose hoax Shutterstock/nevodka noose hoax Shutterstock/nevodka

Popular myth-busting website Snopes originally gained recognition for being the go-to site for disproving outlandish urban legends -such as the presence of UFOs in Haiti or the existence of human-animal hybrids in the Amazon jungle.

Recently, however, the site has tried to pose as a political fact-checker. But Snopes’ “fact-checking” looks more like playing defense for prominent Democrats like Hillary Clinton and it’s political “fact-checker” describes herself as a liberal and has called Republicans “regressive” and afraid of “female agency.”

Snopes’ main political fact-checker is a writer named Kim Lacapria. Before writing for Snopes, Lacapria wrote for Inquisitr, a blog that — oddly enough — is known for publishing fake quotes and even downright hoaxes as much as anything else.

While at Inquisitr, the future “fact-checker” consistently displayed clear partisanship.


She described herself as “openly left-leaning” and a liberal. She trashed the Tea Party as “teahadists.” She called Bill Clinton “one of our greatest” presidents. She claimed that conservatives only criticized Lena Dunham’s comparison of voting to sex because they “fear female agency.”

She once wrote: “Like many GOP ideas about the poor, the panic about using food stamps for alcohol, pornography or guns seems to have been cut from whole cloth–or more likely, the ideas many have about the fantasy of poverty.” (A simple fact-check would show that food stamp fraud does occur and costs taxpayers tens of millions.)

Lacapria even accused the Bush administration of being “at least guilty of criminal negligience” in the September 11 attacks. (The future “fact-checker” offered no evidence to support her accusation.)

Her columns apparently failed to impress her readership, oftentimes failing to get more than 10-20 shares.


After blogging the Inquisitr, Lacapria joined Snopes, where she regularly plays defense for her fellow liberals.

She wrote a “fact check” article about Jimmy Carter’s unilateral ban of Iranian nationals from entering the country that looks more like an opinion column arguing against Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim ban.

Similarly, Lacapria — in another “fact check” article — argued Hillary Clinton hadn’t included Benghazi at all in her infamous “we didn’t lose a single person in Libya” gaffe. Lacapria claimed Clinton only meant to refer to the 2011 invasion of Libya (but not the 2012 Benghazi attack) but offered little fact-based evidence to support her claim.

After the Orlando terror attack, Lacapria claimed that just because Omar Mateen was a registered Democrat with an active voter registration status didn’t mean he was actually a Democrat. Her “fact check” argued that he might “have chosen a random political affiliation when he initially registered.”

Lacapria even tried to contradict the former Facebook workers who admitted that Facebook regularly censors conservative news, dismissing the news as “rumors.”

In that “fact check” article, Lacapria argued that “Facebook Trending’s blacklisting of ‘junk topics’ was not only not a scandalous development, but to be expected following the social network’s crackdown on fake news sites.” The opinion-heavy article was mockingly titled: The Algorithm Is Gonna Get You.

Lacapria again played defense for Clinton in a fact check article when she claimed: “Outrage over an expensive Armani jacket worn by Hillary Clinton was peppered with inaccurate details.”

One of the “inaccurate details” cited by Lacapria was that, “The cost of men’s suits worn by fellow politicians didn’t appear in the article for contrast.” She also argued the speech Clinton gave while wearing the $12,495 jacket, which discussed “raising wages and reducing inequality,” wasn’t actually about income inequality.

Follow Peter Hasson on Twitter [MENTION=676]PeterJ[/MENTION]Hasson

Tags: bias, Democrat, hoax, Is Snopes biased, Is Snopes Liberal, Kim Lacapria, Liberal, Snopes


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/17/f...-just-a-failed-liberal-blogger/#ixzz4C0ySkNbw

 

Any time while arguing with liberal friends, they always refer to Snopes. I guess we can see why.

 

Same thing with the Washington Post "fact checker" Glenn Kessler. I've gotten a lot of entertainment out of his twistings and gyrations to declare a liberal piety "true." He was the one who famously claimed that Obama's claim that if you like your healthcare, you can keep it, as true because...Obama said it as a campaign promise!

 

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One guys flawed opinion. Whatever.

 

Lets just face the issue head on. If you are actually interested in the facts you are by definition a liberal. Snopes, factcheck.org , any organization that actually is willing to investigate is anathema to the right wing. Easy to demonstrate by posting a fact check and then observing that those who disagree always try to change the subject rather than post any actual evidence that would disprove the findings f Snopes r factcheck.org.

 

Why not prove your OP by posting an actual link to a Snopes fact check and then giving an actual factual rebuttal. Should be easy. Might be really interesting for you to do it on one of the Snopes or factcheck.org checks on One of Trumps lies. Maybe try his statement that he opposed the invasion of Iraq or perhaps the action in Libya. Or just pick anyone you want.

 

Problem is liberals cannot discern fact from opinion.

 

Anyone who didn't know years ago that Snopes is nothing but a left wing blog site is very new to the world of internet.

 

Here's more:

http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/28/s...k-of-american-flags-at-democratic-convention/

US
Snopes Caught Lying About Lack Of American Flags At Democratic Convention

Photo of Peter Hasson
PETER HASSON
Reporter, Associate Editor
3:51 PM 07/28/2016
7688706
Myth-busting website Snopes flagrantly lied about the lack of visible American flags on the first day of the Democratic Convention, claiming an image from the second day of the convention was actually from the first day in an attempt to debunk a factual story from The Daily Caller.

First, the facts. TheDC reported on Monday about the lack of visible American flags at day one of the convention. Several flags were briefly on stage for the national anthem and pledge of allegiance, at which point they were carried off stage, as the C-SPAN video for Monday clearly shows at the 35:40 mark. Even PolitiFact, which tends to lean to the left, noted that “when the color guard left, so did the physical flag.” After that point, the stage was devoid of any American flags for the remainder of day one.

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As reported by TheDC, the DNC added flags to the stage for the second day of the convention — Tuesday, July 26. That same day, Snopes writer Dan Evon wrote a “fact-check” article declaring it “false” that: “No American flags were on display at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.”
Evon offered as proof A) a screenshot from PBS’ coverage of day one, taken during the pledge of allegiance — before the flags were removed — and B) the below screenshot of C-SPAN’s day two coverage (visible at the 6:36 mark here) and claimed it was from day one of the convention. In fact, Mallory Weggemann — the paralympic swimmer who gave Tuesday’s pledge of allegiance — can be seen sitting in her wheelchair as the flag-bearers walk past her.

Snopes presented the above image as a screenshot from day one of the convention, captioning it: “Contrary to claims that flags were added to the DNC’s staging only after the Democrats were criticized for not displaying any flags at the event, photographs captured U.S. flags being set up on the stage prior to the start of the convention and in place on the stage during Day 1 of the event.” In other words, Snopes — which presents itself as a credible media source for debunking lies on the internet — flat out lied.

snopestellinglies
What’s worse, Snopes appears to have ripped that image from left-wing non-proft Media Matters’ coverage of the story. But even Media Matters — known for its misleading claims and hatchet jobs — didn’t claim that the screenshot came from Monday’s coverage. Apparently, it was too much for Evon to actually watch the convention on which he was presenting himself as the authoritative source.


Snopes also used the below Media Matters clip from Fox News as “proof” that flags were present on day one of the convention. But that video, like Snopes’ borrowed screenshot, came from day two of the convention. That clip, like the above image, confirmed TheDC’s report that the flags which were missing on day one were added to the stage for day two.


By press time, Snopes had not returned TheDC’s inquiries about their clear falsehoods.

Tags: American flag, Democratic Convention, Snopes


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/28/s...flags-at-democratic-convention/#ixzz4FlDQz7S7

 

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A right wing blogger calls a left wing wing blogger, a liar. It most be a real slow news day for the terminally bored.

 

Sorry I didn't see this sooner! PLEASE read the whole thing at the link:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevle...fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/#3a40c22a1e02

DEC 22, 2016 @ 12:37 PM 61,154 VIEWS The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
The Daily Mail Snopes Story And Fact Checking The Fact Checkers

Kalev Leetaru , CONTRIBUTOR
I write about the broad intersection of data and society.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
Yesterday afternoon a colleague forwarded me an article from the Daily Mail, asking me if it could possibly be true. The article in question is an expose on Snopes.com, the fact checking site used by journalists and citizens across the world and one of the sites that Facebook recently partnered with to fact check news stories on its platform. The Daily Mail’s article makes a number of claims about the site’s principles and organization, drawing heavily from the proceedings of a contentious divorce between the site’s founders and questioning whether the site could possibly act as a trusted and neutral arbitrator of the “truth.”

When I first read through the Daily Mail article I immediately suspected the story itself must certainly be “fake news” because of how devastating the claims were and that given that Snopes.com was so heavily used by the journalistic community, if any of the claims were true, someone would have already written about them and companies like Facebook would not be partnering with them. I also noted that despite having been online for several hours, no other major mainstream news outlet had written about the story, which is typically a strong sign of a false or misleading story. Yet at the same time, the Daily Mail appeared to be sourcing its claims from a series of emails and other documents from a court case, some of which it reproduced in its article and, perhaps most strangely, neither Snopes nor its principles had issued any kind of statement through its website or social media channels disclaiming the story.

On the surface this looked like a classic case of fake news – a scandalous and highly shareable story, incorporating official-looking materials and sourcing, yet with no other mainstream outlet even mentioning the story. I myself told my colleague I simply did not know what to think. Was this a complete fabrication by a disgruntled target of Snopes or was this really an explosive expose pulling back the curtain on one of the world’s most respected and famous fact checking brands?

In fact, one of my first thoughts upon reading the article is that this is precisely how the “fake news” community would fight back against fact checking – by running a drip-drip of fake or misleading explosive stories to discredit and cast doubt upon the fact checkers.

In the counter-intelligence world, this is what is known as a “wilderness of mirrors” – creating a chaotic information environment that so perfectly blends truth, half-truth and fiction that even the best can no longer tell what’s real and what’s not.

Thus, when I reached out to David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, for comment, I fully expected him to respond with a lengthy email in Snopes’ trademark point-by-point format, fully refuting each and every one of the claims in the Daily Mail’s article and writing the entire article off as “fake news.”

It was with incredible surprise therefore that I received David’s one-sentence response which read in its entirety “I'd be happy to speak with you, but I can only address some aspects in general because I'm precluded by the terms of a binding settlement agreement from discussing details of my divorce.”

This absolutely astounded me. Here was the one of the world’s most respected fact checking organizations, soon to be an ultimate arbitrator of “truth” on Facebook, saying that it cannot respond to a fact checking request because of a secrecy agreement.

In short, when someone attempted to fact check the fact checker, the response was the equivalent of “it's secret.”

It is impossible to understate how antithetical this is to the fact checking world, in which absolute openness and transparency are necessary prerequisites for trust. How can fact checking organizations like Snopes expect the public to place trust in them if when they themselves are called into question, their response is that they can’t respond.

When I presented a set of subsequent clarifying questions to David, he provided responses to some and not to others. Of particular interest, when pressed about claims by the Daily Mail that at least one Snopes employee has actually run for political office and that this presents at the very least the appearance of potential bias in Snopes’ fact checks, David responded “It's pretty much a given that anyone who has ever run for (or held) a political office did so under some form of party affiliation and said something critical about their opponent(s) and/or other politicians at some point. Does that mean anyone who has ever run for office is manifestly unsuited to be associated with a fact-checking endeavor, in any capacity?”

That is actually a fascinating response to come from a fact checking organization that prides itself on its claimed neutrality. Think about it this way – what if there was a fact checking organization whose fact checkers were all drawn from the ranks of Breitbart and Infowars? Most liberals would likely dismiss such an organization as partisan and biased. Similarly, an organization whose fact checkers were all drawn from Occupy Democrats and Huffington Post might be dismissed by conservatives as partisan and biased. In fact, when I asked several colleagues for their thoughts on this issue this morning, the unanimous response back was that people with strong self-declared political leanings on either side should not be a part of a fact checking organization and all had incorrectly assumed that Snopes would have felt the same way and had a blanket policy against placing partisan individuals as fact checkers.

In fact, this is one of the reasons that fact checking organizations must be transparent and open. If an organization like Snopes feels it is ok to hire partisan employees who have run for public office on behalf of a particular political party and employ them as fact checkers where they have a high likelihood of being asked to weigh in on material aligned with or contrary to their views, how can they reasonably be expected to act as neutral arbitrators of the truth?

 

What fact checking site do you endorse as being completely objective?

 

She and her hubby/boyfriend and cat are no fact-checkers.
They are silly assklowns that the left found a way to prop-up in order
to substantiate Obama's Birth Certificate COLB.
It's like a poor white family seeking out Al Sharpton in some
civil rights struggle.Good luck.

 

If you can point to specific pieces that are factually incorrect and you can source your claims...you have a point.

Until you do that all you have done is engage in accusation and character assasination

 

Is that a fact or an opinion?

 

Fact, like not being able to discern legal from illegal immigration. Thanks for proving my point!

 

Anyone who doesn't do their own thinking and relies on "fact checkers" deserves to be fooled.

 

You can't discern legal from illegal immigration? Why are we not surprised.

 

Not my problem, I am not a liberal.

 

"Facts are for fools and logic is for liars."

 

There aren't any that I know of. I view the whole idea of media fact checkers as fake news.

 

So if we cannot fact check then what alternative is there other than to blindly believe what one is told?

Factcheck.org has fact checked Obama for example his claim that If You Like Your Health Care Plan you can keep it. Factcheck says that was one of Obama’s Whoppers. So tell me how factcheck got it wrong on Obama's claim?
http://www.factcheck.org/2017/01/obamas-whoppers/

 

The problem with "factcheckers" is what they consider a "fact" to render a judgement on. Politifact rated the "keep your health care plan: line half true in both 2009 and 2012. But it was rated half true in 2009 because it was being judged as a campaign promise. In what meaningful sense was it a "fact" to be judged 2009 or 2012? Answer, it wasn't. It could only be judged as a fact after Obamacare had been in place for a while. In 2009 and 2012 the only fact that could be judged was whether Obama actually said that (true by the way).

If these fact check sites actually stuck to facts, they might be useful, but they would also not be interesting, because we disagree on actual facts a lot less than you think. It's the spin from the facts that we disagree with, and that's what these sites do, provide spin for the establishment.

 

I hadn't discovered this site (PF) until right around the election. I've known for quite some time Snopes is agenda driven, hard left. Good to see someone posted the OP way back in the summer. I take Snopes with a grain of salt if the topic has even one ounce of political agenda.

 

They explained exactly why they judged it the way they did...ya know so you could transparently see WHY they judged it the way they did.

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I've come to notice that truth and accuracy by it's very nature, appears to be "left"