Is there a Snopes for the resistance?
January 31, 2017 10:50 AM Subscribe
As more and more people get mobilized and look for ways to resist the Trump Administration, it seems inevitable that "bad dudes" will take advantage of the situation. Do you know of something like Snopes to quickly check on whether a site, organization, number, etc., that claims to help the resistance is actually legit?
For example, shortly after the women's march, a text campaign went viral. You were supposed to text COUNT ME to a number, supposedly to help the organizers get a head count. After this had been going around a while the women's march organizers tweeted that they weren't the ones behind the so-called head count; a group called It's Time Network was. ITN is an ally organization, but it occurred to me that this would be an ingenious way for Trump to compile a list of protesters. Even with an ally behind it, clearly the "head count" was solely a way to get people's contact information, and tons of people went along without really thinking too hard about it.
As a counter example, democracy.io is a legit tool to help you contact your MOC, but you have to go to EFF's homepage and drill down into a list of their projects to make sure. Someone could easily spoof a page and get people's positions and contact info that way.
Facebook is making this worse as a lot of this stuff is going viral via "copy and paste, don't share" posts that make it harder to verify the original source.
Is there a centralized repository for fact-checking or sourcing these kinds of campaigns? Something like Snopes that you can quickly cite if a well-meaning friend posts something that is actually bullshit. Even a Twitter feed would be great if there's someone out there credibly identifying campaigns as legit or bogus.
For example, shortly after the women's march, a text campaign went viral. You were supposed to text COUNT ME to a number, supposedly to help the organizers get a head count. After this had been going around a while the women's march organizers tweeted that they weren't the ones behind the so-called head count; a group called It's Time Network was. ITN is an ally organization, but it occurred to me that this would be an ingenious way for Trump to compile a list of protesters. Even with an ally behind it, clearly the "head count" was solely a way to get people's contact information, and tons of people went along without really thinking too hard about it.
As a counter example, democracy.io is a legit tool to help you contact your MOC, but you have to go to EFF's homepage and drill down into a list of their projects to make sure. Someone could easily spoof a page and get people's positions and contact info that way.
Facebook is making this worse as a lot of this stuff is going viral via "copy and paste, don't share" posts that make it harder to verify the original source.
Is there a centralized repository for fact-checking or sourcing these kinds of campaigns? Something like Snopes that you can quickly cite if a well-meaning friend posts something that is actually bullshit. Even a Twitter feed would be great if there's someone out there credibly identifying campaigns as legit or bogus.
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posted by pantarei70 at 10:55 AM on January 31, 2017 [11 favorites]