https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes#Change_of_ownership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Richmond_(entrepreneur)#Snopes.com_lawsuit
https://www.wired.com/story/snopes-and-the-search-for-facts-in-a-post-fact-world/
https://www.courthousenews.com/fact-checker-snopes-owners-accused-corporate-subterfuge/
https://web.archive.org/web/20220923232402/https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/snopes-co-owners-acquire-remaining-140000348.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovrn_Holdings
Snopes.com has been thought of as a reputable and trusted site for fact-checking.
From 2016 to 2022, the original mom-and-pop owners were sued out of their company in what was described as a “hostile takeover”.
Snopes is now owned as a for-profit “programmatic advertising business”.
Sorry but maybe I’m missing something here.
AFAIK, mikkelson got pushed out because he plagiarized and caused all kinds of issues. The co-owners took back all shares. The sale to Sovrn was their adtech company, not Snopes.
Richardson and Schoentrup still own Snopes.
Sovrn Holdings does not own Snopes based on any information shared here.
Okay so I sludged through all the links and comments and I think I have it now:
- Barbara and David Mikkelson started snopes. They got divorced, she sold her half to RIchmond and Schoentrup.
- They had met because Richmond started an ad company, their first client was Snopes.
- After Barbara sold, David claimed they only got 40% not 50% of the shares which meant everyone spent money and time on lawyers, which everyone loves doing.
- Around this time, Richmond sold his ad company. He sold it to Sovrn, who - if they did own Snopes it would totally suck, but they don’t. Richmond held on to Snopes.
- In 2022, Richmond and Mikkelson finally agreed to a buyout where Mikkelson would take more of their money and then GTFO. Which he did.
So no, Richmond (and his ‘business partner Schoentrup’ - I suppose just a financial backer? it’s not clear.) runs Snopes by hisself. No ad company involved.
I mean, you could arguel that someone who started an ad company at all, in the first place, should be pelted with rocks and garbage, but even then he sold it before fully acquiring all of Snopes. Presumably, they were also keenly aware that running Snopes and an ad company would not be a good look.
I think that’s it.
I need a snopes link to this info about snopes.
Who fact checks the fact checkers?
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This has the same energy as the folks running around doing a disinfo op on Wikipedia. None of this is true and either OP wildly misunderstood the situation or they’re intentionally being deceitful.
I’d assume good faith—misunderstanding. It’s quite easy and sound to arrive at this interpretation if you forget that the current owners sold off their ad company a year before getting 100% control of Snopes.
In casual conversation IRL, if someone made this claim, I’d assume good faith. Or even in a reply to an existing discussion of Snopes. But OP decided to make a post without verifying their information and then went through and defended that take in the comments when people explained the actual facts to them. This wasn’t done in good faith, it would appear.
Interesting analysis of perceived motives between interaction environments; thank you.
I am glad for all the discussion in, and response to, this thread.
