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Snopes is sort of notorious for being a relatively "bias-free" fact-checking site. However, I notice that in certain conservative circles it is written off as funded by liberals, most notably the liberal billionaire George Soros. Some examples of the claim:

SNOPES NO MORE

Snopes funded by Soros.. and people are still stupid enough to believe it

Snopes Exposed–George Soros and Leftists Fund it

As far as I can gather a lot of this is just a rumour based on an undisclosed donation to Snopes? Is there anything more concrete? Any proof that George Soros has funded Snopes.Com in any way?

Andrew Grimm
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Andrew Whatever
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    https://xkcd.com/250/ – Andrew Grimm Aug 26 '15 at 22:21
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    @AndrewGrimm: In keeping with that, this [Soros claim has been debunked by Snopes](http://www.snopes.com/info/aboutus.asp)! – Oddthinking Aug 27 '15 at 00:32
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    @AndrewHatsworth: Shill claims are impossible to falsify (and are irrelevant, if the appropriate sources are quoted to support their arguments). What sort of evidence would you accept as an answer? (I worry about some unanswerable questions here achieving little purpose but merely propagating slander. This is a prime example.) – Oddthinking Aug 27 '15 at 00:35
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    Didn't we already HAVE a discussion about Snopes.com on this site? **EDIT** [Yes, we did](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2314/is-snopes-a-hoax-that-is-covering-up-for-the-obama-administration). – Shadur Aug 27 '15 at 04:49
  • @Oddthinking, the claim wasn't [debunked](http://www.snopes.com/info/aboutus.asp) by Snopes. It has been [denied](http://www.snopes.com/info/aboutus.asp). And no, we can't take their word for an answer. – George Chalhoub Aug 27 '15 at 10:16
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    Yes, @George, you are right. We can't take their word for it. As I said, this is impossible to falsify. I didn't post it as an answer. – Oddthinking Aug 27 '15 at 10:19
  • @Shadur: This is a more specific claim. Do you see it as a duplicate? – Oddthinking Aug 27 '15 at 10:20
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    @oddthinking I see it as stemming from the exact same source -- conspiracy-theorist right-wing neocons who got their undies in a twist because snopes debunked their favorite extremist talking points. – Shadur Aug 27 '15 at 10:23
  • George Soros' [website](http://whois.domaintools.com/georgesoros.com) and Snopes' [website](http://whois.domaintools.com/snopes.com) have the same registrar, same privacy protection. It would be probably worth purchasing a full domain report for both of them there. – George Chalhoub Aug 27 '15 at 10:37
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    And 3,000,000 other sites have the same registrar and privacy protection, so probably not worth it. – JasonR Aug 27 '15 at 12:36
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    @georgechalhoub I fail to see what that would accomplish that playing Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon wouldn't but hey, feel free to waste your money... – Shadur Aug 27 '15 at 15:46
  • "Shill claims are impossible to falsify (and are irrelevant, if the appropriate sources are quoted to support their arguments). What sort of evidence would you accept as an answer?" I don't know if it would be good enough for an official answer here, but for me tracing the claims back to their original sources and showing that those sources have no strong evidence for the claims would be enough for me to say "There is no evidence to support these claims." Still trying to get a sense of if that is enough here, I've seen answers like this that get upvoted but it doesn't quite PROVE anything. – Andrew Whatever Aug 28 '15 at 15:15
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    And honestly these claims PROBABLY can be traced back to just one original source. Half of the OMG PERSON A DID THIS HORRIBLE THING stuff that gets passed around like fact just ends up traced back to a single easily shown to have no real source blog post somewhere. Just curious where this all started and if there is any strong evidence to support the claim. – Andrew Whatever Aug 28 '15 at 15:16

1 Answers1

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There is currently no readily available evidence that George Soros has funded snopes.com, nor are the financial record for snopes, Soros, or financial entities they control open to inspection (what would be necessary to falsify the claim). The claim is analogous to Russell's Teapot.

Here is an independent opinion from TruthOrFiction.com, a similar themed site:

Snopes.com is an excellent site that has become an authoritative source for information about urban legends and forwarded emails. We regard David and Barbara Mikkelson, the founders and operators of Snopes.com, as colleagues and professional researchers who have earned a good reputation for what they do.

We can give a unique perspective on this story because we do the same kind of work as Snopes.com and have sometimes been the target of similar criticism.

We’ve got a collection of emails that have come to TruthOrFiction.com accusing us of being “right wing whackos” as well as “liberals” and “communists.” We’ve been suspected of being owned and operated by both Republicans and Democrats. We’ve been called “Christian propagandists” as well as “atheists pretending to be neutral.” We occasionally receive emails that have elaborate theories about who “really” owns us and what our “real” motives are.

The bottom line is that if you try to report the truth, there will be those who don’t like the truth you’ve reported and who will develop suspicions about why you did.

That, in our view, is what is happening with Snopes.

- http://www.truthorfiction.com/snopes/

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Ehryk
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    Even if they were, Snopes.com noteably sources their research. The beauty of sourcing is that you can see if their analysis holds water or not. The source of funding is relevant when you have a source that makes dubious claims or inaccurate analysis. In THOSE cases, funding may explain, beyond general incompetence, WHY misinformation is being propagated. If it's not misinformation, who cares who funded valid information? So the question is, are these claims of Soros-funding being put forward after Snopes.com is factually refuted? Or are they forwarded as a substitute for refutation? – PoloHoleSet Nov 28 '16 at 18:03
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    I agree with your analysis in the broad sense, but "it's irrelevant" is not an answer to OP's question as stated above. It's clearly relevant to the OP (and plenty of others), so I chose to not redirect or fail to answer the question. – Ehryk Nov 28 '16 at 18:05
  • It's also why I didn't post that as an answer. :) However, explaining that claims built upon logical fallacies are not valid is valid, in its own right, IMO. – PoloHoleSet Nov 28 '16 at 18:06