Why have you people not fixed this yet? This is terrible.
snopesclickbait.png
Fucking everything about that Snopes clickbait is horrible.
We know that
just exposing people to fake news stories is sufficient to spread them. Most people are going to believe them
even if they've been debunked. So just by putting that headline on the front page of Google News, Snopes is knowingly spreading lies. To make it worse, they don't even debunk the lie in the headline, so the negligible benefit of providing 'fact checking' only works for the tiny percentage of those who click through to the article. And only for the secondary tiny subset of those who don't think that Snopes is a tool for liberal propaganda.
Now, look at the Politifact one, on the same topic. They don't lay out the whole stupid claim in the headline. They just refer to it as a "hate crimes hotline," so people who've already seen the story will know what it's about. And look at what else they do: They make it clear, right there in the headline, that it's "wrong."
This is inexcusable. They used to be p. cool guys, but Snopes is fucking toxic now, and if they don't stop doing this, Google should stop boosting their headlines.
IF I HAD A TWITTER, I would yell at them there, but I do not have one and it probably wouldn't be that effective to just make a one-off account just to yell at them.
If someone who already uses Twitter would tweet that screenshot at Google and Snopes, though, I would write them one custom formal style poem, anything from a haiku to a sestina, on the specific topic of their choice, and I provide my personal guarantee that it will be dreadfully bad.