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Comment by dfee | Hacker News Reader

How is this not a better established position? I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias. Honestly, I see all those fact checking websites the same way.

Which is fine, though humorously this pairs nicely with another thread on HN this morning about HS critical thinking courses around journalism, quite well.

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> I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias

Could you please elaborate? I have never seen them described like this.

I see it all the time... on the sorts of subreddits all the RWNJs hang out on.

Here's an example Snopes article questioning the authenticity of the photos on Hunter's Biden Laptop.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-hunter-biden-porn/

They have not updated the fact check.

Here's a story with a video in which Hunter Biden himself claims Russian drug dealers stole another one of his laptops for blackmail. And 'The Russians have videos of me doing crazy f**ing sex!

Source with the Video: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9881213/Unearthed-v...

Huh, the article where they say "Trump did not explicitly tell people to 'storm' or 'breach' or 'break into' the Capitol" and instead “peacefully and patriotically” march does't fit the mold of "pure, unadulterated bias."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-tell-supporters-stor...

I'm so confused!

Engage with the given example, which proves the claim.

If a source makes questionable claims to the left or right, it is biased. If it makes questionable claims to the left and right, it is not biased, it just lacks quality.

There's nothing questionable about the statement you quoted.

That statement is correct. Why are you confused?

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-s...

Snopes rated that claim "Mixed"

Compare:

  It was a subjective call on whether ____'s use of phrases "you have to show strength" and "demand that ____ do the right thing" were meant to condone violence and crimes among ____ extremists without explicitly encouraging it.

With:

  ___ said they should “stay in the street,” “fight for justice,” and “get more confrontational.” But there was more context to ___ remarks, and ___ didn’t call for violence, nor did ___ words incite violence.

---

The first is from the article on Trump you cited (rated "Mixed").

Second quote is from an article about comments by Maxine Waters on George Floyd protests & LA riots (of which she explicitly said, "I call it a rebellion") https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/maxine-waters-comments/ (rated "False")

The pattern seems to be: If there's a way a favored speaker can be taken positively, that will be explained. If there's a way a non-favored speaker can be taken badly, it will be called out.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-terrorist-rosenberg/

Rating: Mixture

What's True

Susan Rosenberg has served as vice chair of the board of directors for Thousand Currents, an organization that provides fundraising and fiscal sponsorship for the Black Lives Matter Global Movement. She was an active member of revolutionary left-wing movements whose illegal activities included bombing U.S. government buildings and committing armed robberies.

What's Undetermined

In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions for which Rosenberg was convicted and imprisoned — possession of weapons and hundreds of pounds of explosives — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-forgot-defense-secre...

Rating: Mixture

What's True

A video shows Biden fumbling his words and apparently blanking on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's name at one point in the speech, although he had mentioned Austin's name a few minutes earlier without issue.

What's Undetermined

It's unclear whether Biden literally "forgot" his defense secretary's name at that moment, or whether, for example, he got stuck doing an extended "folksy" ad lib after initially tripping over his words.

I see it stated all the time, but whenever I ask why, instead of a substantial argument, I get downvotes or "isn't it obvious?" or some thinly veiled "how dare they debunk something I wanted to be true.".

The plagiarism accusation is interesting and should be resolved, but isn't evidence of misinformation or evidence that they are less reliable than [no known alternative] suggested by critics.

> I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias

Oh, they said Trump told the truth when he said "Murders this year have spiked 27% in Philadelphia."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/24/donald-tru...

Why didn't anyone remind them of their bias before this got published?

I love how ever single reply to the parent mentions Trump, as if anyone that thinks snopes is full of shit must be a Trump supporter. It's almost as if there's a group of people out there who all think exactly alike and knee jerk to defend these organizations out of some strange sense of loyalty.

>I love how ever single reply to the parent mentions Trump, as if anyone that thinks snopes is full of shit must be a Trump supporter.

Because there was no widespread vocal opposition to Snopes until Trump supporters started calling it "fake news" for debunking his claims about his inauguration turnout. Now they come out of the woodwork with every mention of the site to call it liberal propaganda and whatnot. No one else cares about the site that much - it's entertainment at best.

The thread they're replying to said nothing about liberal anything, although I would understand jumping to that conclusion if they had.

The widespread vocal opposition to Snopes is not simply from Trump calling it fake news, if anything his was a response just like the rest of us, a response to that organization plainly and blatantly lying to their readers repeatedly.

And yet if you ask people for a list of these blatant lies, most of the time they'll be items critical of Trump or of right-wing talking points.

I'm sure there are some people who don't like Snopes for whatever other reasons but it's obvious that much of the modern resentment against the site is driven by a political agenda.

Well sure, but those examples aren't the result of opposing bias. For the past 5 years any mainstream source or aggregator of information has been on a feverish rampage against Trump. Even if you don't like him it's plain as day. So of course a lot of the prominent examples are going to be that, because that's all they've been doing for 5 years.

And the reply in the other direction mentions Hunter Biden. I don't understand why! (We're still pretending we don't know that people are insinuating Snopes has a liberal bias right?)

If Trump makes a huge number of false statements during his tenure as the president he's going to get the attention of fact-checking sites...

I can tell you why, it's because it is a very prominent example of a blatant bald faced lie left as is to propagandize naive people who won't actually look into things themselves and delegate that role to Snopes.

If Trump makes a huge number of false statements it should attract the attention of everyone. People that delegate their own critical thinking to an entity claiming to be unbiased and informed in doing it for them are going to be misled one way or another.

They debunked the video that purported to show Trump insulting his supporters. They said the video was fake.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-video-insulting-supp...

According to you, they are wrong, though. Ignore evidence to the contrary.

Really? So you think Trump was wearing his pants backwards at this rally?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-wear-pants-backwards...

Snopes says he wasn't, and shows evidence why. That's just "pure, unadulterated bias" though, right? His pants are on backwards?

Otherwise "I see Snopes as pure, unadulterated bias" would be such a broad generalization it's meaningless!

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