Snopes... 'Debunking' As Propaganda

One of the things that really bothers me in the modern era is the way people have learned to pretend to be victimized to support their cause. Two types of people use this. The first are over-privileged people trying to make their narcissistic extravagance less intolerable and the second are those trying to keep the cult together, so to speak. The first is usually hypocritical actors, arrogant models and the children of the ultra rich... nepo babies. The second tend to be political types trying to keep the morons outraged. In the last few weeks something interesting along these lines has emerged: Snopes.

You might remember Snopes as a hard-left "fact checker." It lies and misleads and spreads all kinds of leftist propaganda as it pretends to be an unbiased debunker. It seemed to kind of vanish from the news for a while, but now it's back. And what it's doing is... interesting.

Over the past month, I've seen Snopes articles appearing every day. Only one was overly political. It was a "debunking" of the idea that AOC became a millionaire over the last four years. To say the debunking was bunk is an understatement. First, it only used her official campaign disclosure to do the debunking... and we know no one lies on those, right? And what kind of debunker relies on the statements of the person they are investigating? Secondly, it only looked at cash in the bank and her declared retirement fund. It did not examine assets... where people keep their value. Based on this "extensive" look at one single self-reported form, Snopes concluded she was only worth about $15,000. Take that right wingers! Of course, that would make her a fool as her House income alone is $174,000 a year, before benefits and outside engagements.

Anyway, not the point.

What's interesting is that for the past month, Snopes has been posting articles at places like leftist Yahoo purporting to debunk things I can guarantee you no one actually said. These are usually attempts to defend well-connected leftist celebrities like Oprah, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates, Obama. What's more, they seem to be an attempt to defend these people from (fake) nonsense attacks in an effort to sure up their reputations when they've done something else that is being criticized.

Examples of the types of things they're debunking are:

Did Jada Pinkett panic as her 'sickening' role in Maui wild fires leaks?
Did Tom Hanks reveal Oprah's 'true plan' behind Maui fires?
Did Bill Gate laugh and say he was buying land in Maui at pennies on the dollar?
Did NFL coach/owner X immediately suspend a player/fire coach Y for kneeling during the national anthem?
Did Obama panic of Joan River's confession?

Note that this is all obvious nonsense no one would believe. Note also that no one likely said any of this. I don't mean the celebrity didn't say it, I mean no real person ever suggested this happened. Maybe a Russian bot, but no actual person. And certainly no one believed it or passed it on. So what is Snopes doing?

I think there are several factors at play here. First, this defends well-connected leftist celebrities by polluting the water around them. If they get you to believe that your favorite celeb is under constant false attack, you tend to disbelieve and forgive real scandals. For example, Oprah's $10 million donation in Maui went over like a lead balloon because it looks chintzy compared to her wealth. Snopes steps in to debunk a fake scandal. Bill Gates was baffled why people were upset he owns 4% of the farmland in the US. Snopes steps in to debunk a fake scandal. As these are the people driving the left today, Snopes is protecting the leftist ruling class.

Secondly, it reinforces who we should listen to by (1) making certain people seem so important they are being targeted and (2) it keeps people assuming those who oppose them are lunatics. Basically, it's making average people believe the right is a bunch of Tucker Carlsons, which devalues the right very much by making them seem lunatic and devoid of any factual reasoning or common sense. It makes the right seem scary and stupid.

Third, it distracts at the same time it defines the culture: don't talk about incomes falling, inflation, corporate misbehavior, or out of control crime... the real battleground is Oprah's donations. It's the same way talk radio tells you the real issue is that teacher in Indiana or that kid at that one prom rather than trying to explain the real issues and provide real solutions. Look moron, shiny.

Fourth, it makes it easier to swallow bullship debunking like the AOC debunking because Snopes improves its batting average to build trust. So maybe you won't think too hard when it matters more.

I actually think this is pretty insidious. The left has been doing this for a while now. One of the first ones I really recall was the girly Ghostbusters movie. It was a movie no one wanted and then was premised with identity politics. It clearly wasn't selling. To try to make it sell, the black chick suddenly discovered racists who were trolling her over appearing in it. Appeals went out immediately to see the movie to fight back against racists. Within days, the anti-gay trolls supposedly appeared, then the misogynist trolls. None of it was real. They made it all up to sell the movie. Since then, it's slowly become a standard practice for actresses and leftists and the crapulent rich to try to garner sympathy to cover their mistakes. Now Snopes is part of it. Interesting.