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Snopes

Snopes

Snopes.com is a website that weeds out fact from fiction and publishes the truth about urban myths, internet rumors, and various scams that are spread on the internet. It is run by a husband-wife team who started it as a hobby. It has won awards for its efforts to separate fact from fiction.

About Snopes

Snopes.com is an award-winning service that researches rumors, urban legends, and other myths circulating on the internet and in other media. The website is run by Barbara and David Mikkelson and they have made it one of the most popular fact-checking destinations on the web. (New York Times)

Since 1996 the couple has checked rumors and other myths by providing facts and sources to consult. They publish on average one new article per day. The Mikkelsons started their website as a hobby. They even met online and then decided to collaborate in life as well as work. The advertising revenue they receive provides enough to pay their Snopes.com expenses and to make a living.

The couple finds that people keep falling for the same scams over and over. Some e-mail chain letters, such as the one that offered the sender $245 to forward the message, seem to be deathless. Some of the enduring scams and rumors they get repeated questions about are:

*Computer viruses
*Scams
*Missing children chain e-mails
*The Government is trying to poison us
*Rumors about AIDS transmission, which morphed into flu virus transmissions

Though the Mikkelsons have received praise from reference librarians and other organizations who value the truth, they have no illusions that they are wiping out gossip and rumors.

It is not just the naïveté of Web users that worries [them]. It is also what Mr. Mikkelson calls 'a trend toward the opposite approach, hyper-skepticism. People get an e-mail or a photograph and they spot one little thing that doesn’t look right, and they declare the whole thing fake,' he said. 'That’s just as bad as being gullible in a lot of senses.' -The New York Times

They also find that most people just want confirmation of what they already believe. 'It’s not like, Well, we have to get out there and defend the truth,’ Mrs. Mikkelson added. ' When you’re looking at truth versus gossip, truth doesn’t stand a chance.' -The New York Times

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