I don’t have an example to look at. I don’t know what caused me to wonder about this. I do know they have varying degrees (beyond TRUE and FALSE) of authenticity with which they label rumors and legends and hoaxes and such.
But can you point to one of their answers that is just plain wrong?
While we’re at it, is there a better go-to place for debunking stuff?
Snopes has been my default all this time and I’ve never had a problem, although this picture and story <<< NSFW >>> has been wedged into my consciousness and if you haven’t seen it before it will do the same to you. Not just NSFW but NSFHC!
No way am I clicking that link. Not enough description.
I’m sure they’ve been wrong about stuff, but I know that one time, they were wrong on purpose. They said it was to teach a lesson about taking any one source’s word for everything, unquestioningly. I found that a bit patronizing…I mean, most people who check with snopes are the skeptical types…probably smart enough to cross reference their information. I wish I could remember the topic that they faked, but I can’t.
They were not wrong. An airplane really did crash into a tree, and there really is a flight school sign next to it. But they failed to notice that the image had been photoshopped, and they did not mention it after it had been pointed out to them. There was a thread last year that had a rather rancorous debate about whether or not the image was 'shopped. (The main supporter of it not being 'shopped was finally convinced not by the overwhelming evidence provided in the thread, but by contacting the flight school.)
So in this case, snopes was right, but inaccurate.
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They were wrong about the Newlywed game for years. When Bob Eubanks claimed it actually did happen, they wrote a nice little blurb about how even people close to the situation can have faulty memories, etc., etc.
ETA: It looks like I have it backwards, and that Eubanks actually said it didn’t happen when it did. Snopes still had it listed as “False” for years.
The funny thing is that I could have sworn I’d heard the Mr. Ed is a zebra thing before, but they seem to say they came up with the idea. Since I did not learn of it online, but from some friends who also did not learn of it online, that’s pretty good.
I don’t know of any. I just remember that it used to be the absolute poster child of Urban Legends, & it was a very big deal when evidence of the episode finally surfaced.
Marley, thanks. I knew I vaguely remembered something about them being wrong on purpose. I think I was remembering it wrong, though, because the Lost Legends page doesn’t come off as patronizing at all.
I believe Liberal called them on the Eubanks thing about 10 years ago. Link, Link.
But speaking of UL, isn’t it an UL that Gore even claimed to have invented it? Didn’t he actually qualify that statement to mean that he was instrumental in its development back in the early stages? And wasn’t he instrumental in its development in the early stages?
Yes on all counts (including the part where I was kidding). I don’t remember the specific group, but a very well respected computer society has stood behind Gore and said that the Internet would be a very different place without Al Gore’s involvement in Senate lawmaking.
I’ve seen the clip on a couple of gameshow blooper shows (yeah I know, my sister used to watch them, and I was trapped because she fed me). I’m pretty sure that was before 2000. Does anyone know when the smoking clip came to light? Maybe I have my own false memories. . . .
It took 17 posts before anybody owned up to looking at that horrible picture. That’s as locked into my psyche as any of those horrible Viet Nam era atrocities. If somebody made a challenge for most disgusting pictures that would be in my top ten.
BTW, you can just look at the link itself (without even clicking on it) and get the needed ID info. Nuff said.