Snopes.com Exposes 4chan Campaign to 'Kindle Mistrust in Snopes' (snopes.com) 264
"This is the perfect moment to do this. This is an age of conspiracies for boomers... Let's kindle their mistrust in Snopes and other fact checkers," wrote one 4chan poster.
Snopes.com later reported: In October 2020, a series of threads was posted to the anonymous internet forum 4Chan as part of operation "Snopes-Piercer," a smear campaign with the stated goal of "red-pilling some normies" — internet slang for a propaganda technique in which distorted, fabricated, or skewed information is used to further a self-determined "truth." In order to "red-pill" these people (one thread noted that "boomers" were the primary target), the plan was to create and circulate doctored screenshots of Snopes fact checks to make it appear as if Snopes fact-checkers addressed claims that we had not.
Over the next few days, users created and shared these fake Snopes screenshots in a number of additional 4chan threads. These images were also posted on social media sites, like Twitter.... Some were humorous (we did not actually address the claim that CNN reporter Chris Cuomo was actually Fredo from "The Godfather"), some were insidious (we did not really publish a fact check questioning the Holocaust), and some were political (we did not publish a fact check questioning the results of the 2020 election before the election happened)...
These red pill campaigns all follow a basic formula. The user decides what they want to be true and then they set out to find, or manufacture, the evidence to support that truth. A concerted effort is then made to spread these false narratives to as wide an audience as possible in order to "red-pill" the general population. In this formula, the desired "truth" comes first. The "evidence" comes second.
It goes without saying that this method is antithetical to the mission of Snopes, fact-checkers in general, journalists, and anyone seeking an objective view of reality.
Snopes.com later reported: In October 2020, a series of threads was posted to the anonymous internet forum 4Chan as part of operation "Snopes-Piercer," a smear campaign with the stated goal of "red-pilling some normies" — internet slang for a propaganda technique in which distorted, fabricated, or skewed information is used to further a self-determined "truth." In order to "red-pill" these people (one thread noted that "boomers" were the primary target), the plan was to create and circulate doctored screenshots of Snopes fact checks to make it appear as if Snopes fact-checkers addressed claims that we had not.
Over the next few days, users created and shared these fake Snopes screenshots in a number of additional 4chan threads. These images were also posted on social media sites, like Twitter.... Some were humorous (we did not actually address the claim that CNN reporter Chris Cuomo was actually Fredo from "The Godfather"), some were insidious (we did not really publish a fact check questioning the Holocaust), and some were political (we did not publish a fact check questioning the results of the 2020 election before the election happened)...
These red pill campaigns all follow a basic formula. The user decides what they want to be true and then they set out to find, or manufacture, the evidence to support that truth. A concerted effort is then made to spread these false narratives to as wide an audience as possible in order to "red-pill" the general population. In this formula, the desired "truth" comes first. The "evidence" comes second.
It goes without saying that this method is antithetical to the mission of Snopes, fact-checkers in general, journalists, and anyone seeking an objective view of reality.
Snopes are dopes (Score:2, Insightful)
Snopes is extremely biased to the left on anything remotely related to politics, and indeed *should* be distrusted.
Re:Snopes are dopes (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone has biases. The issue isn't how you arrived at your positions, it's how you *justify* them. Snopes tries to document its position using evidence, and therefore their arguments can be negated. Sometimes, like everyone else, they're wrong. But what's unusual about them is that then you can prove their argument is wrong.
Saying, in effect, "don't believe these guys' conclusions because they have a different political orientation than us," well, that's an intrinsically *unassailable* statement. That doesn't make it a good argument though. People can take it or leave it entirely based on their prior assumptions, so it's good for lazy people.
Re: (Score:2)
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com... [mediabiasfactcheck.com]
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Snopes is extremely biased to the left on anything remotely related to politics, and indeed *should* be distrusted.
US Conservative politics is absolutely saturated with misinformation of all kinds (Global warming, evolution, COVID-19, etc, etc).
Heck, remember a few years ago when Obamacare fell into a death spiral, the death panels euthanized all the elderly, Obama was proven not to be a US citizen, Hillary died of poor health shortly after the election (and her incarceration), and a terror cell launched an attack from the Ground Zero Mosque with help from Islamic terrorists who came with the South American migrant cara
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
This post should not be marked as troll. Snopes does indeed apply poltiical bias.
I do not like hypocrisy or bias, I do not lean right, I generally lean left, but not extremist nutcase left.
Snopes has very much demonstrated some bias from time to time on a variety of topics and it therefore in my eyes, has gone from a gold star source of reliability to something I would in the very least question.
This isn't about "they picked on my conservatives" (at all!) it's more misrepresentation of what one says and
Re: (Score:3)
Lies aren't the real problem, because when you disprove a lie it becomes powerless. Bullshit is the problem.
Disproving bullshit doesn't accomplish anything, because most of the people lapping it up don't actually believe it. The problem is that they still go along with it. Sure, there are a few gullible idiots who really think Hillary Clinton is running a satanic pedophile ring out of a DC pizza parlor, but they are only a tiny sliver of consumers in the bullshit ecosystem.
The masses of eager bullshit ea
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, there are a few gullible idiots who really think Hillary Clinton is running a satanic pedophile ring out of a DC pizza parlor, ...
Ya know... I don't get it. If Hillary Clinton actually did even *half* the things The Right accused her of over all those years, wouldn't that make her *more* attractive for President, 'cause she'd obviously know how to multitask, take names, kick ass and get things done. She'd be way, way more badass than Trump -- or any Republican in Congress... :-)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You would be right if you said that eg. about Polish national-communist right, but if you're talking about American right, I wonder which planet you live on. Here's [slashdot.org] a sample Slashdot comment I agree with wholeheartly, at that was when the US left was only slowly starting its slide towards insanity -- a slide they're moving on with full speed today.
The US Dear Leader is a crook, and has his cronies do lots of evil wrt eg. net neutrality or environment, but comparing your two sides is more like comparing a v
Re: (Score:2)
"National-communist right?" Okay.
I checked that comment you linked to and it's an odd one. The Democrats were less openly socialist... Perhaps because they are mostly a centre-right party.
Because the US doesn't really have a major socialist movement and seems to actually fear the great quality of life European social democracies have delivered I think most Americans have absolutely no idea what it is or what policies could actually be considered socialist.
Most of the attacks on the Democrats for being socia
Re: (Score:3)
It's strange times we're living in. It seems like a large segment of society don't know what truth is, they can't tell the difference between truth and opinion and worst of all they have no interest in knowing what is true and prefer to believe in what ever appeals to them the most.
This posts here are mind-boggling to me, so many people bashing the fact checkers but I have not yet heard any who offer anything better. There is no stigma against talking fallacious crap these days.
Your comment has been modded
Re: (Score:3)
Given how many anti-vaxxers and climate deniers there are, we do need Snopes and fact-checkers. I don't need Snopes because I don't waste my time listening to Fox news or reading the Daily Mail.
Snopes don't just declare anything true or false without stating their reasons for that declaration, you're always free to ignore the site or disagree with their conclusion. But when people outright attack Snopes to the degree they are here on Slashdot today I have to wonder what the motives are, I seriously get the
Re: (Score:2)
Mostly False: Mistrust of Snopes is well past the kindling stage.
Don't need a 4chan campaign for that (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read enough fact checkers - Snopes included - you'll eventually come across examples of some extremely tortured logic to come to their final ruling. They'll declare things "false" based on a single definition of a single word, while admitting that the majority of the statement they're fact checking are true. They'll split hairs over numbers - for example, something like citing a claim that says "50% of people" and provide evidence that it's really 48.3% of people, and therefore the 50% statement is false. (Most annoying is when they admit that the numbers given were true for one sense of a word, and then use a different sense to completely change the numbers so that they can call a claim false.)
The fact checking sites aren't necessarily useless, as they tend to gather a lot of sources together, but you absolutely cannot trust their "rulings" to mean anything. While there may be such a thing as objective reality, everyone's views are colored by their biases, and fact checkers are no exception.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem comes when Big Tech uses their rulings to punish what they deem "misleading information". Stossel found out the hard way what happens when you mildly go against the narrative [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
It's all strained through the filter of their respective Belief System filters.
Then add greed and hungry-for-power into the fix and you have a real shi
disregarding snopes (Score:2, Informative)
...comes from reading Snopes.
I could post a dozen examples, but here's one I stumbled on recently (needless to say, I disregard Snopes as biased, so I don't really go there any more), a "fact check" on whether Australia violent crime rates went up after the gun buyback.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
Snopes confidently and repeatedly "proves" that gun homicides have DROPPED since the gun elimination. All fully referenced and footnoted.
GUN homicides.
ie completely disregarding the entire point of the text.
A
Re: disregarding snopes (Score:3)
The phrase comes from the movie The Matrix and means to tell or expose the real Truth, particularly in cases where an Official Narrative or Commonly held belief is in direct contradiction to reality.
Snopes itself is an example of a site which started out as an attempt to "RedPill" people regarding urban legends in particular.
Re: disregarding snopes (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll bite (Score:5, Interesting)
completely disregarding the entire point of the text
I don't think I've been to Snopes since 2004 or so, but I decided to bite and see if you had a point. The text they are fact-checking was actually fairly specific in its claims:
The first year results are now in: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent, Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent; Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent!). In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent.
Reading the article, I think they did a pretty reasonable job proving this false. There isn't great overlap between the cited research and the specific categories of assaults and armed robbery, but it seems pretty clear that homicides with firearms were not up by 300 percent.
At the very end, there's a little snippet which was appended much later after the first posting of the refutation ...
If you take out the introductory text, that "little snippet" is 39% of the Snopes text by word count. Presumably this was added to address questions after the first post? Not sure why this is supposed to be sinister.
In fact, that "someone" is planting the idea that 4chan organized some effort to delegitimize Snopes is pretty damned suspicious.
There you definitely lost me. Climb out of the rabbit hole.
Re: (Score:2)
You had a choice.
You could have used Snopes' contact form to report an issue with that fact-check in the hope and expectation that they'd correct it.
Or, you could have used this single example as a way to declare every fact-check ever done by Snopes is problematic, thus supporting your claim that Snopes is "biased".
Which one is constructive, and which one did you choose?
Facts don't need checking (Score:2, Redundant)
Sites like scopes check claims, not facts.
Snopes is a Gaslighting Operation (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Snopes routinely posts debunks and fact check determinations that are contradicted by the very content and evidence they reference.
Citation needed.
Re: Snopes is a Gaslighting Operation (Score:3)
You could go for the Clinton draft dodging thing Snopes put out.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com] ... it acknowledges that the factual accusations are correct in substance, but asserts that Bill Clinton's draft dodging did not amount to a crime, and so the pardon did not apply to him, and so the accusation is entirely "false".
I guess Snopes never heard of the Official Statements Act (18 USC section 1001), which makes it a felony to "make[] any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation" to someone in the federal government -- including the m
Re: (Score:2)
Then providing some examples should be really easy...
here's a thought (Score:3)
if you weren't so deeply biased and intellectually dishonest that you claim "internet slang for a propaganda technique in which distorted, fabricated, or skewed information is used to further a self-determined 'truth'" is a good way to explain what people mean by "red pill," people might not decide to do this kind of thing
Re: (Score:2)
Kinda seems like "stop testing for covid-19" and it will "magically go away".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
that's actually what we need to do to get rid of the "pandemic" because the only test we have throws too many false positives for it to have a mathematical possibility of ending if you're performing millions of tests
Re: (Score:2)
for the record, I DO NOT believe that the virus is fake, or that it's not dangerous, or that we shouldn't do anything about it, but our current approach is inherently broken and cannot end, ever, according to its current rules
You can stop reading at this point: (Score:2, Informative)
Nope, red-pilling means introducing off-narrative facts in order to get people to distrust the rest of the narrative.
They figure out the bigger picture themselves. It's different than Leftist propaganda, which tells you exactly what to think in trope with the others. It's more like the Socratic method, in that it says, "Are you sure that's really true? How do you know.
Not surprising (Score:2)
As we've seen with the con artist, anyone who produces facts is immediately pounced upon for daring to spread the truth. Such as when the con artist says we're rounding the corner on covid-19 yet we hit a new daily high of confirmed cases [cnn.com] and deaths are once again at 1,000 per day. Or how the con artist continues to claim Russia didn't interfere in the 2016 election because he asked Putin who said no, Russia did not interfere, this despite a Republican-led investigation which corroborated every single item [thehill.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Trump lies or misinforms more than he does being truthful. Each lie is designed to glorify or enrich himself.
It is Simpson level hilarious how his greatest support comes from the Evangelical Christians.. a group who has been warning about the anti-Christ for years.
Re: (Score:2)
It is Simpson level hilarious how his greatest support comes from the Evangelical Christians
Going back to something I said yesterday, I'm still trying to figure out how "Christians" can support an adulterer who has had multiple affairs, lies, steals, and bears false witness against others.
Re: (Score:2)
Mitt Romney is NOT an Evangelical! Full stop.
Evangelicals not only support Trump but mostly worship him. Some 80% of Evangelicals support and vote for Trump. They even overlook all of his moral failings and try to claim he is a Christian.
https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/img... [nymag.com]
Trump has a 94% job approval with self-identified Republicans.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/2... [gallup.com]
Your comments are absurd in the face of the data.
I don't trust Snopes, they're biased (Score:2)
Has anybody else heard of this way to assess the accuracy of a news reporting site?
Pick something you're familiar with. Read an article able that something. Spot all the inaccuracies and errors. Realize that the news is probably about that accurate about everything. Despair. ;)
Okay, I used to use snopes. Then I came across a fact-check about something involving firearms(which I'm familiar with). I think it involved internet sales of firearms. They rated it "mostly accurate" when nearly everything in
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Objective fact"
I don't even know how to begin to explain to people who use these terms, how much nonsense this is, without triggering their prejudices where I must be disagreeing with the fundamentals of science and be from that group of morons there, below them, that we are currently both laughing at.
When in reality, all I'm saying (without being condescending):
Kid, you are on a good track, and definitely much wiser than them... but don't be so arrogant, because you yourself still got *SO* much more to le
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Marxism and Science are at odds
Now it turns out that they are. But at the outset, Marxism sought to promote science over religion and other sources of authority. But it failed miserably in practice. Marxism has been reborn in the form of Critical Theory [wikipedia.org] which has added the caveat that science (i.e. applying actual tests to the validity of Critical Theory) is a form of oppression. Everyone gets a gold star.
It's all a game of semantics. Which is why Antifa doesn't like Kristallnacht and other parallels to Fascism pointed out in their beha
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Marxism sought to supplant science with authority.
Under Stalin, yes. This is the mature stage of socialist regimes. When you no longer have to appeal to the intellectual class. You just imprison them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:4, Insightful)
Critical Theory, is a non-empirical approach to academic questions, some of which are scientific. Not everything about human thought needs to be scientific, and Critical Theory provides a useful perspective on the role of power in various social spheres (which is why Marxists adopted it). But it is really easy to hide and advance corrosive and dumb ideas in its framework.
Of course the reaction from the Right is essentially a Critical Theory all its own: all actions consistent with Marxism are Marxist. This makes the complaint about pseudo-Marxists kind of funny, because for the past 50 years, everything the Right has opposed has been labeled Socialism or Communism: Social Security, Labor Laws, the Civil Rights Movement, the Environmental Movement, Global Warming (as distinct from the rivers-shouldn't-burn environmentalism of the 70s), Medicare, Obamacase, BLM, shutting down businesses during a pandemic, etc.
So I'm willing to cut zoomers some slack for believing what a vocal 40% of the country has been saying since before their parents' were born.
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
What I mean when I say "Right" encompasses both traditional Republicans (Trump/Pence/Romney) and "Libertarians" (the Pauls, Kochs, Birchers).
You seem to wish that the US would once again fight against "Marxism" as you understand it, but regardless of what era you are referring to, the US was (probably) more "Socialist" then. Pick a post-war President with a thriving economy--or not, with military action against "communists"--or not---and I will show you top marginal tax rates and barriers to free trade that will outrage you.
But, returning to science, can you point me to a link that explains Marxism as you understand it is? Because when you say "Marxism and Science are at odds" it suggests a fundamental incompatibility that is belied by the great scientific advancement that has happened around the world. Certainly doctrinaire policies have led to nonscientific outcomes. But, for example, I don't see the Soviet investment in Lamarckian evolution as any more intrinsic to Communism than the denial of Global Warming is intrinsic to Capitalism.
Re: (Score:2)
It appears to me that you're objecting to Snopes fact checking a satire news site. Why do you object to this? You do realize that some people believed the stories in the Babylon Bee, right? Someone very popular even retweeted one of their stories as fact, hoping to get his psychotic, deranged believers to align with his position. When 'satire' is being presented as fact, it must be opposed.
That's why Snopes has to fact check the Babylon Bee. Assholes are trying to use it as a source of facts. Otherw
Re: Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:2, Informative)
As for the article, this should get a Snopes rating of "Mostly False." A few random trolls on 4chan deciding to fuck with people by making fake Snopes screenshots is not at all the same thing as a large scale, coordinated ef
Re: (Score:2)
I was unaware that Snopes ranked opinions. Care to share some examples?
But they do, in fact, rank claims for their veracity. If someone expresses an opinion that sounds like a claim, then I can understand Snopes having an interest in evaluating it.
Re: Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:3)
Snopes will often add bits to the claim in order to get a âoemostly falseâ rating. This happens on partisan issues too regularly and I can see why 4chan users decided to troll them.
Like most things in media you should take a healthy dose of skepticism. Do your own homework and you will rarely be deceived.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com] ... covering for the Biden campaign using a millionaire investor in Michigan as an example of someone put in economic danger (by Trump's singling out of Michigan for strict lockdown?)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com] - victim-blaming a woman for picking up her flag
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com] - accurate claims about an FDA report are "mostly false" because the truth is inconvenient
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:4, Insightful)
All three articles look pretty flushed out with evidence, interviews and links to stuff to let you decide for yourself.
Meanwhile, you got your facts wrong. Last link is to an article about the CDC.
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
So I went and checked this - your first link is a mostly false. Not even a pure "false". It's an investigation where you have to make a judgement about the contents of an advertisement [youtube.com].
The problematic thing is that the bar owner says that his "only hope for my family and this business and this community" is that Jo Biden wins. That implies that the business might close due to COVID. The argument against that is that the guy has enough money to survive fine even if the business goes bust.
However the Snopes entry doesn't attempt to hide it at all - in their "what's true" part they have:
Some of the language used by Malcoun in the ad could reasonably have been interpreted as meaning that he and his family's personal financial well-being was at stake in the survival of a bar and venue he owns, which clashes with the fact that Malcoun has other business interests and his family has inherited wealth.
And if I look around at information about Malcoun that was released before the ad what I find makes it clear he's a wealthy "angel investor" [crainsdetroit.com] so the claim he's been trying to hide his wealth looks ludicrous.
Looking at it from here just picking your first example, which is presumably one of the best around or you wouldn't have chosen it, it looks like Snopes is being very careful to be honest and open about their decision and reasons for that decision. If you want me to conclude something other than that this reflects a wish to attack Snopes for spreading facts you'll need to provide much more clearly explained and much more gratuitous examples than this one.
Snopes makes no attempt to hide that Biden's ad was somewhat misleading. It's
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They love to motte and bailey this stuff so that you can do what you just did. The headlines and ratings are generally indefensible for controversial things and will admit to things contrary to their own headlines.
They also choose strawmen to attack when they want to and ironmen other times, depending on whether they want to debunk or support a claim, they "fact check" opinions and satire, etc.
And they do it because they know that people will ignore their cheap rhetorical tricks when they support them.
Re: (Score:2)
They love to motte and bailey this stuff so that you can do what you just did.
That's kind of the flip side of scientific honesty. The idea is that you declare what would be the best arguments against your argument.
The headlines and ratings are generally indefensible for controversial things and will admit to things contrary to their own headlines.
They also choose strawmen to attack when they want to and ironmen other times, depending on whether they want to debunk or support a claim, they "fact check" opinions and satire, etc.
Again, a few specific examples would probably help here, at least for the "indefensible". I've seen that the carefully chosen examples from Entrope just don't seem to hold up. I might think some of the headlines were "wrong" but that's a much lower standard than "indefensible" / 'no reasonable person could believe that'.
And they do it because they know that people will ignore their cheap rhetorical tricks when they support them.
I would suspect that you are right, at least for so
Re: (Score:2)
> That's kind of the flip side of scientific honesty. The idea is that you declare what would be the best arguments against your argument.
In that case, they could have more accurate ratings or even forgo rating things as true/false and simply list "what's true / what's false."
> Again, a few specific examples would probably help here, at least for the "indefensible"
I wouldn't call anything 'indefensible' because I've learned that people will defend anything, however tenuous its grip on reality, however
Re: (Score:2)
> Again, a few specific examples would probably help here, at least for the "indefensible"
I wouldn't call anything 'indefensible' because I've learned that people will defend anything, however tenuous its grip on reality, however I already did post several examples not far from here.
By "indefensible" I mean "they will be unable to defend successfully" not "they won't attempt to defend". I only found your links to the satire examples which other people explained (Trump occasionally posts the satire thinking it's serious - it needs to be debunked for those who aren't able to guess it's satire - for example dementia patients stop appreciating satire [dementia.org]). If you have other examples it's appreciated.
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:4, Insightful)
I picked my three examples because they were the most recent examples where their political agenda really shined through, not because they were particularly strong. I really don't care enough about Snopes to try to figure out what their strongest example is.
You are engaging in exactly the same kind of dubious defense that Snopes did: Because that guy doesn't hide that he got rich from his wife's dead relative, and because the Biden campaign knew about his political agenda and his money, the wide exposure of that information in the context of the campaign ad must have had nothing to do with pulling the campaign ad. It begs the question, and does not support a "mostly false" label.
Re: (Score:2)
The problematic thing is that the bar owner says that his "only hope for my family and this business and this community" is that Jo Biden wins. That implies that the business might close due to COVID. The argument against that is that the guy has enough money to survive fine even if the business goes bust.
Did you just change the goalposts from the business surviving to the guy not needing it?
Re: (Score:2)
Snopes; not me. When Snopes is trying to say that there is some truth in the attacks on the Biden video, what they are trying to say is that a naive viewer looking at the video might think that this guy's family depends on the business. Whilst the Biden video doesn't say that, it also doesn't say that his family doesn't depend on the video. So, when they are trying hard to find some truth in the statement, they are kind of making the shift you imply. That seems kind of fair to me. This isn't like scien
Re: Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:2)
Pick any ten people off the street and ask them if they think most bar owners are dependent on their business to survive and I guarantee at least 8 out of the 10 will say yes. Of the remaining 2, neither will guess multimillionaire angel investor as the reason why said bar owner doesn't need the business to survive.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I encourage people to follow your links and see the actual articles (as opposed to your "interpretation")
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com] ... covering for the Biden campaign using a millionaire investor in Michigan as an example of someone put in economic danger (by Trump's singling out of Michigan for strict lockdown?)
The main thrust of the ad was because Trump undercut all the measures to prevent the spread, like lockdowns, social distancing, and masks, the virus is still everywhere.
Therefore businesses can't reopen without putting their staff at risk, and even if they do open patrons won't show up (lock down or not) because they don't want to get sick.
The only misleading part of the ad was where the owner implied hi
Re: (Score:2)
Trump actual statement: "that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it” was flat out bananas (probably just stumbled over the words).
And it's "mostly false" not because 85% of infected people in the FDA study had worn masks. It's mostly false because the claim includes the interpretation that the statistic proved "that neither are effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19" is wrong.
Tons of research backs masks, the point of the FDA study was to look at what kind activities lead to COVID-19 infections, not evaluate mask effectiveness.
Seems like a "No true Scottsman" argument to me, the typical layman is incapable of wearing a mask to the standards of the FDA studies, so the FDA studies are of dubious validity to the effectiveness of the general population's wearing of masks.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump actual statement: "that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it” was flat out bananas (probably just stumbled over the words).
And it's "mostly false" not because 85% of infected people in the FDA study had worn masks. It's mostly false because the claim includes the interpretation that the statistic proved "that neither are effective at preventing the spread of COVID-19" is wrong.
Tons of research backs masks, the point of the FDA study was to look at what kind activities lead to COVID-19 infections, not evaluate mask effectiveness.
Seems like a "No true Scottsman" argument to me, the typical layman is incapable of wearing a mask to the standards of the FDA studies, so the FDA studies are of dubious validity to the effectiveness of the general population's wearing of masks.
No, it's basically P-hacking in every sense of the word.
1) There's a ton of studies showing that masks work. Looking at this one study is basically blaming green jellybeans [xkcd.com]
2) Actually it's worse than that, the jellybean example was looking for X and finding X (by chance). This is looking for X and finding Y.
3) We don't know the denominator (probably there somewhere), if in the study population 95% of people wore masks but only 85% of infected people did then masks are suddenly really effective!
4) And it's n
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
- victim-blaming a woman for picking up her flag
Hard to tell. it's very clear the woman was involved in and acted in the violence herself [twitter.com]. Do you have hard evidence like an extensive video to show that she didn't instigate something before she dropped her flag? I can't find a clear complete video that starts from the beginning.
Given that Snopes finds mixed truth here and I can't prove they had better evidence yet, I have difficulty seeing how this proves your case.
Please provide hard evidence the lady was attacked and I will atttempt to get Snopes to
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying someone shares blame for being "involved in" violence -- by being the victim of an attack -- is very classic victim blaming.
What happened before that video started? Why don't we see how her flag got on the ground? (Probably because that would support her claims.) Their conclusion of "mixed" truth in this story is based on interpreting every disputable piece of evidence against the lady with the Trump flag. That is very clear bias, even without me trying to do the fact checkers' jobs for them.
Re: (Score:2)
You'll note that the video was posted by a supporter of the Trump supporter (Isabella). You'll also notice that for the one fact we can verify Isabella is clearly lying [slashdot.org].
Finally there's an important thing about such fights. You are allowed to act in self defence. You are not allowed to go beyond that or use violence to, for example, retrieve property. At that point, when Isabella pushes the other woman, even if she had previously had some violence against her of which we have no evidence, she's already g
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
The video was not posted by a supporter of the lady who was attacked.
Washington DC's city laws allow you to defend yourself and your property with force. I don't know where you got your idea about what is or isn't allowed, but you are wrong. Again.
Stop writing fiction, you suck at it.
*plonk*
Re: (Score:2)
*plonk*
Oh thank god. ;-)
"if you deliberately put yourself in a position where you have reason to believe that your presence will provoke trouble, you cannot claim self-defense" [dc.gov]
"The person should try to “step back” or “walk away” if possible; once out of harm’s way, the justification for self-defense disappears" [koehlerlaw.net]
It's very funny the way the loonies think the same rules apply to a catfight as apply to two people with drawn firearms.
Re: (Score:2)
What is your theory of what happened? That the woman intentionally dropped her flag on the ground in the middle of an anti-Trump crowd so that her critics could record only her reaction after that? Surely some of the people in the other crowd would have had their cell phones recording video to show the lead-in.
Or ... maybe Snopes ignores the fact that her assailant instigated the physical confrontation by assaulting her and ripping her flag from her hands, and the reason they pretend otherwise is because
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If you had bothered to read beyond the headline you would have noticed that there was in fact video debunking her claim that she was attacked, and instead showing that she was the aggressor.
Just scroll down, it's all there.
Re: (Score:2)
Which video? The video that does not show how her flag got on the ground, and so does not establish who was the aggressor?
Your rank dishonesty is almost as disgusting as Snopes pretending to be in favor of facts.
Re: (Score:2)
So I can't see how she got her flag on the ground and there is no video of that. What I can see is her actions after that point and her description of that.
"She stole my flag and I put my hand up to retrieve it from the ground so I didn’t get kicked while I was down on the ground."
If I step through the videos I can see very clearly at the 03 second mark (first video) about the 02 second mark (second video [twitter.com]) that when she bends down to pick up her flag she not just raises her hand, she pushes the othe
Re: (Score:2)
The video that they talk about in their discussion of the evidence that they have reviewed.
If you can't even be bothered to read the thing you are criticising how can we talk you seriously? You are commenting without even knowing what you are commenting on.
Re: (Score:2)
I read it, better than you apparently did. "On Oct. 18, a Twitter user with the handle @mariahhh_faithh posted a short video, originally published on her own TikTok account, which is no longer available. The video shows DeLuca, dressed in black with blonde hair, amid a crowd of anti-Trump protesters, a few feet away from her Trump 2020 flag, which is on the ground."
As I said, the video does not show how the flag got on the ground, and you are very much lying that there is video "showing that she was the ag
Re: (Score:2)
Keep reading...
She walks quickly toward an older woman wearing a pink T-shirt and âoeI canâ(TM)t breatheâ face mask and carrying an âoeArrest Trumpâ sign. DeLuca strides towards the woman and pushes her with both hands:
There is a screencap of her shoving the real victim.
DeLuca then picks up her flag and quickly walks toward the woman, who is retreating:
Another screenshot of her casing the real victim.
Looks like it was a clear cut case of self defence. You shove someone and then pursue them as they try to retreat, well if you subsequently get punched that's on you. You started it, you had the opportunity to walk away like the real victim tried to.
Re: (Score:2)
If the political affiliations were reversed, Snopes would discount that video on the basis that it is "missing context" or was "misleadingly edited". You don't want to admit that Snopes is showing its bias, and so -- based on roughly two seconds of video that you apparently have not seen, plus one-sided commentary claiming to explain it -- you excuse thugs who ganged up to send a young woman to the hospital and claim that they are the real victims.
Get help, dude.
Motte and bailey (Score:2, Interesting)
> Pray do provide an actual example.
It's pretty easy, they love to strawman claims by choosing the most ridiculous form of the claim to check, while ironmanning the claims they support, "fact" check opinions, etc. So it's like a motte and bailey where the headlines and ratings are indefensible and their own articles contradict them.
They've also done a lot of nonsense like "fact checking" satirical Babylon Bee articles. That's like fact checking the Onion. You can find some examples here: https://www. [dailywire.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here you go. [imgur.com] Snopes twisting the original issue into a strawman they could "debunk", literally misreading the sources, and providing a "Mixture" answer to a matter that is clearly "true" if not subjected to Snopes treatment.
Re: (Score:3)
I think this is the best one I have seen here.
The real truth: for repeated deliberate and gratuitous misgendering of a person your final (not first) fines could rise to $250,000.
The corresponding Breitbart headline*: NYC Will Fine You $250,000 For ‘Misgendering’ A Transsexual (my emphasis)
The Snopes statement of the problem [snopes.com]: Property owners in New York City will be fined $250,000 for using "improper pronouns" due to new transgender laws. (my emphasis)
The Snopes "What's false bit": Accidentally r
Re: (Score:2)
AleRunner ( 4556245 )
> Pray do provide an actual example.
Based on Snopes analysis, what is your opinion of Sarah Jeong?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch... [snopes.com]
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:5, Informative)
It's so inconvenient that The Babylon Bee is very clearly a satire site and that Snopes 'fact checked' them on multiple occasions.
1. There is a reason [snopes.com] that Snopes covers humour and satire. In particular, what is obvious satire to you when you read it on The Babylon Bee, may not be so obvious to Joe Random when he sees an excerpt on Twitter without context.
2. Snopes did recognize the problem and added the labeled satire rating to address it, retroactively applying it to past articles.
3. Searching snopes.com for "The Babylon Bee" results in 43 hits. A drop in an ocean.
Re: (Score:2)
It's so inconvenient that The Babylon Bee is very clearly a satire site and that Snopes 'fact checked' them on multiple occasions.
1. There is a reason [snopes.com] that Snopes covers humour and satire. In particular, what is obvious satire to you when you read it on The Babylon Bee, may not be so obvious to Joe Random when he sees an excerpt on Twitter without context.
Exactly. It happens all the time; something that you this is clearly satire gets passes along with a comment "you need to get outraged about this!".
Just because something is "obviously" satire to you, doesn't mean it's obvious to everybody.
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:4)
Really? Someone presented CNN spin drying news with a laundry dryer as fact? I think I'm gonna need a citation for that one hoss.
Re: Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:3, Informative)
For example, in March 2018, The Babylon Bee published an article alleging that CNN was using an industrial-sized washing machine to "spin" the news.[16] Snopes fact-checked the article, rating it "false."[17]
Re: (Score:2)
"Quit being lazy"
You want others to do your work for you, and *we're* lazy?
Re: (Score:2)
A wikipedia entry does not make an event notable. It just means some nerd made a wikipedia entry. Look at the edit history to see that the article existed for six months before it's notability came into question.
Nobody knows what the Babylon Bee is unless they were one of the people duped into it. That's standard fare for satire sites like The Onion as well. Usually someone's first exposure to a satire site makes them question the truthiness of the article, and if it doesn't (such as facebook/twitter taken
Re: (Score:2)
Snopes doesnâ(TM)t label satire as false, they simply label it as satire. However, if they did label it as false that would be fine since it would not be a true statement.
Pointing out that a satirical comment isnâ(TM)t a factual statement causes no harm and does nothing to censor or block satire, but someone believing a satirical comment to be factual reporting can result in harm. This is common sense and I would seriously question your intentions if this causes you to be âoefed upâ with
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Your first link is paywalled. At least the headline is visible, and it appears to call out The Babylon Bee for being clumsy with its satire.
And the Snopes article you linked in fact makes that clear. An excerpt (see actual article for other links):
The Babylon Bee has managed to confuse readers with its brand of satire in the past. This particular story was especially puzzling for some readers, however, as it closely mirrored the events of a genuine news story, with the big exception of the website’s
Re: (Score:2)
What mental gymnastics it takes to deny facts like that.
Re:Snopes, you bring this on yourselves (Score:5, Interesting)
4chan is a site for Free Range Trolls. typically they take a chunk of truth, exaggerate it too ridiculous extremes and post it for shits and giggles. Occasionally the 4chan herd of cats come together in a cause that excites their collective consciousness for a while then spiral into ridiculous extremes. They are best taken not too seriously and in small doses.
Re: Sue them. (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Snopes itself is full of tortured, dishonest, and manipulative conclusions that don't match or openly contradict the very evidence they reference.
Do you have any examples to share?
And yet they won't... (Score:2)
> This is literally libel with the intent to defame
In order to be libel, a statement has to be a false statement of fact injurious to their reputation.
So ask yourself, why isn't Snopes doing that?
All they would have to do is prove the statements to be false statements of fact (not opinion).
Should be easy, right? :) And yet, they won't. I wonder why?
Re: (Score:2)
All they would have to do is prove the statements to be false statements of fact (not opinion).
The 4chan people are posting fake screen shots. Literally, all they would have to prove is that the screenshots are fake and that it could cause them injury.
In order to be libel, a statement has to be a false statement of fact injurious to their reputation.
Misrepresentation of facts for a site about facts would be definite injury.
So ask yourself, why isn't Snopes doing that?
Probably cost or they actually are doing that and aren't saying anything about it.
You should really take more time to think about these things before you write an "ah-HA!" type post.
Re: (Score:2)
>> In order to be libel, a statement has to be a false statement of fact injurious to their reputation.
> You are a liar. STFU and die. hope your children all get Chronic lymphocytic leukemia and slowly die in front of you while you cry.
You might want to educate yourself about US libel law if you think like that:
Re: (Score:2)
They used to be useful in checking for facts, now they are just another leftty tool.
Oh that reality with it's liberal bias. What we need is alternative facts!
Re: (Score:2)
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com... [mediabiasfactcheck.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The entire "Trust us few credentialed superiors instead of those hundreds/thousands of rubes trying to find the truth" idea is a hallmark of Marxism.
How to tell if one is Leftist (Score:2)
Lie? Conservative.
Reality has a Liberal Bias. -Stephen Colbert.