Elon Musk denounces left-wing fact-checking website Snopes.Com
Elon Musk has slammed left-wing fact-checker Snopes after his website ruled the claim that his Starlink satellite played a role in the disappearance of the Titan submarine as true.
It initially flagged a claim that the billionaire’s company was partly responsible for the OceanGate submarine’s disappearance on Tuesday as “true” and placed a big green check next to it.
“OceanGate, the company behind the submarine that went missing in June 2023 while exploring the wreckage of the Titanic, relied on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites to communicate during the expedition,” the claim read.
But Snopes subsequently updated his post to say it was “unproven” before giving the necessary context and ultimately labeling it “false.”
Musk, owner of the social media website, responded and lashed out at the website for flagging the false allegation as true.
Elon Musk has heavily criticized left-wing fact-checker Snopes after his website ruled as true the claim that his Starlink satellite played a role in the disappearance of the Titan submarine
It initially flagged a claim that the billionaire’s company was responsible for the OceanGate submarine’s missing as “true” and placed a green check next to it
The company was then hit with a community post on Twitter explaining that Starlink had nothing to do with the submarine’s communications.
Snopes made a claim that the Starlink satellite internet system, which is operated by Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX, was in charge of communications between the surface crew and the Titan submarine.
“OceanGate, the company behind the submarine that went missing in June 2023 while exploring the wreckage of the Titanic, relied on Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites to communicate during the expedition,” the allegation read.
It suggested that the ship’s disappearance was partly to blame for Starlink and Snopes had rated it “true.” Although it admitted that it didn’t know many of the important details.
The fact-checking website offered context which read: “Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which is run by Elon Musk. However, we don’t know how much Starlink is responsible for the loss of contact with the sub, nor the reasons behind that loss of contact.’
Snopes shared the post on Twitter and received a community comment posted to “add context to potentially misleading tweets.”
“Starlink operates in the 10.7 to 12.7 GHz band,” it said. ‘The penetration depth of 2.45 GHz in water is <8 cm and decreases with increasing frequency.
“Therefore, Starlink cannot be used to communicate with an underwater submarine.”
“You can’t even run a proper psy-op,” the Tesla CEO replied Wednesday to a Snopes tweet promoting the post. His tweet has been viewed more than 2.3 million times.
Musk, who owns Twitter, responded to the tweet, criticizing the website for flagging the false accusation as true
Snopes updated its review to the claim as “unknown” and put a gray question mark next to it when it got more information
But the company then updated the fact-check for a third time, eventually dismissing the claim as “false”
Snopes updated its review to the claim as “unknown” and put a gray question mark next to it when it got more information.
In addition to the claim, Snopes also changed the context, saying: “Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which is operated by Elon Musk, and OceanGate did indeed say that it relied on the company for the exhibit, which included the submarine and a mothership – i.e. , a vessel that remains above water during the exhibition to navigate and interact with the land.
“It is not known whether or to what extent Starlink was ever used by the submarine itself, or if it was only used by the mothership.
“That said, we don’t know how much Starlink is responsible for the loss of contact with the sub, nor the reasons behind that loss of contact.”
But the company then updated the fact-check for a third time, eventually dismissing the claim as “false.”
The accompanying context was again updated to read: ‘However, scientists have pointed out that the submarine would have had an acoustic connection to the surface craft and could not rely on satellite internet to communicate with the surface.
“How or under what circumstances the mothership used Starlink technology during the expedition remained unknown.”
The final version came with an editor’s note acknowledging the errors of the first two versions.
Snopes was founded in 1994 by David Mikkelson (pictured), a computer science graduate, with his then-wife Barbara Hamel. In August 2021, he was suspended from his editorial duties pending an investigation for plagiarizing more than 50 articles and writing under an assumed name.
“Since the original publication of this fact-check on June 20, 2023, Snopes has clarified its review and text to make it clear that – although OceanGate, the company overseeing the submarine’s expedition, said it used Starlink satellites for the journey – the submarine itself was not using the technology to communicate,” it read.
“How, or to what extent, the ship’s mothership used Starlink to communicate remained unknown.”
Snopes was founded in 1994 by David Mikkelson, a computer science graduate, with his then-wife Barbara Hamel.
He was suspended from editorial duties in August 2021 pending an investigation for plagiarizing more than 50 articles and writing under an assumed name.
Mikkelson apologized, blaming the behavior on a lack of journalistic training.
“I didn’t come from a journalistic background,” he said at the time. ‘I wasn’t used to news aggregation. A number of times I crossed the line where it was copyright infringement. I own that.’
After an investigation by BuzzFeed News, he was banned from publishing articles on the page.
The co-founder kept his position as CEO, but retired later in 2022.