Snopes.com in Danger of Shuttering

[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.