Monday, November 03, 2008

Regarding Snopes.com credibility

The Truth: Ron Teed of Christian Networking speaks for Truth!

In October, 2008, stories began circulating via forwarded emails that the popular urban legends site Snopes.com was owned by liberals and was "in the tank" for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

As with many forwarded emails, the criticism did not include any example of what the writer of the email claimed was the difference between what Snopes.com reported and what Barack Obama had actually said.

Snopes.com is an excellent site that has become an authoritative source for information about urban legends and forwarded emails. We regard David and Barbara Mikkelson, the founders and operators of Snopes.com, as colleagues and professional researchers who have earned a good reputation for what they do.

We can give a unique perspective on this story because we do the same kind of work as Snopes.com and have sometimes been the target of similar criticism.

We've got a collection of emails that have come to TruthOrFiction.com accusing us of being "right wing whackos" as well as "liberals" and "communists." We've been suspected of being owned and operated by both Republicans and Democrats. We've been called "Christian propagandists" as well as "atheists pretending to be neutral." We occasionally receive emails that have elaborate theories about who "really" owns us and what our "real" motives are.

The bottom line is that if you try to report the truth, there will be those who don't like the truth you've reported and who will develop suspicions about why you did.

That, in our view, is what is happening with Snopes.
The 2008 presidential campaign has been one of the most intense and unique in our nation's history and has prompted more political eRumors than any presidential campaign in our experience, especially about Barack Obama.
These anti-Snopes emails have probably been prompted by someone who does not like Barack Obama and does not like the fact that Snopes (or TruthOrFiction.com for that matter) has debunked some of the emails that are not true about him.

One of the versions of the eRumor mentions TruthOrFiction.com and recommends our site. We appreciate that, but we want to say for the record that we've had nothing to do with this eRumor about Snopes.com and we condemn it.

THE PLANTER: As Christ followers let's let people see the credibility of Christ in our lives. Who I vote for is my business. But defaming someone has to be the business of Satan! Are there really Christ followers who do not want to hear the Truth? Are there those among our ranks who oppose Truth? I think you know the answer to that question.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

Free Hit Counters