Snopes.com

[larrymeyer]

For the past few years www.snopes.com has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the 'tell all final word' on any comment, claim and email.

But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com. Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it - kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know. It is run by a husband and wife team - that's right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers. It's just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby.

David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website about 13 years ago - and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research. After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation? The reason for the questions - or skepticisms - is a result of snopes.com claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have been proven wrong. Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the 'true' bottom of various issues. I can personally vouch for that complaint.

A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the internet, 'supposedly' the Mikkelson's claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on snopes.com. In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort 'ever' took place.

I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this and I gave him Bud Gregg's contact phone numbers - and Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big exec's at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to speak with him about it. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm. Yet, snopes.com issued a statement as the 'final factual word' on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things - not!

Then it has been learned the Mikkelson's are very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal. As we all now know from this presidential election, liberals have a purposeful agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative. There has been much criticism lately over the internet with people pointing out the Mikkelson's liberalism revealing itself in their website findings. Gee, what a shock?

So, I say this now to everyone who goes to www.snopes.com to get what they think to be the bottom line facts...'proceed with caution.' Take what it says at face value and nothing more. Use it only to lead you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself. Plus, you can always google a subject and do the research yourself. It now seems apparent that's all the Mikkelson's do. After all, I can personally vouch from my own experience for their 'not' fully looking into things.

[Pa. Patriot]

The funny thing about this is that the above, which has been circulating for some time, appears to be a hoax. Or at least far from 100% accurate...

[Kaos]

As a rule of thumb anyone claiming to be the final word would fall off the list of people I'd ever ask for advice on anything (this is mostly on political stuff of course)...there are times when the right info is the final word...but those arent grey/black/white situations like political garbage.

[JoeWilliams]

Has anyone checked this against Snopes to see if it's true?

[Pa. Patriot]

Has anyone checked this against Snopes to see if it's true?

LOL. Pun intended I presume.

Of course, Yes. And as I'm sure everyone can imagine, there are two sides to every story. And as usual, one side has more supporting documentation/evidence to it's credibility

[normanvin]

Has anyone run the shit storm through snopes.com?

[PennsyPlinker]

The funny thing about this is that the above, which has been circulating for some time, appears to be a hoax. Or at least far from 100% accurate...

Beat me to it! I was going to write that I checked snopes.com and discovered this to be false!

[jdlv4_0]

Wait a minute! You mean to tell me that I can't believe anything I read on the internet? That some of it is made up and not factual! I'M SHOCKED!

I mean who knew that something on the internet could be fake

[shefearsnothing]

supposedly truth or fiction is their greatest "competitor" and they report that snopes is accurate. I am not saying one way or the other...just saying what I've read elsewhere....ya can't believe everything you read one way or the other.

[bloomautomatic]

I use it mostly to debunk the mass emails I get about free gift cards, amazing photos, glowing mountain dew, captain kangaroo and mr. rodger's confirmed kills, missing children, etc.

I did notice they would tread lightly when discussing the emails on obama's background, radical friends, etc. "it's ok. bill ayers is a nice guy now. obama barely knows him."

when they debunk most things, they list their references so you can check it out for yourself, which makes it a little more believable.

Vince