The ones who REALLY need that course IME tend to be older members of Gen-X and up…not the younger generations.
All the emails and FB posts from dubious sources I’ve received tend to come from folks who are middle aged and older. And ironically, it’s usually the younger folks who point out the dubiousness by citing snopes or publicly available primary sources.
@mom2and wrote"Facts are just that, based in the truth. That is very different from someone’s view or interpretation of the facts"
So someone posts on Facebook a video of someone saying something and say here it is straight from the horses mouth… fact. They may actually be using this video to correct what they perceive to be an “incorrect fact”. I watch the video and yes it is fact that this person said that. I go the next step and try to find the video on my own. lo and behold I find out the video is much longer than the cut that was posted and the statement was taken out of context. The statement in no way reflected the truth of how it was being portrayed. So Yes, it was fact in that the person said it, however the interpretation was taken out of context to portray the posters view. Was it done intentionally to mislead…maybe. Or did the person who post it just repost it because it fit their agenda. Most people won’t go looking for the entire video. I take nothing on Facebook at face value.
Samples of one are pretty inconclusive. Myself, I haven’t looked very hard… I just mistrust handing over the keys to the trust kingdom to anyone and am also kind of skeptical of anyone who advocates for doing just that.
(btw - when you use the term ‘crankery’ for people who don’t believe that Snopes is the bee’s knee’s, mutt’s nut’s, etc… do you mean it as Merriam defines it? )
I doubt many of us “hand over the keys”. When I look at a Snopes analysis, I read it through, I check the sources they link, I do a “sniff test” using my critical reasoning skills. I even do further analysis if needed. I consider it a shortcut that has been proven reliable based on my experience. I wouldn’t consider that “handing over the keys”.
@catahoula - When I say “crankery,” I mean something like this:
[Wikipedia - Crank (person)](Crank (person) - Wikipedia)
As for Snopes, well, who’s advocating “handing over the keys to the trust kingdom”? There have been a few “Snopes can’t be trusted” comments in this thread, but nobody’s come forward to actually refute any of the well-researched, documented, and cited claims on Snopes, and so until they do so–and do so with the rigor and documentation that Snopes provides–their views can’t be taken seriously and I consider them “cranks.”
The bigger problem is that Facebook is a time wasting cesspool of negativity. By all means…spend your life saving Facebook from factually inaccurate statements, oh self-elected editors of “truth”! I have some windmills you can tilt at, too. LOLOLOL. Very seriously…if you have time to worry obsessively about what people post on freaking FACEBOOK…you should be doing some volunteer work or something. Correcting others on social media is at best an admission that your life is over, and at worst…a troubling sign of internet addiction. Don’t worry what other people write/say/think so much. Take a walk outside. Come up for air once in a while.
Eh, @MaryGJ , it’s not time-consuming, and your comment makes me wonder:
Which is the bigger waste of time, commenting on FB or writing comments chiding people for commenting on FB? Instead of worrying about other people’s use of FB, maybe you should take a walk outside or “come up for air once in a while” 
Tilting at windmills vs. tilting at tilting at windmills…hmmm…tilting at tilting at tilting at windmills? We could do this all day!
If that’s what you think, why are you spending so much time wagging your finges at people here? I don’t ever correct people on FB, but if others want to, I say go for it.
I’m noticing the people getting defensive about my post have like…THOUSANDS of posts. Ugh. Kinda proves my point. That is life you will NEVER get back. By all means Don Quixote…your windmills await. LOL:)
“…if you have time to worry obsessively about what people post on freaking FACEBOOK…you should be doing some volunteer work or something. Correcting others on social media is at best an admission that your life is over, and at worst…a troubling sign of internet addiction. Don’t worry what other people write/say/think so much. Take a walk outside. Come up for air once in a while.”
The irony. 
Looks like you are using it as a pejorative, since ‘pejorative’ is the fourth word in your wiki link, marvin. Bonus points for good rhetoric and etiquette.
Debunking maximum lengths of whatever alligators may, or may not, live in NYC sewers is one thing. Whether or not a particular person laughed in regard to their early days as an attorney, discussing their defense of a rapist, is another.
One can be discussed here, the other… not so much. And as such, the demand for “well cited and researched” rebuttal is a hollow one.
All things considered, being called a ‘crackpot’ for holding an opinion that differs from yours doesn’t mean much.
I can’t even parse most of that, honestly, but my use of “crank” isn’t really about a difference of opinion but rather a difference in standards of evidence in a discussion that is explicitly about the difference between true and false.
Good hygiene, I agree. I believe even garland agrees it to be prudent.
Unclear as to whether marvin does, based on the posts.
Sure, I’m fine with that, @catahoula . I was just pushing back against a handful of posters who whizzed by with unsubstantiated claims that Snopes isn’t credible.
I agree, @greewitch . I’ve given a lot of SAT and college advice on here since I’ve been in the college counseling, SAT-prep, and education business for 15 years and have a background in education long, long before that, as the child of a boarding school teacher/college counselor/administrator and a public school kindergarten teacher and a prep school campus faculty brat from age 1. My involvement on the Parents’ forum is more for my own diversion, though, I’ll admit 
@MaryGJ My Facebook isn’t full of negativity. It’s quite pleasant and supportive. Maybe it’s the company you keep.
As far as someone having thousands of posts, so what? They enjoy posting here and have probably made some friends here. If you don’t enjoy this forum, then your 272 posts are a bigger waste of time than my 1700 or whatever I have.
As far as the original question, I do correct sometimes, and other times, I leave it alone. I haven’t lost any friends over it.
I’m very appreciative of marvin100’s posts. They are knowledgeable, fact-based, and display critical thinking.
Social media is being used to perpetuate false statements and to denigrate the main-stream media as biased and full of lies. Although I don’t always do it for facebook posts, it is important to debunk blatantly false statements from unreliable sources.
BHS makes a good point. Things taken out of context may be factually correct, but incomplete. I was thinking more of actual falsehoods - stating something is a fact when it is not true. But certainly there is spin and out of context statements on both sides of the political divide.
I would think that if there are examples of Snopes getting it wrong, it would be reported somewhere accessible via google. Those that decry bias in snopes would certainly report it.
Catahoula: Have you read the snopes entry on the case you allude to? It is very clear the basis for their findings of what is true and what is not and the actual sources are noted and quoted. I have yet to read anything that suggests the Snopes finding is inaccurate. What is your source for thinking is it not accurate?
In answer to the OP’s original inquiry. I sigh, I roll my eyes and depending on the time of day I 'll have a cup of herbal tea - or fermented herbal grape juice.
I’ve looked at it, mom2and.
The claim Snopes fact checked was framed as…
quote successfully defended an accused child rapist and later laughed about the case.
[/quote]
… and Snopes devotes 18 or so paragraphs of analysis (along within excess of 26 paragraphs of quoted material) to arrive at a finding of ‘Mostly False’.
A pretty beefy analysis for a claim containing only two points, one of which is indisputable. Yet only a single, lonely paragraph addresses the arguable point - that she laughed about the case.
Annenberg FactCheck.org, in their review, provided a transcript of the relevant comments (along with no editorial comment to difficulty in composing them.) Two of them follow:
Of course he claimed he didn’t. All this stuff. He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs. (laughs)
I wrote all that stuff and I handed it to Mahlon Gibson, and I said, “Well this guy’s ready to come up from New York to prevent this miscarriage of justice.” (laughs)
While reasonable people can disagree to a conclusion she didn’t laugh about the case, I don’t believe one can reasonably defend snopes effort as impartial.