https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes#Change_of_ownership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Richmond_(entrepreneur)#Snopes.com_lawsuit
https://www.wired.com/story/snopes-and-the-search-for-facts-in-a-post-fact-world/
https://www.courthousenews.com/fact-checker-snopes-owners-accused-corporate-subterfuge/
https://web.archive.org/web/20220923232402/https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/snopes-co-owners-acquire-remaining-140000348.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovrn_Holdings
Snopes.com has been thought of as a reputable and trusted site for fact-checking.
From 2016 to 2022, the original mom-and-pop owners were sued out of their company in what was described as a “hostile takeover”.
Snopes is now owned as a for-profit “programmatic advertising business”.
Sorry but maybe I’m missing something here.
AFAIK, mikkelson got pushed out because he plagiarized and caused all kinds of issues. The co-owners took back all shares. The sale to Sovrn was their adtech company, not Snopes.
Richardson and Schoentrup still own Snopes.
Sovrn Holdings does not own Snopes based on any information shared here.
Okay so I sludged through all the links and comments and I think I have it now:
- Barbara and David Mikkelson started snopes. They got divorced, she sold her half to RIchmond and Schoentrup.
- They had met because Richmond started an ad company, their first client was Snopes.
- After Barbara sold, David claimed they only got 40% not 50% of the shares which meant everyone spent money and time on lawyers, which everyone loves doing.
- Around this time, Richmond sold his ad company. He sold it to Sovrn, who - if they did own Snopes it would totally suck, but they don’t. Richmond held on to Snopes.
- In 2022, Richmond and Mikkelson finally agreed to a buyout where Mikkelson would take more of their money and then GTFO. Which he did.
So no, Richmond (and his ‘business partner Schoentrup’ - I suppose just a financial backer? it’s not clear.) runs Snopes by hisself. No ad company involved.
I mean, you could arguel that someone who started an ad company at all, in the first place, should be pelted with rocks and garbage, but even then he sold it before fully acquiring all of Snopes. Presumably, they were also keenly aware that running Snopes and an ad company would not be a good look.
I think that’s it.
🫡
100% accurate.
I need a snopes link to this info about snopes.
Thank you.
Kindly; not trying to debate:
Why did Snopes stop posting disclosures (formerly a yearly process), right after the current owners gained control?
If the current owners of Snopes make their money from digital advertising businesses, why would they not leverage the synergy between Snopes and programmatic advertisement to generate further revenue?Why did Snopes stop posting disclosures (formerly a yearly process), right after the current owners gained control?
This doesnt prove anything about ownership that you are alleging, which does not match any documentation out there.
So while I agree they should be continuing, its completely unrelated to your unfounded claims regarding Sovrn.
If the current owners of Snopes make their money from digital advertising businesses, why would they not leverage the synergy between Snopes and programmatic advertisement to generate further revenue?
Again, irrelevant to the claim you’re making, which is demonstrably false.
Its absolutely appropriate to criticise snopes. It is entirely inappropriate to spread misinformation about the current ownership though.
Sovrn does not own Snopes Media Group. There are only two owners of Snopes Media Group, Schoentrup and Richmond.
Richardson and Schoentrup
Aren’t these two the investors he’s talking about? The original owners were a husband and wife team. The wife sold her shares to these two jamokes and then these two maneuvered to get the other 50%. I’m not sure where you think he is spreading misinformation.
No, they are implying it was sold to Sovrn here.
TV Tropes, Snopes, and Salon are the companies they run, Proper Media was sold to Sovrn (for the record, in 2021, not 2022).
Thats… Not “investors” as implied here, which would be a venture capitalist firm or even independent ones.
Which these two are not.
Edit: corrected my language.
Nothing that op wrote says what you’re saying. He put a link to sovrn because these two had an ad company that they sold to sovrn. Nothing in the articles he linked says sovrn is running snopes nor did OP imply that.
Their response to me would disagree, or they would have commented as much on my statement regarding Sovrn.
I’d also be real hard pressed to call them “investors”. At that point anyone who has ever operated any business, has a 401k, has bought stocks, etc, is an “investor”.
What’s implied here is clearly the vulture capitalist firms. Best case scenario, they used bad wording.
But the complete lack of response to anything regarding the statements about Sovrn, and instead posting unrelated and irrelevant information about Snopes disclosure page updates kind of points to that not being the case.
This post is misinformation.
Edit: I’d also recommend reading their reply to me.
Its basically “well why wouldn’t they do this thing I’m claiming but have no proof of?”
Thats not a “you should know”, thats a “Ive got a conspiracy theory”.
I’d also note that yes, someone who ran an ad company will absolutely be the right person to run something freely accessible to the public and supported by ads.
Its the internet. Most free websites are supported by ads.
Please feel free to point me to any verifiable source that supports any of the claims made in the post or single subsequent reply.
Who fact checks the fact checkers?
Community Note:
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The Watchmen … so basically we’re fucked
This has the same energy as the folks running around doing a disinfo op on Wikipedia. None of this is true and either OP wildly misunderstood the situation or they’re intentionally being deceitful.
I’d assume good faith—misunderstanding. It’s quite easy and sound to arrive at this interpretation if you forget that the current owners sold off their ad company a year before getting 100% control of Snopes.
In casual conversation IRL, if someone made this claim, I’d assume good faith. Or even in a reply to an existing discussion of Snopes. But OP decided to make a post without verifying their information and then went through and defended that take in the comments when people explained the actual facts to them. This wasn’t done in good faith, it would appear.
Interesting analysis of perceived motives between interaction environments; thank you.
I am glad for all the discussion in, and response to, this thread.
in what was described as a “hostile takeover”
[by whom?]
By OP in this very post he made here on Lemmy
Fuck. That sucks.
If it were true, I would agree.
It does not appear to be true.
Did you check snopes?
I read the articles posted (which are about an adtech company sale, not about Snopes, just misunderstanding that Snopes is supported by ad revenue among other sources), checked Wikipedia, and yes, Snopes has its own disclosures which can be found here:
https://www.snopes.com/disclosures/
This post is misinformation.
Unfortunately the page you linked to hasn’t been updated since Nov 20th, 2022, event though before that it appears to have been updated at least annually.
Yes, a valid criticism of Snopes as I said elsewhere.
And completely irrelevant to OPs claims.
Yeah, Snopes says Snopes is still reliable, so it’s all good.
The suit that took it away, not from the mom and pop owners. “Mom” already sold her half:
Mikkelson and his ex-wife Barbara founded Bardav – which owns the Snopes website – in 2003, and each owned a 50 percent shared in the company. When the two divorced, Barbara Mikkelson sold her share to Proper Media last July.
[…]
“Mikkelson, in conjunction with Green, intentionally did block Proper Media’s access to personnel, accounts, tools and data to take over Snopes and to prevent Proper Media from performing under the general services agreement,” Proper Media says in its lawsuit.
[…]
The company also accuses Mikkelson of misusing Bardav funds and says he was improperly reimbursed for legal fees related to his divorce and travel expenses from when he went on a honeymoon to Asia late last year with his new bride – Snopes employee Elyssa Young.
She sold her shares “last July”. He went on is honeymoon “last year”. Dad’s dick ruined the last good thing on the internet.
And the current twoowners spent five years getting all shares back.
Snopes is 100% owned by Snopes Media Group.
Sovrn holdings does not own Snopes.
Not that I don’t believe a random person on the Internet, but I don’t believe a random person on the Internet: Any chance you could provide us with some sources about that?
I’m not the one making the claim, but sure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Richmond_(entrepreneur)
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/snopes-co-owners-acquire-remaining-140000348.html
https://www.snopes.com/disclosures/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/business/media/snopes-plagiarism-David-Mikkelson.html
https://www.snopes.com/2021/08/13/apology-from-senior-management/
This is all readily available information. I’m not making claims based on theories as a post in /youshouldknow either.
You should be asking OP to prove their claims.
Thanks, OP is also a random person on the Internet but the sources are appreciated by all.
Sure, but this is youshouldknow not ivegotaconspiracytheory.
Facts are important for a claim like they are making.
I would agree, however it would seem they have edited their post and included sources.
They already had sources which pointed to nothing.
The claims are baseless. I welcome an actual source for their claim - the only response was “But they had an ad company!”.
Meaningless relative to claims.
Love how success in this country basically just makes you a target for the most unscrupulous capitalists around.
I know! We’re talking about Belgium, yeah?
They haven’t been honest for awhile now. I don’t know who the owners are, don’t care. It’s obvious they’re choosing to say what they want to be true.
Would you like to elaborate?
Not really. It’s happened over time. I post a lot to c/politics (every weekday) and used to double check with them here and at the old place occasionally. I stopped doing that about 2 years ago because every time I did, their false, partially true and true didn’t seem to match what they were saying in the articles. I didn’t keep track of which ones they were, I just stopped using them as a trusted source.
God fucking dammit. That is so dissapointing. I know snopes wasn’t perfect but I mostly trusted it.
I am so disillusioned with news. I care a ton but… I can’t
It looks like it only would be disappointing. Copy + pasted comment from the user Optional down below:
Okay so I sludged through all the links and comments and I think I have it now:
Barbara and David Mikkelson started snopes. They got divorced, she sold her half to RIchmond and Schoentrup.
They had met because Richmond started an ad company, their first client was Snopes.
After Barbara sold, David claimed they only got 40% not 50% of the shares which meant everyone spent money and time on lawyers, which everyone loves doing.
Around this time, Richmond sold his ad company. He sold it to Sovrn, who - if they did own Snopes it would totally suck, but they don’t. Richmond held on to Snopes.
In 2022, Richmond and Mikkelson finally agreed to a buyout where Mikkelson would take more of their money and then GTFO. Which he did.
So no, Richmond (and his ‘business partner Schoentrup’ - I suppose just a financial backer? it’s not clear.) runs Snopes by hisself. No ad company involved.
I mean, you could arguel that someone who started an ad company at all, in the first place, should be pelted with rocks and garbage, but even then he sold it before fully acquiring all of Snopes. Presumably, they were also keenly aware that running Snopes and an ad company would not be a good look.
I think that’s it.
Who is to say that Snopes was the gold standard?
On August 13, 2021, BuzzFeed News published an investigation by reporter Dean Sterling Jones that showed David Mikkelson had used plagiarized material from different news sources in 54 articles between 2015 and 2019 in an effort to increase website traffic.[
The shareholder that became a CEO had owned a huge chunk of snopes for years. They just made it official.
That was a founder who was pushed out over that behavior.
Those articles were also removed immediately following the the report from BuzzFeed, and Mikkelson admitted to what he had done.
Side note, public universal friend is based
deleted by creator
Fuck. That makes me sad.
