Now, they do pull tricks like choosing which version of a claim to debunk and sometimes seemingly hunting for more obscure weak man versions of a claim than the more popular ones. Or they will "fact check" something that is clearly an opinion, like someone's read of someone else's motives.
The way I see it, though, they're hardly unique in this. Anyone skimming headlines is going to be badly mislead from nearly any source whatsoever.
> "Trump did not explicitly tell people to 'storm' or 'breach' or 'break into' the [US] Capitol."
and included the reasoning that
> the president called on supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” march or walk to the Capitol
...but wait, their far-left narrative! Why didn't they omit those references and reasoning?!
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-tell-supporters-stor...
Back on topic: why didn't they omit those references and reasoning regarding the Capitol?!
https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/06/02/covid-19-why-the-lab-...
Your argument seems to be: Because Snopes didn't omit references in this one case, they don't omit references ever.
I've got no dog in this fight, but please, the logical fallacies are hurting my brain.
Like your "they don't omit references ever" straw man?
"This one case" meaning one of the most significant and contested events of the US election? Surely their far-left agenda would prevent them from publishing this?
This isn't "Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer" level of insignificance.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/aoc-capitol-attack/
They rate "Did AOC Exaggerate the Danger She Was in During Capitol Riot?" as FALSE.
They also included a puff piece editorialization in it:
> "AOC was targeted with another round of bad-faith smears after giving an emotional, firsthand account of her experiences during the Capitol riot."
"So the claim that they investigate is:
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez exaggerated the danger she was in during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, in that she "wasn't even in the Capitol building" when the rioting occurred."
Instead of rating it mostly true, or a mixture, they rate it mostly false, and then state:
"What's True: Ocasio-Cortez wasn't in the main Capitol building where the House and Senate Chambers are located."
Included in their "fact check" are the following politically-biased statements (emphasis added):
"It took less than 48 hours for the right-wing disinformation machine to contrive a way to minimize what Ocasio-Cortez said she had experienced."
"In a circus of cyberbullying that began on Feb. 3, 2021, conservative news outlets and social media conspiracy trolls latched on to the misleading claim that Ocasio-Cortez “wasn’t in the Capitol building” and therefore was not in harm’s way, as she had described in the Instagram video."
To its credit, Snopes' main argument is that AOC never claimed she was in the Capitol building, which is an important point, but one example of "mostly-false right-wing disinformation" is a Red State headline, “AOC Wasn’t Even in the Capitol Building During Her ‘Near Death’ Experience.” Obviously, that headline is mostly true, arguably entirely true.
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Here is another example, coming from the beginning of the Trump Admin. Here is their page on a comparison of the Obama and Trump inauguration crowds which was a popular talking point of late night TV show hosts:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/01/20/obamas-inauguration-c...
It includes this well-known blurry picture comparison (a meme, no less), and you can't even tell if it is a reliable comparison, as you can't even tell if either presidents are on stage yet:
https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2017/01/a17.jpg
Now compare that to this:
Obama crowd, with Obama on stage:
https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/president-barack-obama-...
Trump crowd, with Trump on stage:
https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/president-donald-trump-...
Another angle matching similar to Obama's angle:
https://www.usmessageboard.com/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2F...
It's very easy to tell that Snopes used pictures of the crowd from different times to sell their narrative.
Multiple people had contacted Snopes a few times to point out the problems with their fact check, including links to these pictures. They never replied nor updated their narrative, despite it being a hot topic in the press for quite a while.
Truth and facts are becoming harder to come by these days. When you have to fact check the fact checkers, things are pretty bad.
And social media companies will use "fact checks" like these to make censorship decisions, so they aren't simply "alternative viewpoints" on the internet; they have real-world First Amendment implications."
These are examples I easily found by using duckduckgo. Google will hide these.
Not replying further as this discussion has turned into a snarky flame war which is frowned upon.
What you said is not true, and their position hasn't shifted (they're critical of those that did). https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/16/lab-leak-evidence/
This new article is also extremely disingenuous. It argues "there's no evidence Wuhan isolated RaTG13". Well no shit, since the best evidence is that RaTG13 is completely made up, never existed in reality, and never existed on paper until early 2020. For snopes to take that evidence and turn it around and say it's evidence for the Wuhan Institute being totally reliable and trustworthy is perverse.
As you said, you agree with the evidence they cite...
When Snopes says "the lab leak theory isn't real", they're basing it off of scientific research carried out early in the pandemic which claimed that the virus didn't look engineered. That is, effectively, an expert opinion - something close to truth but still subject to change should new information come to light. It's entirely reasonable for a fact checker to rely on that information at that time, as well as change their opinion in response to new information.
Many of the scientists have now admitted that they refrained from publicly acknowledging the evidence that the virus may have been engineered in the Wuhan lab. Alina Chan was one of those experts who says this now:
"... it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn't want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins."
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/lab-leak-theory...
It never occurred to these "scientists" that claiming the virus came from bats because they eat bats in China is the more "xenophobic" thing and not the possible lab leak caused due to poor handling by "scientists".
https://www.foxnews.com/media/realclearpolitics-fact-checker...
And for what it's worth, no, I haven't followed corporate media (including cnn, msnbc, fox, nytimes, washington post etc). I pay for independent journalists on substack and locals instead.
Also the link which you provided is referring to RealClearPolitics being the real source, not fox. fox is doing an opinion piece on what RealClearPolitics reported. Exact same stuff which other left leaning sources do.
Were you trying to spell "ad hominem?"
> fox is doing an opinion piece on what RealClearPolitics reported
Right, which is the argument I said you regurgitated. It's such a cliché even Fox News already moved on to new talking points.
You can, but it will then be obvious to anyone familiar with the references or who has the power of reasoning that you have failed (innocently or not) to consider them, not that you have found something that debunks them.
The point of declaring true/false is to have the final word for most readers. "No need to look further, Snopes said it's true". Sure, anyone can provide evidence to say you're wrong, but they're just some random blogger and nobody reads them. And on the off-chance that someone big picks them up, you apologize, adjust the verdict, and move on.
You don't need total control over the information of 100% of the population. Having a lot of control over the information diet of 70% of the population is great already.
Yes, it does.
> Anyone familiar with the topic will already know what’s up, and anyone interested enough to research the topic will be able to do so as well.
They will be able to do so…by reviewing and evaluating information from sources that provide the evidence and logic on which they rest conclusions. That a “fact checker” is such a source is…clearly something that matters.
> The point of declaring true/false is to have the final word for most readers.
And the point of providing support is to provide the ability for the readers that are willing to do more legwork to evaluate the claims, which is also how a fact checker gets (or loses, either because it fails to do this or because following back doesn’t support their claims) the reputation which allows them to be trusted by the users that don’t do the extra legwork. Same as any other source, because all a fact checker is is another research source that happens to be focussed on claims of current salience and controversy.
> “No need to look further, Snopes said it’s true”.
Which only holds up as a long as Snopes reputation holds up.
> Sure, anyone can provide evidence to say you’re wrong, but they’re just some random blogger and nobody reads them.
That would be a problem in a world where Snopes was the sole and universally accepted “fact checker” and every other source of information was regarded as “just a random blogger”. But there are lots of fact checkers (both standalone and as part of media organizations), and a lot of focus by interested parties with very influential platforms on the reliability of various entities that hold themselves out as fact checkers or other fact sources.
The whole point of "fact checkers" is to be used by people who are not expert on the subject
A fact checker is a (usually tertiary, like an encyclopedia, providing references to primary and secondary sources) source that is distinguished by focussing on current, controversial claims. There is nothing more a "fact checker" can be. That's not a failing, that's an inherent limitation given the nature of facts.