Not really. You can join most cooperative NICs (such as DENIC), and you can colo or run your own datacenters, and own your own IP blocks.
If you colo, a nefarious colo owner could hold your gear hostage. Even running your own datacenter, you probably have a landlord.
My only point is that all businesses require trusting some other business to not be nefarious.
They can hold my gear hostage, but not my site. I'll have offsite backups and can quickly switch to another provider.
It's worth noting that the options for hosting snopes.com were much more limited in 1994.
OK, yeah, you have to trust SOMEONE, but it makes a big difference who the someone is. Trusting a reputable registrar is a lot different from handing over total control to Joe Random web developer. I have a feeling that the case here is closer to the latter than the former.