Anyone who has been on the Internet for a few years has at least heard of Snopes.com, a site which seems to specialize in debunking popular Internet myths and urban legends. But what I recently found out about this site left me surprised and disappointed: Snopes knowingly publishes false information with the intent of teaching their readers that there are no informational authorities. How can we trust Snopes to debunk myths when they actively work to promote some of them?

Snopes.com: busting myths or busting chops?

If you browse through the Snopes Web site, you might come across a special area that is designed to look like every other part of the site, but with some very subtle yet significant differences. The page in question is here, and it is titled, "The Repository of Lost Legends." This page is a collection of Snopes untruths; they are stories that Snopes.com says are true, but in fact are not. If you click around and investigate further, you'll find this informational page which starts out by saying, "You've just had an encounter with False Authority Syndrome." The authors go on to say that they are trying to teach us stupid readers a lesson about relying on sites like Snopes to provide accurate information. I agree that it's a good idea to verify facts in some cases, but casual readers shouldn't have to be researchers in order to have access to the facts. That's, like, kind of the whole point of journalism. Snopes.com is not a newspaper, but if something about their publishing a whole page full of lies doesn't sit right with you, you're not alone.

Pages of false information

If you're always suspicious of what you're reading, you might notice that the title's acronym is TROLL. That is no disclaimer, though -- many people don't know what an Internet troll is, and many who do know may count it as a coincidence.

If you navigate to each Lost Legend page from the Lost Legends index and read everything carefully, you'll know that something's up. There are little disclaimers and hints in fine print here and there, but no obvious indicator that what you're reading is pure fiction -- especially if you're already familiar with Snopes and skip all of the fine print, figuring that you've read it before. The Snopes authors could, however, make a case that they give fair warning in this instance. That doesn't make their actions any less unethical.

What if you go directly to an individual Lost Legends entry, though? If the first page you saw were, for instance, this Lost Legends entry on Mr. Ed, you would have no way of knowing that you've been the victim of Snopes.com's prank unless you click the "More information about this page" link in the "Additional Information" section near the bottom. The only references given are books (and one link to an informational page about zebras that doesn't mention Mr. Ed at all), so if you want to verify the sources, you'll have to actually go out and borrow or buy the information necessary to understand that the Snopes authors are lying to you.

Playing Russian roulette with the facts

At what point does a lesson become a lie? Anyone who has used Snopes in the past knows that it's the go-to site for debunking urban legends. It is, in itself, a trusted resource. The lesson that the Snopes authors are trying to teach us is that no source is 100% trustworthy. That's a bit paranoid, from my frame of reference. The collective human culture is based on locating trustworthy sources -- not just of information, but of safety as well. Our home is a place we trust; our friends are acquaintances whom we trust; our spouses are people of the opposite sex whom we have decided that we implicitly trust. People generally trust news reporting, though we recognize that errors are made and corrections are issued from time to time. Trust is, sometimes, broken; rarely is this an act of malice. Trust is not betrayed for the sake of entertainment, or to teach lessons. The message that Snopes authors Barbara and David Mikkelson are sending us is, essentially, "Don't trust us."

But Snopes is not the first site to purposefully publish bunk articles. The Register posted an article saying that one of the Wikipedia co-founders had been murdered. Again, reading and re-reading very carefully, you can detect that something is wrong with the article. However, since the piece meanders for several unnecessary paragraphs, many readers will just read the specifics at the beginning and not realize that they are reading a poorly crafted satire or lampoon. Humor is a necessary ingredient in satire -- without it, readers are left confused and misinformed -- and it is notably absent from the Register piece on Jimmy Wales.

How are we supposed to tell the difference between the good articles and the bad articles? How far do we have to read before we know if what we are reading is fact-based or some passive-aggressive and/or underskilled writer's idea of humor?

Stop being the teacher

Casual readers should not have to go on fact-finding missions to verify everything they read. Students and professionals are required to verify information, but even they do casual reading. Who wants to have to call or email the source of every article and review?

I hope to see the Mikkelsons take down their disinformation pages someday. Unfortunately, they seem pretty adamant about keeping them, as pointed out in this email from Barbara Mikkelson:

"The moral of the story is that you should never take anyone's word for anything, including ours. That is why we list our references at the bottom of our pages, so that you can independently verify our work.

We are the Urban Legends Reference Pages -- we provide references so that people can do their own research. We do not claim to be the ultimate arbiters of fact."

No one does, Barbara, but the writers and publishers who have integrity do their best.

I guess what she's getting at is, you don't need Snopes.com, and you should trust no one. Just go to the library, Amazon.com, Google, and Wikipedia and find multiple sources on your own. This is, after all, what researchers actually do. So cut out the Snopes middlemen and their silly lessons, and become a professional researcher for everything you read. Don't trust anything you see in books, on TV, on the Internet, or hear by word of mouth -- you could be being fed a load of bullshit. Verify the sources, and then verify the sources of the sources -- hell, maybe they were lying, too! Lock your doors and windows, prepare all food yourself, X-ray your mail, verify email with phone calls, hire a private investigator to check out your wife, then hire another PI to investigate the first PI -- maybe he's sleeping with her.

You never know, right?

Copyright 2006 Jem Matzan.