Complaint Review: Snopes.com - Internet

Snopes does not come close to deserving  the popularity it has accrued over the years, many have come to regard the site as virtually infallible – which it definitely is not.

Snopes at one time was considered the final word—authority of hard to determine claims made in articles and or broadcasted on television and or the radio.

Snopes once grew to be a reliable source to millions of Americans, including national leaders, who once relied on the popular online hoax-buster Snopes.com as the ultimate authority in separating truth from fiction.

Cited by many, Snopes was once considered the final word on both frivolous and important stories, however Snopes was not the well-staffed think tank of researchers, journalists and computer hacks one might expect – but rather, was the work of David and Barbara Mikkelson, living in a trailer park in a Los Angeles suburb.

The Mikkelson’s were excellent investigators. They deserve the respect the garnered in the past, however Snopes present day has become a blog with click-bait articles that frankly are done by some very unethical and incompetent writers.

One of our writers at Get Off The Bs has been the recent target of two of Snopes so-called investigative journalists.  In Brian Michaels’ article entitled “Deceased FBI Agent Found At Trump Tower With Silenced Pistol,” Kim LaCapria writing for Snopes, wrote in her article entitled “Whack the Dog,” that our article was proven false by Snopes, however she sdid not provide one single source to back up her allegations.

When our Brenda Corpian challenged her about not providing any sources supporting her allegations, other than her own rantings, she Tweeted that she could basically write whatever the he** she wants to, regardless if it is accurate or not.  LaCapria followed up her Tweet by blocking Brenda on Facebook and Twitter.

Not surprisingly, LaCapria proudly signs her hit piece articles with a picture of herself sipping from a coffee cup with writing on it that suggests she enjoys swallowing men’s “semen.”  I can’t imagine how the MiKellson’s are proud of that.

In another article by Brian entitled “Anonymous Leaks Clinton Payoff To Khan,” David Emery writing for Snopes wrote in his article entitled “Rank Statement,” claimed that Brian’s article was ‘Unproven” based on Emery debunking a sample document listed in the article as “altered.”

I give Emery credit where credit is due. The document Brian posted in the article, a copy of a bank statement linking Khan to a $375,000 payment by the Clinton foundation is absolutely altered.  For those of you who just gasped, please read on.

Why I am screaming FOUL is because if Emery had bothered to read the article he would of found three disclaimers clearly stated in Brian’s article, including the following:

“We apologize to anyone ignorant enough to believe that anyone within their right mind would post anything closely resembling an original bank statement hacked from a prominent lawyer’s law firm server. That said, if we did not know for a fact by seeing and verifying the original document, you would not be reading about it on this blog. If you choose not believe it, we understand.”

For those of you who have read our ‘About Us’ and ‘FAQs’ pages, my husband and I freely admit that “we are not professional journalists,” however as inexperienced as I am in investigative journalism, before I wrote the crap Emery wrote in his article, I would of definitely read the article I was bashing first.  The first red flag I would have wanted to clearly understand is why a blog with an impeccable reputation for telling the truth, that has no financial motivation to publish a falsehood, i.e, there is no paid advertising on Get Off The Bs, would post an original hacked [stolen] document ripped off by a hacker from a prominent law firms computer server.

We may give our readers and or the writers at Snopes too much credit, but even without the three notices in the article notifying our readers that the bank statement had been severely altered, we would expect any intelligent person, especially an investigative journalist for Snopes, to realize that there is no way in Hades we nor anyone else with a lick of sense, would put ourselves in the kind of trouble that would surely arise from posting the hacked original bank statement from anybody’s server, let alone a law firm. 

We are not the only one who has had problems with Snope’s new breed of investigative journalists.  In performing a Google search using the keywords, “complaints about Snopes,” Google search returned 171,000 results, including some very nasty complaints made to Ripoff Report and Site Jabber. 

In fact Site Jabber, one of the top web site ranking sites on the internet, rates Snopes at 3.2 stars out of possible maximum rating of 5 stars. Considering the previous reputation of Snopes, that is quite a fall from grace.

In doing a search on Facebook, I found that in January of 2012 someone on Facebook created a page entitled “Snopes Lies.”  The ‘about’ section of the heavily trafficked page states that the publishers purpose is,  “This site is to help expose the misinformation snopes.com feeds the American public.”

Ron of Springfield Illinois wrote in his complaint to Ripoff Report that “perhaps you want to discover the origin of an urban legend or verify that the photo of a 45-pound cat someone emailed you isn't a doctored photo.  

Maybe you want to know if Proctor & Gamble's logo is really satanic. Snopes.com is good for verifying unimportant stuff like that, but don't count on them being fair and balanced when it comes to anything political or religious.”

Although I would of agreed 10 years ago with Ron’s statement about Snopes, I do not agree with him today because with the merry band of investigative idiots my staff and I have been exposed to from Snopes this week, I am not sure they could debunk the rumor that Elvis Presley is alive and well, living on Mars. 

This is Brenda Corpian reporting for Get Off the Bs with one final message to Snopes.  When the general election is over maybe you can hire Lyin’ Crooked Hillary Clinton to write for your blog.  There is no doubt she will fit right in with Kim LaCapria and David Emery.