@0rf - Matt Orfalea

The Dumbest Snopes "Fact-Check" Of All Time? At least 5 Snopes “fact-checkers”, including its founder, pushed the disinfo that COVID-19 could not have originated from a lab. 🧵 /1

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

Astonishingly, Snopes' David Emery tried to claim in a thread w comedian Adam Carolla that, “Snopes didn’t say the lab leak theory couldn’t be true.” /2

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

You may know Emery as the Snopes editor who got hammered last week for a now admittedly false “fact-check” that claimed President Biden did not embarrassingly wear a construction helmet incorrectly, despite Snopes’ own photographic and expert sources telling him otherwise. /3

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

In a response to comedian Adam Carolla's sarcastic post about self-proclaimed “fact-checkers” like Snopes, Emery appears completely removed from reality, when he challenged Carolla and his followers to, “Name the fact-checkers who said COVID could not have come from a lab”. /4

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

Before the Biden admin acknowledged the possibility of a lab origin in '21, all the “fact-checkers”, including AP, CNN, USA Today, NYT, NPR, BBC, WaPo, & the WHO dismissed a lab origin, typically as a “false” “debunked” “conspiracy theory”. /5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-X-Lgrlf0

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

How many head injuries did Emery endure to miss all this? Adding insult to injury, the Snopes fact-check editor delusionally proclaims that, “Snopes didn’t say the lab leak theory couldn’t be true.” /6

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

Not only did Snopes say the lab leak theory couldn’t be true, but Snopes did so repeatedly in at least 9 separate “fact-checks” by four other Snopes “fact-checkers”, including the founder of Snopes! And at least one of the “fact-checks” was shared by Emery himself on Twitter. /7

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

The April 2020 Snopes “fact-check” by Dan Evon called the lab leak theory “misinformation” that was “already debunked”. /8

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

Evon dismissed the lab theory in several other “fact-checks”, calling the mere possibility “illogical”, “evidence-free”, and “nothing more than baseless conspiracy theories,” ruling that the idea that the virus was “developed” or “manufactured” in any way was totally “False”. /9

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

In another Snopes “fact-check”, Snopes “investigative journalist” and “senior writer” from Johns Hopkins, Alex Kasprak, also claimed it was a known fact that the virus had evolved from “natural selection, not bioengineering.” /10

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

Later in April 2020, the founder of Snopes himself, David Mikkelson, wrote two Snopes “fact checks” of his own, further claiming that a lab origin was an “unfounded” and “false notion”, concluding again that “SARS-CoV-2 virus evolved or mutated and was not bioengineered”. /11

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

In September 2020, Snopes contributor Madison Dapcevich reported that claims of a lab origin were, “false” and “nearly impossible”, further dismissing a lab origin as a wild “conspiracy theory” four separate times. /12

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

The “rigorous scientific research” Dapcevich cited as “proving” COVID-19 came from nature was the widely cited and fraudulent “Proximal Origin” paper. https://x.com/0rf/status/1684029019912544256?s=20 /13

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

So when it comes to the most impactful stories, ultimately Snopes doesn’t check facts, they check narratives, and as the official narrative shifts so do their “facts”. This isn’t fact-checking, this is government stenography. https://x.com/thackerpd/status/1753597952365346983?s=20 /14

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

By June '21, after the Biden administration said it'd formally investigate the possibility of a lab leak, Snopes finally acknowledged the pandemic could have been the result of a man-made virus that escaped from a Wuhan lab, contradicting their past year’s reporting. /15

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

In other words, only after the government gave the public permission to ask questions did Snopes suddenly allow itself to acknowledge uncertainty and be skeptical like a real fact-checker should. /16

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

It’s been over three years after Snopes itself acknowledged a lab leak origin is possible, and yet Snopes has still not corrected or updated their own “fact-checks” claiming that it isn’t. /17

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

Snopes repeatedly failed to exercise basic skepticism reporting on perhaps the most impactful story of our lifetimes, failed to correct the error, and now pretends like they were never wrong to begin with. /18

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And yet NewsGuard gives Snopes “a perfect 100/100 credibility rating” with the “highest of editorial standards”, revealing just how uncredible the entire fact-checking industry is. /19

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

All of the authors who spread COVID-19-origin disinfo are still at Snopes, except for 1... /20

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

After producing work for Snopes that shows he can’t be trusted, Dan Evon is now managing the News Literacy Project to “teach students & the public how to know what to believe in the digital age.” /21

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

To quote the Snopes editor who inspired this whole deep dive, "Oh the dipshittery." /22

@0rf - Matt Orfalea

Please subscribe to Orf Report for more! https://censorednews.substack.com/p/the-dumbest-snopes-fact-check-of /23

The Dumbest Snopes "Fact-Check" Of All Time? Snopes repeatedly said the COVID-19 lab leak theory couldn’t be true. censorednews.substack.com