https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes#Change_of_ownership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Richmond_(entrepreneur)#Snopes.com_lawsuit
https://www.wired.com/story/snopes-and-the-search-for-facts-in-a-post-fact-world/
https://www.courthousenews.com/fact-checker-snopes-owners-accused-corporate-subterfuge/
https://web.archive.org/web/20220923232402/https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/snopes-co-owners-acquire-remaining-140000348.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovrn_Holdings
Snopes.com has been thought of as a reputable and trusted site for fact-checking.
From 2016 to 2022, the original mom-and-pop owners were sued out of their company in what was described as a “hostile takeover”.
Snopes is now owned as a for-profit “programmatic advertising business”.
This has the same energy as the folks running around doing a disinfo op on Wikipedia. None of this is true and either OP wildly misunderstood the situation or they’re intentionally being deceitful.
Fuck. That sucks.
The suit that took it away, not from the mom and pop owners. “Mom” already sold her half:
Mikkelson and his ex-wife Barbara founded Bardav – which owns the Snopes website – in 2003, and each owned a 50 percent shared in the company. When the two divorced, Barbara Mikkelson sold her share to Proper Media last July.
[…]
“Mikkelson, in conjunction with Green, intentionally did block Proper Media’s access to personnel, accounts, tools and data to take over Snopes and to prevent Proper Media from performing under the general services agreement,” Proper Media says in its lawsuit.
[…]
The company also accuses Mikkelson of misusing Bardav funds and says he was improperly reimbursed for legal fees related to his divorce and travel expenses from when he went on a honeymoon to Asia late last year with his new bride – Snopes employee Elyssa Young.
She sold her shares “last July”. He went on is honeymoon “last year”. Dad’s dick ruined the last good thing on the internet.
Love how success in this country basically just makes you a target for the most unscrupulous capitalists around.
They haven’t been honest for awhile now. I don’t know who the owners are, don’t care. It’s obvious they’re choosing to say what they want to be true.
God fucking dammit. That is so dissapointing. I know snopes wasn’t perfect but I mostly trusted it.
I am so disillusioned with news. I care a ton but… I can’t
It looks like it only would be disappointing. Copy + pasted comment from the user Optional down below:
Okay so I sludged through all the links and comments and I think I have it now:
Barbara and David Mikkelson started snopes. They got divorced, she sold her half to RIchmond and Schoentrup.
They had met because Richmond started an ad company, their first client was Snopes.
After Barbara sold, David claimed they only got 40% not 50% of the shares which meant everyone spent money and time on lawyers, which everyone loves doing.
Around this time, Richmond sold his ad company. He sold it to Sovrn, who - if they did own Snopes it would totally suck, but they don’t. Richmond held on to Snopes.
In 2022, Richmond and Mikkelson finally agreed to a buyout where Mikkelson would take more of their money and then GTFO. Which he did.
So no, Richmond (and his ‘business partner Schoentrup’ - I suppose just a financial backer? it’s not clear.) runs Snopes by hisself. No ad company involved.
I mean, you could arguel that someone who started an ad company at all, in the first place, should be pelted with rocks and garbage, but even then he sold it before fully acquiring all of Snopes. Presumably, they were also keenly aware that running Snopes and an ad company would not be a good look.
I think that’s it.
Fuck. That makes me sad.
Side note, public universal friend is based
