[Someone1234]

Do you have any rebuttal to their specific criticism of Snopes? Seems like they make some interesting points that they're supporting using facts and Snope's own quotes.

All you've done above is attacked the messenger and overlooked the message.

[Bartweiss]

Yes, their criticism of Snopes is misleading and dishonest.

There are several lengthy replies further down, but basically:

Ethics Alert quotes two small sections of a pages-long Snopes pieces, then acts like Snopes wrote nothing else. They claim that Snopes didn't answer the original question while hiding the actual image being analyzed (which Snopes addressed pretty directly). They draw specious conclusions (like equating a temporary 'not guilty' plea with calling the plaintiff a liar). They reveal facts already included by Snopes with the implication that they're unveiling a dirty secret, and without acknowledging that Snopes addressed those topics (in particular, the "Hillary laughed" bit).

They use quotes and facts, but their citations of Snopes are so selective, and use such fragile language breakdowns, that the content they're "responding" to has basically nothing in common with what was actually posted.

[mod]

I did not read the entire piece, but I think that you can read the snopes article without the related piece and see that they do not rate the claim (about Hillary defending a rapist) properly.

The claim, as stated, is true.

Snopes then goes on to defend the implications of the statement--implications that Snopes interprets.

I'm not sure an organization that deals in facts should be interpreting the tone/meaning/intended result of claims that it checks.

I would have liked Snopes to rate the claim true, and then provide details about the case. Readers can then decide for themselves how to think about those details.

Someone out there needs to deal strictly in facts and not the implications, greater meanings, or feelings related to those facts.

"Claim is true. X happened, Y happened, Z happened. Here are sources. Here's what people involved said."

[pwinnski]

I'm not sure how you can read the snopes article and believe that the claim is true.

http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-freed-child-rapist-lau...

What is "the claim, as stated," that you believe is true? If it's the page title, "Hillary Clinton Freed Child Rapist," that is not true, as detailed in the explanation. The man was convicted, not freed. If it's the image (which is clearly what Snopes is rating), I count eight statements, seven of which involve Hillary Clinton. The first three of those seven are false, the fourth is technically true with false implications based on one of the earlier falsehoods, and the fifth is debatable, depending on what what "it" means in that context. The final two are demonstrably false, inasmuch as they purport to be factual statements.

So seven statements, five of which are definitely false, and two of which are arguably true in misleading ways.

I'd say "MOSTLY FALSE" sounds about right. How would one word the claim to come up with "true?"

[mod]

The first line of the article is this:

"CLAIM: Hillary Clinton successfully defended an accused child rapist and later laughed about the case."

That was the claim I referenced.

[nl]

It's pretty clearly a politically motivated attack on Snopes. Both examples were claims about things regarding Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party which Snopes said were wrong.

The Snopes arguments seem rather convincing to me. The first example was a specific claim based on a meme that went around of Facebook: "Hillary Clinton successfully defended an accused child rapist and later laughed about the case."

Snopes said: Yes, she defended the rapist. However, she was appointed by the judge, and the prosecutor on the case backs up Clinton's claim that she didn't want to take the case. There is a tape of her talking about the case, and she does laugh, but to quote Snopes: "When she audibly laughed, she was not laughing about the outcome of the case, but rather about how the case had forever destroyed her faith in polygraph tests because the defendant had taken one and passed (while, presumably, answering questions in a manner Clinton knew or assumed to be false)"

Snopes says it is "Mostly False". I think that is a reasonable assessment based on the evidence available.

I'm not going to summarize the other case at all - I don't think it is worth the time.

[mod]

I only read as far as you talk about, so I don't know what the rest of the detail is, but I tend to agree with the criticism of snopes, at least this far:

The claim, as stated, is 100% true.

The rest of Snopes' argument seems to be justification on behalf of Hillary, which in Snopes' defense, changes the light in which the statement paints Hillary.

If I were snopes, I would have rated the claim true, and then still explained the circumstances. I think that removes the bias and lets readers draw their own conclusion about why something happened. That's what's supposed to be going on at a fact-checking outfit.

[soundwave106]

Here's the original article: http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-freed-child-rapist-lau...

I would say that "mostly false" is fine, based on the photo. This is based on the concluding statement: "Hilary is an advocate for rapists" etc.

Now, we all know that defense attorney for rapists != advocate for rapists. Ethics Watch admitted as much. However, they seemed to leave out the conclusion, which really was the whole point of the photo. To me, the conclusion should be given much greater weight in driving the rating.

Yes, the beginning of the photo is mostly true, but if the photo's post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacious conclusion is the real point, it doesn't matter. If I create a photo saying "Johnny listens to (insert current moral panic music here), Johnny grew up to be a criminal. Therefore, (moral panic music) makes you a criminal", that would be just as false... even if the first two statements are correct.

[mod]

I hadn't seen the meme.

Based on the meme, I would say "mostly true." I would take issue with "volunteered," I would question what she laughed about (it's unclear, and so not very fact-check-able), and I would ignore the "advocate for rapists, not women & children" bit as it doesn't seem to be a fact I can check. I would just say as much in my presentation of the facts.

Perhaps Snopes would have been better served by not wording the "claim" headline in a way that was expressly true, before then saying it was false.

They could have taken the meme line for line and rated them individually, as well. That happens anyway in the supporting detail, and it's an easy way to organize the page.

[nl]

I listed every claim made in the meme and attempted to rate it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12219011

The "claim" has to be written in a way people will be able to find it when searching for the meme. I agree it isn't a good summary of what the meme claims.

[Daishiman]

But that's assuming that readers go there to get only the fact without the accompanying context that is the real kernel of the issue. People don't go and check whether the fact iself, uncontextualized, is true; they want to see if Hillary really was the asshat that you would infer to be based on the stated line.

Snopes does it correctly; they say that the fact is true but it is evidently not the cause of the outrage that the original statement tries to create in the readers.

[mod]

If you're correct, then Snopes starts dealing in non-facts. Suddenly they have to say "this meme infers Hillary is an asshat." That's not verifiable in any way. It's a feeling you have based on your (widely-shared!) views. I think fact-checkers should deal in facts.

Snopes does not rate the claim true, and that's really all I'm taking issue with. I'd like them to rate it for truthiness and then give some evidence and context. No need for them to guess at what the author was inferring.

[hsod]

> People don't go and check whether the fact iself, uncontextualized, is true

This used to be exactly what I went to Snopes for. There's a million places online where people interpret facts and tell you whether or not they should be a cause of outrage.

Context in the article is good, but the top level "True/Mostly True ..." classification felt sacred to me. This one seems like a clear "Mostly True"

[Turing_Machine]

"It's pretty clearly a politically motivated attack on Snopes. "

Maybe if Snopes doesn't want to face politically-motivated attacks they shouldn't pursue a political agenda?

[st3v3r]

Are we no longer allowed to use our own experiences when evaluating new information anymore? If a news source has consistently acted in such a manner, are we not able to use our past experiences with them to shape our opinions of their reporting?

[saturdaysaint]

I have plenty of rebuttals, but scan Ethics Watch for 30 seconds and tell me it's even worth my time spelling them out.