To Snopes or Not to Snopes?

I am new to Snopes.com and was curious to check it out! Rumor has it that the “owner” of Snopes.com is a liberal democrat and an avid supporter of President Obama. With that in mind, I started my crusade in finding anything that would sustain or dispute these allegations.  

Source: Snopes.com

I chose a couple of politics-related posts. The first one was regarding President Obama’s ban on Christmas trees from Veterans facilities claiming that it would be favoring one religion over another. The post received a "Mixture" review (Fig. 1). Later was confirmed that the orders came from the facility itself, not from the president.  Click here to read about it.

Figure 1
Source: Snopes.com

Snopes has a ‘true, false, mixture’ meter which is their take on whether or not the story is either one of those. The Christmas tree story got a “Mixture” review, meaning that it’s a mixture and true and false information. In my opinion, the post provided enough evidence to persuade me as an unbiased reader.  Click here to read about it

 

 


Source: Snopes.com

The second story I read was about Donald Trump – a republican, suggesting that all Muslims should wear an ID badge. Click here to read about it.  That story also received a mixture review.

Is it clear that Snopes is biased? Not necessarily. Why? Well, in Trump’s defense (again, a republican) Snopes stressed that Trump did not suggest the use of a badge for Muslims, what he indeed suggested was that all Muslims should be registered in a database. Besides, in some of its political-related posts, Snopes provides evidence of its claims citing information from outside sources crediting both sides - republicans and democrats.  
 

It is okay to endorse either party AS LONG AS the person providing the information is able to deliver unbiased material so that the public can develop their own opinion regarding any specific issue. By doing that, it would also help to build Snopes’s credibility since it has been under fire for providing biased information and for being owned by “flaming liberal” according to the website About.com. Should we then assume that the person behind the About.com article scrutinizing Snopes.com is a conservative republican?