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Comment by ropiwqefjnpoa | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I really don't care if sites like Snopes or Wikipedia shut down or disappear. While I appreciate what they provide and what they at least claim to provide, no one should be considered the gate-keepers of all that is not "fake news". BTW I did donate to Wikipedia this year...

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They're not gatekeepers, they present facts. It's up to you whether or not to believe them.

Group sourced refrences, summarized by often biased volunteers, are not 'facts'.

Wikipedia, in a random sampling of information, came in as equally or more reliable than nearly any other privately published reference. It's not perfect but it doesn't have to be.

Often biased volunteers? refrences? Okay, chief.

They present their INTERPRETATION of the facts. For example some may call ANTIFA as a force for good and others as a terrorist organization. Snopes themselves have a pretty clear slant/agenda.

They both do a very poor job at that to be fair. Wikipedia will willingly allow editors to ignore actual facts in favor of a blogpost who wrote about the same event second or third-hand, and Snopes has no credibility at all, full stop.

I find your argument a bit cynical at best - this is a very black or white way of viewing two very large sites. Having read through Wikipedia decisions they are often open about the process, and the decisions can be very nuanced, they'll never be 100% successful, but they work extremely hard at trying to avoid bias and mistakes. I find Snopes to be a reasonable resource too, they present sourced facts as much as possible and whether or not I agree with all their conclusions I find the way they go about their research very compelling.

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