Editing Snopes (section)

==History==

=== 1990s ===
In 1994,<ref name="tri" /><ref name="W4pKe" /><ref name="U3B0T" /> David and Barbara Mikkelson created an urban [[folklore]] web site that would become ''Snopes.com''. ''Snopes'' was an early [[online encyclopedia]] focused on urban legends, which mainly presented search results of user discussions based at first on their contributions to the [[Usenet]] newsgroup alt.folklore.urban (AFU) where they'd been active.<ref name="UfNsE" /> The site grew to encompass a wide range of subjects and became a resource to which Internet users began submitting pictures and stories of questionable veracity. According to the Mikkelsons, ''Snopes'' predated the [[search engine]] concept of fact-checking via search results.<ref name="nyt100405" /> David Mikkelson had originally adopted the username "Snopes" (the name of [[Snopes trilogy|a family of often unpleasant people]] in the works of [[William Faulkner]]) in AFU.<ref name="SrJjD" /><ref name="Chron" /><ref name="Porter" /><ref name="Seipp" />

=== 2000s ===
In 2002, the site had become known well enough that a [[television pilot]] by writer-director Michael Levine called ''Snopes: Urban Legends'' was completed with American actor [[Jim Davidson (actor)|Jim Davidson]] as host. However, it did not air on major networks.<ref name="Chron" />

=== 2010s ===
By 2010, the site was attracting seven million to eight million unique visitors in an average month.<ref name="ZYklr" /><ref name="RXQhb" />
By mid-2014, Barbara had not written for ''Snopes'' "in several years"<ref name="webby" /> and David hired users from ''Snopes.com''<nowiki>'</nowiki>s message board to assist him in running the site. The Mikkelsons divorced around that time.<ref name="webby" /><ref name="so2d3" /> [[Chris Richmond (entrepreneur)|Christopher Richmond]] and [[Drew Schoentrup]] became part owners in July 2016 with the purchase of Barbara Mikkelson's share by the internet media management company [[Proper Media]].<ref name="CNS_Bruno" />

On March 9, 2017, David Mikkelson terminated the brokering agreement with Proper Media, which was also the company that provided ''Snopes'' with [[web development]], [[Web hosting service|hosting]], and [[Web advertising|advertising]] support.<ref name="8XEZo" /> The move prompted Proper Media to stop remitting advertising revenue and to file a lawsuit in May. In late June, Bardav—the company founded by David and Barbara Mikkelson in 2003 to own and operate ''snopes.com''—started a [[GoFundMe]] campaign to raise money to continue operations.<ref name="fcs4Q" /> They raised $500,000 in 24 hours.<ref name="Hw4f0" /> Later, in August, a judge ordered Proper Media to disburse advertising revenues to Bardav while the case was pending.<ref name="4EDNC" />

In July 2018, ''Snopes'' abruptly terminated its contract with Managing Editor Brooke Binkowski, with no explanation.{{huh?|date=July 2024}} By the time ''Snopes'' co-founder and CEO David Mikkelson confirmed the termination to her, the situation was still not clear.<ref name="jgajb" />

In early 2019, ''Snopes'' announced that it had acquired the website ''[[On the Issues|OnTheIssues.org]]'', and is "hard at work modernizing its extensive archives".<ref name="xpUaQ" /> ''OnTheIssues'' is a website that seeks to "present all the relevant evidence, assess how strongly each piece supports or opposes a position, and summarize it with an average" in order to "provide voters with reliable information on candidates' policy positions".<ref name="TCJes" />

In 2018 and 2019, ''Snopes'' fact-checked several articles from ''[[The Babylon Bee]]'', a satirical website, rating them "False". The decision resulted in Facebook adding warnings to links to those articles shared on its site.<ref name="FgmcC" /><ref name="nyt2019aug2" /><ref name="buzzfeed" /> ''Snopes'' added a new rating called "Labeled Satire" to identify satirical stories.<ref name="gsgc0" />

In 2019, ''Snopes'' was embroiled in legal disputes with Proper Media, with a [[Legal case|court case]] scheduled for spring 2020. By then Proper Media had become a co-owner of Bardav through acquiring Barbara Mikkelson's half-interest share, intending to take overall ownership of ''Snopes'' for its own "portfolio of media sites". The move failed as David Mikkelson had no intention to sell his share.<ref name="LBCSi" />

=== 2020s ===
==== COVID-19 pandemic and misinformation ====
{{Main article|COVID-19 misinformation}}
As the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] started in 2020, many people tried to "educate themselves on the coronavirus" and find "any comfort, certainty, or hope for a cure [for the coronavirus]".<ref name="Ys1hw" />{{Primary source inline|date=August 2022}} ''Snopes'' has around 237 COVID-related fact-checking articles.<ref name="wmBAB" />{{Year needed|date=January 2023}}

==== Plagiarism by co-founder David Mikkelson ====

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.<ref name="Ron Lyons, Jr." /><ref name="HA5X5" /><ref name="lfTgN" /> Mikkelson also published plagiarized material under a pseudonym, "Jeff Zarronandia".<ref name="Ron Lyons, Jr." /> The ''BuzzFeed'' inquiry prompted ''Snopes'' to launch an internal review of Mikkelson's articles and to retract 60 of them the day the ''BuzzFeed'' story appeared. Mikkelson admitted to committing "multiple serious copyright violations" and apologized for "serious lapses in judgment."<ref name="auto" /> He was suspended from editorial duties during the investigation, but remained an officer and stakeholder in the company.<ref name="N8AtM" /><ref name="auto" />

==== Change of ownership ====
On September 16, 2022, David Mikkelson stepped down as CEO and was succeeded by shareholder and board member [[Chris Richmond (entrepreneur)|Chris Richmond]].<ref name="yahoo" /> Richmond and fellow shareholder Drew Schoentrup together acquired 100% of the company, ending the ownership dispute which began in 2017.<ref name="yahoo" />