About Snopes

Snopes

Snopes is the internet's oldest and best-known fact-checking website, based in the United States and operating at snopes.com. Founded in 1994 by David and Barbara Mikkelson as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, the site began as a hobby project cataloging urban legends from the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban and evolved into a comprehensive fact-checking operation covering politics, science, health, entertainment, and the viral rumors that circulate on social media. Described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the internet, Snopes has become the default destination for anyone asking "is this real?" — its verdicts on viral claims shaping public understanding of truth online. Owned by Chris Richmond and Drew Schoentrup and edited by Jessica Lee, the site has survived ownership battles, a divorce, a plagiarism scandal, and the relentless pressures of the misinformation age.

Origins: The Urban Legends Reference Pages

In 1994, David and Barbara Mikkelson — a California couple who had met in the alt.folklore.urban Usenet newsgroup — created an urban folklore website that would become Snopes.com. The site was an early online encyclopedia focused on urban legends, initially presenting search results of user discussions from the newsgroup where the Mikkelsons had been active contributors. David Mikkelson had adopted the username "Snopes" — the name of a family of often unpleasant people in the novels of William Faulkner — in the forum. According to the Mikkelsons, Snopes predated the search engine concept of fact-checking via search results. The site grew organically as internet users began submitting pictures and stories of questionable veracity, expanding from folklore to every category of rumor.

From Hobby to Institution

The Mikkelsons were not trained fact-checkers — they were, as one profile put it, a mom-and-pop internet shop that happened to have "the best idea for 2016 in 1996." They did not initially think of what they were doing as journalism, but they tried to behave like journalists, discussing standards from their suburban Los Angeles home. The site's scope crept outward after the September 11, 2001 attacks, when the myth-busting operation geared into a more political address — debunking false claims like the narrative that CNN had faked footage of Palestinians celebrating the attacks. From there, Snopes expanded into political fact-checking, health rumors, and the full spectrum of viral misinformation. Its articles typically present a claim, the site's findings on its veracity, and citation footnotes — a format that became the template for internet fact-checking.

The Mikkelsons' Divorce and Ownership Battle

In 2003, the Mikkelsons created Bardav, an S corporation, to hold the site. In 2015, the couple divorced — a split described as nasty — with the settlement giving each 50% of the company. David stayed with the site; Barbara sold her half to Proper Media, the San Diego vendor the couple had hired for content, development, and ad sales. What followed was a bitter legal battle over control of the company, with Proper Media's attorney claiming 50% co-ownership of Bardav and accusing David Mikkelson of mismanagement, while Mikkelson said he had been cut off from advertising revenues since February 2017. Facing zero income and mounting legal costs, Snopes launched a crowdfunding appeal that raised $500,000 from nearly 20,000 donors in less than 24 hours — a dramatic demonstration of the site's public value.

Plagiarism Controversy

In 2021, Snopes faced an internal reckoning when founder David Mikkelson admitted to lifting material from mainstream news outlets without proper attribution. The plagiarism — dozens of articles over several years — led to an internal review and the removal of unattributed content from the site. For an organization whose entire brand rests on credibility and rigor, the revelation was damaging. The site responded with transparency about the review process, but the episode underscored the pressures on a small operation competing in the high-volume misinformation economy. It also highlighted the governance challenges of a founder-led organization that had grown far beyond its mom-and-pop origins.

Methodology: How Snopes Verdicts Work

Snopes articles follow a consistent methodology: state the claim under investigation, present the site's findings on its veracity, and support the conclusion with citation footnotes. The site rates claims across a spectrum — true, mostly true, mixture, mostly false, false, unproven, and others — acknowledging that viral rumors are rarely purely true or false. This nuance is part of Snopes' value: rather than simply declaring things real or fake, the site traces how rumors originate, mutate, and spread. A surprising number of myths turn out to be true in mundane form, and Snopes' willingness to validate as well as debunk distinguishes it from pure debunking operations.

Role in the Misinformation Age

As misinformation became a defining crisis of the internet age, Snopes evolved from a curiosity into critical infrastructure. The site is routinely cited by journalists, educators, and policymakers as an authority on viral claims. Its verdicts are shared millions of times on social media, often settling arguments about everything from political rumors to health scares. The site has also faced the political pressures that come with this role: accused of bias by partisans on all sides, subjected to conspiracy theories about its funding and motives, and targeted by the very misinformation ecosystem it combats. David Mikkelson has maintained an apolitical stance, stating he has no party affiliation and has never donated to a political candidate.

Ownership and Leadership Today

Snopes is owned by Chris Richmond and Drew Schoentrup, who acquired the company after the ownership battles of the late 2010s. Jessica Lee serves as editor, leading a team of fact-checkers including staff such as Tom Steele, Nick Hardinges, Caroline Wazer, and David Emery. The site remains commercial — funded by advertising with optional registration — and continues to operate as an independent fact-checking publication. Its survival through divorce, litigation, crowdfunding, and scandal is a testament to the durability of its core product: reliable answers to the internet's endless questions about what is true.

Reader Submissions: The Crowdsourced Tip Line

From its earliest days, Snopes grew through reader submissions — internet users sending in pictures and stories of questionable veracity for investigation. This crowdsourced tip line became one of the site's greatest strengths: a distributed network of millions of eyes spotting rumors in the wild. The submissions also shaped the site's agenda, ensuring its fact-checks addressed the claims actually circulating rather than the ones editors imagined. In the social media era, this reader-driven model proved prescient: misinformation spreads through networks, and Snopes built a network to catch it. The site's verdicts, shared millions of times, often settle the arguments that submissions start — a virtuous cycle of curiosity and verification.

The Verb "To Snopes"

Snopes has achieved something few publications ever do: its name became a verb. To "snopes" a claim — to check it against the site's verdicts — is a reflex of the internet age, practiced in comment sections, newsrooms, and family group chats alike. The site's ratings, from True to False to Unproven, are cited across media as the authoritative word on viral claims. That cultural authority, built over three decades from a 1994 hobby site, is Snopes' greatest asset: in the misinformation age, being the default fact-checker is a position of genuine power — and genuine responsibility.

Snopes Today

Today, Snopes continues to publish at snopes.com — investigating viral claims, debunking rumors, and validating the occasional surprising truth. From a 1994 hobby site cataloging urban legends to the internet's most trusted fact-checking brand, Snopes has defined what online verification looks like: methodical, sourced, and willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Its official website is https://www.snopes.com.