[kaleidic]

I learnt from Popper that the facts are theory - laden and from Feynman that science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

This whole attempt to control the discourse is doomed. There's no such thing as objectivity - ones understanding of the world is shaped by one's experiences and who one is, and that's true for institutions too.

Character matters for an editorial institution, as does form. Snopes built its reputation one way, and became something quite different. And yet they have been granted a role of high influence by Facebook and thus it's in the spirit of good journalism to look into the extent to which they deserve this influence, and the character of the people involved does matter.

One could say that the Mail also isn't a globalist paper and so that naturally sets their perspective against Snopes.

[otalp]

>There's no such thing as objectivity

Obama being born in Kenya is objectively false.

Podesta running a child-trafficking ring in pizza places around Chicago is objectively false.

Moon landing and flat earth conspiracies are objectively false.

Thinking that Global warming is a hoax created by China is objectively false.

I hate to bring up the cliché of "post-truth" but when you say things like "there is no such thing as objectivity" it is difficult not to do so.

I'm not directing this at you in particular, but it's a common line of argument. Say Snopes write that the claim that Global Warming is a hoax is false, or that Obama isn't a secret Islamic radical. When they dispute something that many people believe in, the argument from a depressingly high number of people is not to scrutinise the facts that Snopes used and come up with flaws in their reasoning.

It is to vaguely accuse them of being "globalist", say that their argument is not valid because their founder did something, and that there is no objective truth.

Reality is complex, but the problem arises when people use this complexity to mean that any belief they hold, however unsubstantiated, cannot be falsified because everyone has an (((agenda))), which is defined as holding any view, on any subject, slightly different from their own.

Sure, I think Snopes should be looked into, like any institution with influence. But I am far more interested in journalism that extensively rebuts many of their arguments- and they have made a lot of arguments, rather than providing fodder for the inevitable future ad-hominem rebuttals.