Snopes.com in Danger of Shuttering

[HAB911]

https://www.savesnopes.com/

Link to tweet

[tblue37]

1. K&R for visibility. nt

[Brother Buzz]

2. So, like, we're in danger of losing the one source.....

that can verify whether the @snopes GoFundMe campaign is legitimate.

[HAB911]

5. LOL, exactly!

[IronLionZion]

8. It's on the Snopes front page

[Brother Buzz]

9. Yes it is, and there are accusations that the host server controls the webpage

The blogger realm is running with the story, for sure, but not a peep from the MSM, so I don't know what's what.

[rocktivity]

41. Not a peep from the MSM? Well, THERE'S your proof that it's real!

rocktivity

[Brother Buzz]

43. LOL

The Atlantic covered it, and that's a start. Sounds like it's just a big fat pissing match.

Rumor is the orange anus et al. has offered the mediate the whole mess, so it will surly good sideways and kill Snopes good; mission accomplished.

[LSFL]

3. sounds fishy

I better look it up on Snopes.

[demmiblue]

4. K&R

[SunSeeker]

6. K & R for exposure.

[BadgerMom]

7. K & R

[Adrahil]

10. Better check this one on Snopes! *edit* Dang, beat!

Ah well, funny enough to say it twice.

[kimmylavin]

11. Donated

I love them, and would hate to see them go away!

[dhol82]

12. Well, this explains it

Interesting.

http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/07/snopes-facing-legal-and-advertising-trouble-is-embarking-on-an-urgent-campaign-for-reader-donations/

[HAB911]

14. Oh boy, the Poynter story

https://www.poynter.org/2017/snopes-is-locked-in-a-legal-battle-for-control-of-its-website/465615/

[Hekate]

13. KnR for exposure

[LiberalArkie]

15. From TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/24/snopes-seeks-crowdfunding-in-ownership-battle/

Snip

Snopes was founded in 1995 by David Mikkelson and Barbara Mikkelson, and ownership formalized in 2003 in Bardav Inc (Get it? Barbara + David = Bardav). Each had one share of the company. But in 2014 the two began divorce proceedings, which would of course necessitate negotiating ownership of their company and Snopes.

In August of 2015, Snopes entered a revenue-share/content and ad management agreement with a company called Proper Media, formed earlier that very year. In early 2016, Proper arranged to buy Barbara’s share of Bardav, replacing her as co-owner of the company. David Mikkelson attempted to kill the contract in spring of 2017 (wouldn’t you?), but Proper resisted, saying the terms of said contract were not fulfilled. In the meantime, it is apparently holding onto the site’s revenue and parts of its infrastructure.

To me this sounds like an opportunistic takeover, but in addition to not being a lawyer, I also am not a businessman, so possibly I’m just naive. At the same time, Proper alleges that Mikkelson misused company funds and inappropriately managed Bardav otherwise. The details are being cherry-picked by both sides, as generally happens in dueling lawsuits (not to mention when a divorce is mixed in), so I don’t want to give too much credit to either side here.

But the bigger picture to me is this: Snopes itself is valuable enough (in terms of utility, not cash value), and Mikkelson’s leadership has been sound enough for years, that it seems worth giving him benefit of the doubt for now. To me the important thing is that Snopes continue its work, as it has done for decades, and it’s unlikely things would remain the same if it’s put under the control of some shady “content” company.

[PoliticAverse]

19. So this is more fallout from the acrimonious divorce?...

There were charges of misuse of funds during the divorce proceedings. See...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fact-checker-arbitrate-fake-news-accused-defrauding-website-pay-prostitutes-staff-includes-escort-porn-star-Vice-Vixen-domme.html

(Unfortunately the Daily Fail seems to be the only extensive coverage of the issue).

[xor]

54. What a mess of a situation. Whatever is true and not true, I hope they can figure it all out.

The internets would not be the same without snopes.

[DemSoc]

16. Kicking!

[Liberty Belle]

17. this is real, it's on the Snopes.com homepage,

For those who wanted to be sure this wasn't a scam.
http://www.snopes.com/

[PoliticAverse]

18. Need some reliable 3rd party verification/investigation of what is actually happening here. n/t

[lunamagica]

20. K&R.

[Tactical Peek]

21. Kick back!

[krispos42]

22. I kicked in $20

Why not?

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

23. Same. I know the RWers dismiss Snopes as another "liberal media' outlet,

but for the non-brainwashed, I've always found Snopes to be a great source of debunking BS. I really appreciate that they give sources for their facts.

[krispos42]

24. "Fact have a well-know liberal bias."

I think Abraham Lincoln said that.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

28. As you probably know, Abe also said,

[krispos42]

30. I thought he said...

[tazkcmo]

51. Now THAT'S funny!!!

Thank you!

[Warren DeMontague]

33. Right Wing Relatives At Thanksgiving

Are Known To Shake Their Fists And Curse Its Name

[xor]

56. Do they throw in "Soros funded!!!" too?

That seems to be a common.

[Grins]

35. And then THEY reference Snopes themselves!

I have, and I know you have too, received many of those bogus Reich-wing emails spreading the usual lies, and often they add: "Confirmed on Snopes.com Look it up!"

Of course, if you do, Snopes is calling bullshit, but enough do not check so the lie gets the "Fwd: Fwd: Fwd:" treatment.

So what will the Reich-wing do without Snopes?

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

38. Reminds me of when I tried to get my RW cousin to stop

forwarding me bogus virus warnings. After I thought he got the message, there was a short respite. Then, he sent another.

When I reminded him of my clearly expressed desire not to receive these he said, "Yeah, but this one is real. It says right there that can check on Snopes to make sure it's real!"

I asked, "And did you check on Snopes to make sure it was real?"

"No," he replied. "But it said if I did I'd see that Snopes said it was real."

"Gaaaaaahhhhhhh!" was all I could mange in reply.

[Grins]

53. Gaaaaaahh!

Same argument as "it's in the Bible so it must be true."

I also know a guy like your RW cousin. Constantly sends this shit out - all of which I call out as bullshit. One day a few years ago I hit him - politely - that the shitty screed he had done a mass-email "Fwd: Fwd: Fwd:" was completely wrong (it had to do with Kenya not being a country when Obama was born).

Then he comes back to me, privately (none of that "Reply-All" shit where he could show his ass), with a polite, "How do you know?"

So I go through the drill and point out the bullshit - and even found a press release, complete with a photo of Queen Elizabeth - in Kenya! - by the London Times, five years before Obama was born.

Silence. Not even a thank you.

We have now progressed to the point where all he can say when I point out that another one of his shitty screeds is another Reich-wing lie - "Fuck you!" Whataguy. Did I mention he is a fucking dentist...?

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

57. Wow! I guess a big probem is, they want that crap to be true,

and it "feels" true, so it's an affront for us to dare contradict them. As much as I want certain things to be true, I even more strongly want not to believe shit that's not true. So, if you give me a pretty good source disproving what I believe, I'm usually going to adjust my belief around the facts.

I'm almost completely estranged from all my RW relatives because I just had to point out the BS of their "Fwd: Fwd: Fwd:"s. The breaking point with one of my aunts came when I replied with sources contradicting some racist anti-Obama nonsense she insisted was true cuz, "The man who sent that to me is a judge!"

When I didn't back down under that irrefutable proof, she told me it made her angry that I thought I was the only one who had good sources and to never contact her again!

She later told people I had called her "stupid." In fact, I'd said, "You're too smart to believe that." Oh well, good riddance. She was never one of my favorite people anyway.

[PoliticAverse]

25. The Atlantic now has an article on the issue...

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/the-ugly-dispute-threatening-snopes/534708/

[Hoyt]

26. Doesn't sound good for Snopes. I guess right wingers are wrong that George Soros owns Snopes.

[VOX]

42. Wingnuts scream "Soros!" likes apes who've just discovered fire...

They type "Soros" and think they've scored some massive points somewhere, somehow.

I always mention The Forbes 400, the annual roster of billionaires, most of whom back Republicans. But they're not named "Soros," so the average regressive can't process the information.

[Hoyt]

47. LOL. Well put.

[MrPurple]

52. They rant about Soros and could care less than the Koch's donate 15 times more than him

[DefenseLawyer]

27. It seems like something that Zuckerberg would buy with the change in his couch. n/t

[TexasBushwhacker]

29. Well, they're up to $360K in 13 hours n/t

[Maraya1969]

31. Done because Snopes has helped me a lot.

[HAB911]

32. $467,358 of $500k goal

[IronLionZion]

34. They should have better connectivity with social media outlets

to enable quick snopes-searches for the increasing amount of insane fake news that gets posted.

Since conservatives hate it so much, I'll give a few bucks.

[rocktivity]

39. I'll bet Mark Zuckerberg would be interested!

He took a little flak about fake news trollers on Facebook during the presidential election!


rocktivity

[Blue_Tires]

36. kick

[Mickju]

37. They are over $500,000 now

Yay!

[rocktivity]

40. My web host also offers domain name registration; my domain name registrar also offers hosting

Last edited Wed Nov 22, 2023, 01:23 PM - Edit history (73)

and my Internet service provider also offers both. I pay for each of mine separately -- and this kind of situation is precisely the reason why.

Handing off control of your ad placements is one thing, but if you don't control your files and hosting, you DON'T control your content and editorial. And I hope Snopes has the actual Snopes.com name registered independently.

The owner of an international message board I frequent threatened to sell it off because we wouldn't all buy subscriptions. The price included the board's Web hosting, but I pointed out that if the board couldn't be sold without it, it wasn't really his to sell. Only the board's physical files, databases of posts and user accounts, and (in most but not all cases) domain name were of value. The Web hosting, Internet service provider, and message board software could (and should) be supplied by the buyer, requiring a considerable reduction of his asking price. He changed his mind about selling.

When the company where I started my first blog was sold, and when I've needed Web hosting with better pricing or more advanced features, I have simply found a new Web host; uploaded the latest copies of my databases and physical files to its server (from my home computer -- cloud servers should be used ONLY for storage and backing up); and sent redirect instructions to my domain registrar: that's what you should be able to do when things get "acrimonious."

Let this be a lesson to all: A web service provider's job is to provide web SERVICES -- controlling YOUR web content is YOUR job.


rocktivity

[PoliticAverse]

45. This happened because the site was owned 50-50 between the husband and wife partners and...

there was an acrimonious divorce.

[politicat]

48. Part of the problem is sheer scope.

They started in 1994, with a hand-coded, HTML 2 site. (one of the ways I learned HTML was by going to their site and reading the "View Source" version of the page. I am an old.) They've been near 100% uptime ever since. They've got a lot of antique, legacy code still haunting the place, and they didn't have any sort of content management system. They're running a million hits a day, at least.

I can see why someone who isn't primarily a coder would partner with an ad-serve and CMS service. They would have been better off hiring their own web developer, but they may not have had the income for that.

[PoliticAverse]

49. The problem isn't that they hired someone to manage the content. The problem is that after....

the acrimonious divorce one of the partners sold their 50% to the people behind company managing the content.

This inexorably tied the content to the web company.

The Atlantic's article explains the details:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/the-ugly-dispute-threatening-snopes/534708/

[politicat]

50. Yes, but the decision to go with the CMS/Ad seems to have been in the middle of that.

Small business owners have limited spoons. And in an emotionally fucked situation, every decision becomes a place for more fuckery on both sides.

I have read the articles, and the Atlantic article is not all that complete; they don't get technology at the deep level. The technology behind the site is a major part of the reason it got so complicated, and the emotional side was the other complicating factor. One or the other, and this wouldn't be happening. But the two together make for a storm.

Also, there's a lot of commentary blaming one partner or the other. That's a mistake. Don't buy into it. Why a marriage or a business breaks is not always what's in the legal documents or in the interviews.

[smirkymonkey]

44. K&R

[rocktivity]

55. They've posted a FAQ

Q: $500,000 is a lot of money, how do you plan on spending it?
...(W)e are absolutely humbled by the community’s resounding response to our #SaveSnopes fund-raising campaign...In order to continue our fact-checking efforts, we need to be able to pay our staff (which comprises 16 people), accommodate millions of monthly visitors, and cover other basic operating expenses, in addition to funding our legal expenses.

Q: Does Proper Media own 50 percent of Snopes.com?
No. Snopes.com’s parent company, Bardav, has six individual shareholders, three of whom work for Snopes.com/Bardav, and three of whom do not. No company or other non-human entity owns any shares of Bardav...No owner or shareholder of Proper Media has ever held a seat on Bardav’s board of directors.

More


rocktivity

[rocktivity]

58. Updates

Last edited Sat Sep 2, 2023, 01:17 PM - Edit history (9)

(The) Court...granted our request for a Temporary Restraining Order...As a result, Proper Media released $100,000 in revenue procured from the placement of advertisement on the Snopes.com website that they had been withholding...

(The) Court granted our request for a Preliminary Injunction...requir(ing) Proper Media to transfer hosting of the Snopes.com web site back to our control and to cease withholding from us revenues procured from the placement of advertisements...

(W)e successfully migrated Snopes.com to a new hosting provider and regained control of our advertising revenue stream...

(The) Court...entered a judgment...dismissing all causes of action brought against (Snopes) by Proper Media.

Despite these rulings...we still face significant challenges...Our need for support has not abated (particularly as our legal fees have exhausted all previously raised funds), so we are raising the cap on this campaign and keeping it active as our case proceeds...If you are able to continue helping us with our important work, thank you, and we will continue to provide periodic updates.

The moral of this story: Always maintain complete ownership of, control of, and access to your databases, files, domain name, and Web hosting!


rocktivity

[HAB911]

59. Thanks!