MEMBERS ONLY Snopes Digest

3 March 2020 • Issue #5

1 Beware the Glurge In this issue, we’re talking about ever-present, inspiring stories on the internet.

2 Behind the Snopes Reporter Dan Evon talks about the low threshold for evidence in conspiracy theories.

3 In Case You Missed It The most popular and most important stories on Snopes.com lately.

4 Snopes-worthy Reads Good stories we’ve shared amongst ourselves recently.

Issue #5 edited by Brandon Echter and Doreen Marchionni.

1. Beware the Glurge You’ve certainly seen a story about some viral figure pop up on your newsfeed — a meme, a shared post, or a video about a person with a typically inspiring life story. The internet is rife with stories like this tale of a paramedic who saved the life of the doctor who saved his life when he was a baby, or the heartbreakingly tragic life of actor Keanu Reeves.

That makes it all the more alluring to scammers. Think of the viral fraudsters of our recent past: Valentin Mikkhaylin, the Russian student asking for financial assistance wh has been a student since 1998; Katelyn McClure and Mark D’amico, who made up a heartwarming story with Johnny Bobbit, a homeless man, in order to commit fraud; Brian Kolfage, who raised money to help build a border wall in a fishy crowdfunding campaign. Can we ever really trust a “true” life story we read online? Why are we so quick to believe that a story is true — or, as it was in one particularly relevant recent case, fake?

In this issue, we’re taking a look at this long-standing genre of viral story.

Rewards Update

We have great news for you! We’ve just gotten confirmation from our supplier that your physical items are due to be shipped around March 16. Once they’ve shipped, we’ll be sending you a confirmation notice with tracking number.

As for the Snopes community and ad-free browsing, we’ve been working with our developers and we’re very close. We anticipate the member portal will be online for all of you in April. Stay tuned to the Founding Members project page for more updates!

2. Behind The Snopes Let’s talk about what’s going on with Snopes: the newsroom, the products, the people, and everything and anything that makes Snopes, Snopes. This week, reporter Dan Evon talks about the low threshold for evidence in conspiracy theories.

I've been thinking a lot about Quaden Bayles over the last few days.

He is a 9-year-old boy with dwarfism who lives in Australia. On Feb. 19, 2020, his mother posted a video to her Facebook page of her distraught son crying after being bullied at school. The video went viral and caught the attention of some well-meaning celebrities, who started a GoFundMe page to send Bayles to Disney World. Within a few days, hundreds of thousands of dollars had been raised.

But then someone noticed something … well, not fishy, but not entirely suspicious, either. What's the word for a mundane observation that is presented as if it’s a bombshell breakthrough? Perhaps BS? People discovered Quaden had an acting page, that he once posed for a photograph holding a stack of money, and that he posed for another photograph in front of a big number "18." That was enough for people to claim that Bayles was actually an 18-year-old who was attempting to scam the internet, and that apparently was enough for people to start bullying a boy whose original story went viral because he said he was bullied.

Of course, Bayles is not an 18-year-old scam artist. I verified it myself. To be honest, I don't think anyone truly, honestly believed it. What they saw, what conspiracy theorists always see, is an opportunity to know more than everyone else. Thousands of people had donated money, news outlets had reported on Bayles' story, celebrities were posting heartfelt videos, and they were all, they claimed, wrong. It must have felt good to conspiracy theorists for a few tweets.

Next time, you’ll hear from another member of the Snopes team about a unique aspect of working here that you might find interesting. Do you want us to cover something specific? Write to us here! Snopes-tionary Speak like an insider! Each newsletter, we’ll explain a term or piece of fact- checking lingo that we use on the Snopes team.

Glurge: A sentimental or heart-rending story that undermines its own inspirational message by distorting (or ignoring) the facts. For example, any of these stories fact-checked by Snopes.

Fun fact: The term glurge was coined back in the ’90s by a member of the original Snopes message board.

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3. In Case You Missed It

The latest news and fact checks on Snopes.com.

As the new coronavirus continues to spread, conspiracy theories about the virus continue to flood the Snopes inbox. The arrest of a Harvard professor for making false statements about funding from China fueled speculation that he was involved in “bioweapons” research allegedly connected with the pathogen. Our investigation found no evidence linking him to coronavirus, nor any evidence the virus was created in a lab.

A number of readers asked us to look into the claim that a 1981 novel by horror writer Dean Koontz “predicted” the coronavirus outbreak. But apart from originating in Wuhan, China, Koontz’s fictional “Wuhan-400” virus, with its 100% fatality rate, has little in common with the new coronavirus, which scientists currently estimate has a fatality rate of 2% or less.

Amid worsening fears of a global pandemic, a claim spread on social media that the Trump administration had fired the country’s pandemic response team in 2018. Per contemporaneous news reports, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, who led the National Security Council’s global health security team, was in fact removed from that position in May 2018 and the team was disbanded on the orders of then-National Security Adviser John Bolton.

A meme put U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated boasts of unprecedented economic growth under his administration to the test, weighing jobs growth during the last three years of Barack Obama’s presidency against the first three years of Trump’s. Using the administration’s own employment statistics for these time periods, we ran spreadsheets comparing them five different ways. The numbers speak for themselves.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ strong showing in the early Democratic primary elections made him the target of political memes. One claimed the candidate proposed funding his Medicare for All proposal by raising the income tax rate to 52% on every American earning more than $29,000. We found those numbers to be off by a considerable degree.

Have a story tip? Send it here!

Featured Collection Sometimes a news story or event is a misinformation magnet. Rumors overwhelm social feeds (and our tip line). When that happens, we’ll gather all the fact checks into one collection, so you can easily sort fact from fiction.

In late December 2019, a new coronavirus was discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan. As the disease eventually dubbed COVID-19 spread from that region to the rest of the world, something else came with it — an “infodemic” of rumors and misinformation.

Read the Coronavirus Collection

Snopes Stats An interesting number from behind the scenes at Snopes.

Despite only going up on Feb. 21, 2020, the Quaden Bayles fact check is one of the top three most visited fact checks in the last four years, right behind 2017’s “Will Dangerous Cosmic Rays Pass Close to Earth ‘Tonight’?” and 2018’s “Does a New Facebook Algorithm Only Show You 26 Friends?” We suspect it’s because some of the same networks we uncovered in our recent investigation into memevertising were promoting the initial Bayles bullying video out to celebrity pages 4. Snopes-worthy Reads

What Team Snopes is reading across the web.

Coronavirus: Fake News is Spreading Fast Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News

The New Coronavirus and Racist Tropes Amanda Darrach, Columbia Journalism Review

Journalism is an 'Attack Surface' for Those Who Spread Misinformation Arizona State University

Journalism is Under Attack in India. So is the Truth Rana Ayyub, Washington Post Opinion

Qanon Deploys 'Information Warfare' to Influence the 2020 Election Elise Thomas, WIRED

Have any recommended reads? Submit them here.

The Pets of Snopes It’s true: The Snopes “team” was once just two people and a cat. Twenty- five years later, we have more humans and more cats (and even some dogs) than at our once-humble beginnings. We want you to meet our furry, fact- finding friends because, well, who doesn’t love a cute animal picture?

Meet Rudy the Ripper! When Audience Engagement Editor Brandon Echter visits his parents and has to do a bit of work, Rudy is right there beside him, taking a nap. Although he may look sweet, his nickname is well- earned — he likes to rip apart toys as much as he likes to rip apart misleading claims! Thanks for reading this edition of the Snopes Digest. We’ll be releasing them every two weeks, so please add this email address to your white list and keep an eye out on March 17th for the next issue.

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