A question about Snopes.com

[CruciFixed]

Are they reliable or left leaning? Some people I know claim they have a liberal bias and others say they always have sources and links so they cannot be biased.

What's the deal? Bias or not? If they have a bias is it provable?

 

[E.C.]

From what I've heard, they basically take all those political emails that go around and attempt to dispel them.

 

[CyberPaladin]

I don't know if I would say they try to dispel them E.C. but rather they try to find out if there true, false or based partialy on a true story. I'm sure the site has alot of people on both the right and the left that hate them alot of people put alot of stock in these e-mail urban legends. Brikkz from what I have read on there site they don't seem to be leaning either way.

 

[Nadiine]

the times I checked snopes, they seemed fair either way.

And I only HOPE non liberals aren't making up false news to
smear politicans - there's more than enough material to
go after them with that is true,
making up stuff helps noone and harms us (our credibility)
as non liberals.

 

[CyberPaladin]

Well Nadiine these stories are out there so somebody had to make them up. If the right-wing isn't making them up who the left even by conspiracy theory standards the notion of one side making up and spreading false accusations about themselves so as to look like a victim is far fetched.

 

[Nadiine]

Well Nadiine these stories are out there so somebody had to make them up. If the right-wing isn't making them up who the left even by conspiracy theory standards the notion of one side making up and spreading false accusations about themselves so as to look like a victim is far fetched.

From what I checked out, it's not that some of them were 'made up'
as if it was conjured up out of the blue.

Some of it is based on early reports or early drafts that are read
that have some 'suggestive' statements. They read what it might
suggest and report on it asap.
So technically it could be taken that way if you see it that way.

Those end up being written out later or they took it too far
in meaning.
In 1 way it could helpful, if they catch early wording in a draft
& blow the siren on it, it would be harder to sneak thru if that's
what it really was.
They sort of expose it early to keep it from happening??

 

[CruciFixed]

Ah alright so its okay its not trying to just be hardcore liberal or anything. I never thought that but when I found out some conservative leaning emails were lies I went to snopes. They proved the stuff was false but then someone else a conservative actually told me "Snopes has a liberal bias. Its owned by two very far left men who want to stifle the right."


So Idk. I'm glad its pretty fair.

 

[PreachersWife2004]

Snopes, I believe, is actually simply run by a husband and wife team. They do much more than dispel those political emails. I use them regularly when I get silly claims from my aunt.

As a matter of fact, I thought the idea of a toddler getting alcohol poisoning from the antibacterial waterless soap was hoo-hah until I checked snopes.

I've never really encountered anything that said bias to me. They were profiled recently in Readers Digest. I'd quote some of the article but it's packed up somewhere.

 

[Nadiine]

Ah alright so its okay its not trying to just be hardcore liberal or anything. I never thought that but when I found out some conservative leaning emails were lies I went to snopes. They proved the stuff was false but then someone else a conservative actually told me "Snopes has a liberal bias. Its owned by two very far left men who want to stifle the right."


So Idk. I'm glad its pretty fair.

I think everyone here knows my 'militant' attitude against Leftism -
but I have to be fair in saying that if someone kept making
bogus stories and alerts about my party/politicians/admin., I'd
get irritated with it.

I don't like falsity on either side. I don't need bogus stories and
false rumors to make me dislike the other party more than I already have
in the truth that gives me all the proof I need to take issue with it
(namely as a Christian).

What I would like to know is if they were just as aggressively
working to dismiss all the false anti-Bush email attacks.
I think that would be a good test of Snopes. Were they equally
aggressive against the slander against the Republicans?

(since nobody I know sent me anti Bush emails, I wouldn't know
how many -if any- were floating around)

 

[Sketcher]

I don't know. These guys shouldn't really be the last word in verifying facts, though. If you want to verify a Darwin award story or something, whatever.

 

[PreachersWife2004]

I don't know. These guys shouldn't really be the last word in verifying facts, though. If you want to verify a Darwin award story or something, whatever.

They are VERY thorough in their research. I have no doubts when I am using their site. They haven't been wrong yet, at least in the stuff I've looked up with them.

 

[MrJim]

I don't like falsity on either side.

I just want to say that I saw this earlier at work and thought it was a made up word so when I got home I looked it up and well you've enriched my vocabulary

 

[Simon_Templar]

I don't know if they are biased or not. I think most of their stuff is not really political to begin with.

In either case, despite finding their site entertaining, my gripe on snopes is that I once emailed them to ask about why they came to a conclusion on the falseness of a story and the reply was literally "we do a lot of research and you'll just have to take our word for it." She actually seemed to get a little snippy with me for asking what the reason for their conclusion was (since they didn't say why they came to the conclusion in the article itself).

I find it irritating whenever people refuse to tell me why they come to a conclusion and just tell me I have to take their word for it because "they know".

However, on the issue of false emails etc... my Dad seems bent on regarding all email forwards as factual. I can't seem to pound it through that 99% of email forwards are complete bunk. I don't care what topic its on, wether it agrees with your political views or not, if it came in an email forward it is untrue until proven otherwise.

Another gripe of mine is conservatives who send stuff like this which does touch on important issues, but they totally over blow it and exagerate it so much that they destroy all credability.

one recent example of this was that my dad got an email forward about the congress considering a bill that establishes mandatory social service for all youth including government run training 'boot camps' that all the youth will have to attend. According to the email this bill was about to be passed.

In reality, friends of Obama did propose a program exactly like this prior to his campaign for president. However, the bill addressed in the email was actually to establish a committee to investigate ways of improving levels of community service volunteerism. All it did was say that congress should appoint a six member committee to study the issue and then give a report to congress on it.
It was clear that the committee was intended to be a first step towards this program. One of the specific items the committee was tasked to research was wether or not it was feasible or beneficial to institute a mandatory youth "volunteer" program.
So it was abundantly clear that this was eventually the goal they were looking into. However, the email totally exagerated the bill to the point where most people reading it would be like "this has nothing to do with what that email is talking about??"

This kind of thing just destroys our credability and it irritates the crap out of me

 

[Nadiine]

I just want to say that I saw this earlier at work and thought it was a made up word so when I got home I looked it up and well you've enriched my vocabulary

hey kool =0)
I love learning new words around here...

I notice "bigot" alot

 

[heymikey80]

I've used snopes.com for over a decade now.

They're even handed in their approach and very stringent in their rules of fact and falsehood. But their approach has to be understood to recognize what they're doing.

If they assert something is actually false it is highly likely that it is actually false. They do their research pretty well. But the research is articulated in short on the website. If they haven't said why -- I'd be rejecting it out of hand and telling them they haven't made their case in the article.

If they say something is "not known" or "probably false" you need to read through the whole thing. They'll tell you where they were unable to verify claims, what absences of data lead them to conclude their probabilities, and why that makes the whole thing suspicious, if "probably false".

"partially false/true" again means you'll have to read the report to see what they could verify, and what they couldn't verify, and what was verified as false.

From what I've read and analyzed of their wording, it's likely they have liberal biases. But it's also likely much of that bias is suppressed by the method.

 

[CruciFixed]

hey kool =0)
I love learning new words around here...

I notice "bigot" alot

Hey if you didn't know the definition of bigot yet I'll tell you
Bigot-Conservative/Fundamentalist Christians.

Just thought you'd like to be informed since we're on the topic of words and stuff too.

 

[heymikey80]

Another gripe of mine is conservatives who send stuff like this which does touch on important issues, but they totally over blow it and exagerate it so much that they destroy all credability.

one recent example of this was that my dad got an email forward about the congress considering a bill that establishes mandatory social service for all youth including government run training 'boot camps' that all the youth will have to attend. According to the email this bill was about to be passed.

In reality, friends of Obama did propose a program exactly like this prior to his campaign for president. However, the bill addressed in the email was actually to establish a committee to investigate ways of improving levels of community service volunteerism. All it did was say that congress should appoint a six member committee to study the issue and then give a report to congress on it.
It was clear that the committee was intended to be a first step towards this program. One of the specific items the committee was tasked to research was wether or not it was feasible or beneficial to institute a mandatory youth "volunteer" program.
So it was abundantly clear that this was eventually the goal they were looking into. However, the email totally exagerated the bill to the point where most people reading it would be like "this has nothing to do with what that email is talking about??"

This kind of thing just destroys our credability and it irritates the crap out of me

I agree, the shrillness often doesn't cut it. But at this point you essentially just have to add the point that Congress is a supermajority of liberals in power. The conclusions are natural, and to be expected. Often they won't even be denied.

I got an email from my junior representative that "after months of consideration" he voted on the $1.3T bailout bill. He hadn't been in office for months. The bill hadn't been introduced for months. He's lying. But no one will call him on it.

I remember first reading "The Conscience of a Conservative", Barry Goldwater's book from the early 60's. I remember reading it because I was dismayed at how well it predicted our situation in the 1980 election.

At the time of publication I'm told Johnson attacked Goldwater as outrageous conservative fearmongering. And sixteen years later the fear was reality.

Listen to the fearmongers -- keep a clear head, but listen. I've noticed dozens of times they've ultimately been right. I'm dealing with results they predicted. Fear isn't always ill-founded.