Just wondering, I hardly visit the site.
While their articles are often humorously written, they’re generally reliable.
Some of their Photoplasty items are not accurate (Auntie Meme often gets the facts wrong on at least one or two items), but the majority of them are true. The articles are better, though there is a mindset that deals more with snark than truth.
Ultimately, they are probably no more incorrect than any other website.
IMHO (not sure if that’s okay in GQ), it used to be much more reliable than it is now. Years ago, they had a stable or regular writers who at the very least linked to secondary and some primary sources. Not SDMB- or Snopes-level citations, but far from the Weekly World News. There was, of course, lots of editorializing for humour’s sake, but it was fairly apparent.
At some point their business model changed and they seemed to shift to much more crowd-sourced material. Quality is a bit subjective, but it seemed to become much sloppier with embedded links and with overall robustness. Kind of similar to how the Discovery and the History channels are still somewhat reliable (for certain things), but not quite up to the standards of their early days.
I retain the right to be completely wrong about the shift to crowdsourcing. Or anything else.
In short, no. They generally don’t do any particular fact-checking, their writers are usually credulous and/or lazy, they frequently repeat urban legends or unsubstantiated claims from unreliable parties, and so on.
They can be pretty funny tho.
Not sure there is a factual answer to this question, but IMO they are generally reliable, but somewhat sensationalistic and don’t really tell the whole story in many cases. Of course the same can be said of many news outlets.
I’d say they are more reliable than Fox US but less reliable than BBC UK… use your own judgement.
They’re reliable, annoyingly more so for the last year or two, in imitating Salon and turning towards left wing politics, simplistic by definition of its treatment.
It can be brilliantly written (not addressing OP re “facts” here), but unfortunately annoys me to read it much anymore.
This is probably better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
For me, there used to be a trade off with them - sure, everything wasn’t strictly accurate, but it was a fair price to pay for hilarity. Then they stopped being funny.
Even so, comparing them to the History Channel is a little too cruel. 
This is my opinion, as well. I take a look at the app on my phone a couple times a week. I find it entertaining. I do not think they care about accuracy.
I have to respond to this utter nonsense.
I’ve written over 10 articles for Cracked, and let me assure you, the fact checking is extremely strict. Not only does the writer/pitcher have to provide a legitimate cite or source (ie primary source, no blogs, tabloids etc), but these facts are then checked first by a moderator upon article acceptance, then by the editor assigned to your article, and then again by another editor who’s job it is to fact check everything a final time, and look for errors, inconsistencies and general spelling/grammar errors that seep in.
Of course, things slip through the cracks, they always do - but for a freelance writer, it’s one of the most difficult places to get an article accepted - one of the reasons they pay so well.
Being a Cracked writer leads to many other writing opportunities as within the freelance world, it has a very high reputation. It’s editors are all published authors.
If you think they don’t care about accuracy… try and get an article accepted. It’s highly likely you’ll give up when editorial reject it at the first (of 4) phases for the 5th week running.
Eh, I see sloppy stuff on a regular enough basis that I don’t assume anything is really “accurate”. I guess that if I cared enough about a topic or point I might use it as a starting point to find more credible sources but I wouldn’t rely on a Cracked article as my cite.
Agreed with other comments upthread though about the general content and these days I usually just skim the topics for articles about stuff like “Five worst video games” or “Six ad campaigns that backfired” that isn’t trying so hard to push an agenda.
Cracked isn’t meant to be used as a cite. It’s a secondary source of facts. You should click through to the primary sources found within each article, and use them as your source.
That’s why you’ll never find a Cracked article that doesn’t link to the information it claims. It’s totally transparent.
Bullshit. Their fact-checking is approximate to the level of supermarket rags or wingnut derpblogs. I’m sure they make some effort to ensure that patently nonsensical stuff doesn’t get through, but that’s not the same as actual fact-checking, which is hard work and involves people who actually know how to do journalism.
The Big Poo? Oh, I’m gonna like you. 
Yeah, the answer is no. But they like to pretend they’re bringing you the real in a bro-friendly format by tacking words onto their article titles like “science.” Some content is better than others, both in terms of factual accuracy and hilarity.
Are you a child?
I have stated that I am a contributor to Cracked. I have also clearly stated what the process involves. I’ve done it. I have spent over 20 hours just researching reliable sources and information at the request of the editors for a single article. So you’re right about that - fact checking/researching is the toughest part of the process, and one nobody gets away with.
They don’t pay $200 dollars an article for nonsense. It’s incredibly strict and tough to get an article through.
If you don’t believe me, which is fine - I’m just a random guy on the internet. How about signing up to the Cracked writers workshop and pitch something? If it’s as easy and amateurish as you seem to believe - it should be easy money.
Not even remotely. They’re just a clickbait site disguised as humor.
IMHO the factual accuracy on scientific topics I have knowledge of has gone down. I used to read the site almost daily but I’ve stopped as more and more articles have pegged my bullshit detector. Of course it’s always been written to be over the top and entertaining, but at some point the exaggerations pass the line between “hyperbole” and “rank bullshit”.
Case in point: “8 Innocent Things (That Are Signs Of Huge Health Problems)”.
Each factoid is based on actual research. But many are described in such over the top terms as to be practically meaningless. “If Your Index Finger Is Longer Than Your Ring Finger, You Might Have Schizophrenia”? Well, sure, there’s a study but it has a small sample size and shows a really fucking weak correlation, and it’s got a few examples of goofy-ass data dredging that would make a statistician cry. Probably a real effect in there somewhere, but as a statement “you might have schizophrenia” is about as useful as saying “if you have skin you might have melanoma”.
#6 is about a tiny study of convicted homicidal psychopaths and the research study says nothing about whether using “umm” a lot is a predictor of psychopathy in the normal population. I can’t be arsed to go down the list with every one, but most of the article is about small studies of weak correlations with low frequency risks.
Maybe that’s a good example of something that can pass “strict” fact checking (the author linked to real [del]scientific publications[/del] press releases!) but still be almost entirely bullshit.
As I intimated in another recent thread, there is a rather large difference between an extensively checked single “cite” and a proven scientific fact/theory with a hefty body of evidence supporting it.