Was there a danger of a nuclear attack on North Korea? Poor fact-checking by Snopes.com
Fact-checkers may at times be worse than journalists when looking for confirmations. It would seem that the task is simple: here is an article, where you come across an affirmation that you doubt, you start digging for information, and, judging from the sources that you analysed, you either confirm or refute this particular fact.
“Specialists” like Bethania Palma at snopes.com can outshine even most outrageous creators of fake news when it comes to analysing and manipulating facts.
Here is an example of fact-checking conducted by snopes.com that receives fact-checking grants from Facebook, regarding the escalation of the North Korea crisis that took place in April (saved).
Pravda.Ru then reported about the evacuation of 600,000 residents of Pyongyang because of the fears of a nuclear attack on the country.
Is Pravda.Ru a pro-government or government-controlled publication?
Snopes.com notes at once that Pravda.Ru is a government propaganda website without providing any facts to substantiate this affirmation. However, as one can read from, Pravda.Ru is a privately-owned company having one owner, Vadim Gorshenin, that the publication does not have financial relations with the government of Russia. Quite on the contrary – Pravda.Ru incurs unreasonable fines and reprisals on the part of the government.
FSB made Pravda.Ru Internet publication close access to its materials
Pravda.Ru website suspended its work in return to the requirement
Do you think that pro-government publications may have such problems anywhere in the world? This is a question to Snopes.com readers who support the blatant lies from the authors of the famous website.
Pravda.Ru has never been a pro-government website. There is no evidence to prove that it was funded from the government. By contrast, special services had shut Pravda.Ru down for its editorial views, and the founder of Pravda.Ru had demanded the authorities should stop censoring mass media outlets in Russia.
Rating is a lie
It appears that such affirmations are part of the snopes.com working style, as we have already discussed in our previous publications about this "fact-checking" organization.
Pravda.Ru plays up maximum fear when describing North Korean crisis.
"To play up maximum fear, Pravda claimed the alleged evacuation was due to the fact that tensions between North Korea and the United States have been heightened in recent weeks over missile tests carried out by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, with the US responding by sending a naval strike group to the region in a show of force "...
While focusing on how we play up maximum fear, Snopes.com forgets to double check whether other media have reported the same story. Including, let's say, the ones that can in no way be attributed to pro-Russian ones, such as, for example:
"USA may launch strike if North Korea reaches for nuclear trigger"
Dozens of other US publications, like Pravda.Ru, reported the same story, during that crisis.
Pravda.Ru did not play up maximum fear – the publication reported the story, like dozens of US and European media outlets did.
Rating is a lie.
It is an open secret that the "work" that Snopes.com does automatically gets into Facebook, Google, Bing databases, indicating that Pravda.Ru is spreading fake news. Consequently, social networks and search engines, as part of their policy, downgrade our website in their search results. As long as Pravda.Ru, as a media resource, profits exclusively from content advertising, it is clear that we are losing income as a result of outright lies that snopes.com is spreading about us while misinterpreting facts.
Nevertheless, this is a Facebook, Google, Bing patented fact-checking website that does very poorly-made, low-qualified and openly deceitful fact-checking, to our mind.
Claim
Did Evacuation Alarms Go Off in Pyongyang, North Korea Amid ‘Nuke Fears’?
Rating
Not true
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