Snopes' Biden blunder is the latest example of fact-checkers getting the facts wrong

Liberal fact-checker Snopes had egg on its face over its attempt at running cover for President Biden. 

Biden went viral last week for wearing a construction hard hat backwards during a photo op with Wisconsin union workers. But as critics mocked the president on social media, Snopes published an article declaring the claim he wore it backwards was "false."

"The photo is genuine. And it does look, at first glance, like Biden was wearing that hard hat backwards," Snopes told readers. "But after comparing it to other photos and videos of the same event, we were forced to reach the opposite conclusion: The hat on Biden's head was facing forward, bill to the front, not backward."

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Bizarrely included in Snopes' report was another photo from Biden's visit showing a union worker wearing the same hard hat the correct way but suggested it was being worn backwards. 

"Anyone want to razz that man for how he chooses to wear his hard hat?" Snopes asked. 

Well, critics razzed Snopes instead, so much so that the fact-checker was forced to issue a correction. 

"We received a ton of comments in a very short time challenging our assumption that wearing a hard hat ‘backwards’ means wearing it with the bill facing to the rear, and ‘forwards’ means wearing it bill to the front," Snopes wrote in a long-winded editor's note before concluding that the viral claim about Biden was in fact true. 

The hard hat debacle is hardly the only example of Snopes getting its facts wrong.

Last year, for example, Snopes suggested the viral claim that X owner Elon Musk’s Starlink company was partially responsible for the disappearance of the OceanGate submersible was "true," then updated the fact check to say it was "unproven," before finally adding the necessary context and deeming the allegation "false." 

And in 2022, Snopes was scolded by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office for claiming a realistic-looking list of banned books circulating on social media "originated as satire" rather than simply being declared "false," despite including titles such as "The Lord of the Rings." 

When it comes to fact-checkers botching their own fact-checks, Snopes is in good company. 

Like Snopes, USA Today published a specious fact-check in defense of Biden, who in September 2021 was accused of repeatedly looking at his watch during a dignified transfer ceremony honoring the 13 US servicemen killed in the Kabul airport terrorist attack during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

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After Gold Star families aired their complaints against the president, USA Today insisted Biden checked his watch "only after the ceremony," giving the claim a "partly false" rating.

Following intense backlash, however, USA Today walked back its rating and conceded Biden "checked his watch multiple times" during the ceremony. But instead of giving the claim a "true" rating, USA Today inexplicably labeled the claim "missing context."

In 2022, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler offered a mea culpa for a 2021 fact-check that handed two Pinocchios to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., for predicting that murderers like convicted terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would receive a COVID stimulus check.  

At the time, Kessler dismissed Cotton's assertion as a "hyped-up claim" that "lack[ed] significant context," dismissing his comments as "scaremogering." However, records later revealed Tsarnaev, who is currently serving a life sentence after murdering three people and injuring hundreds of others in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, had received over $21,000 since his time as an inmate and among the deposits was COVID relief in June 2021.

Kessler was forced to revisit his poorly-aged fact-check after receiving an email from Cotton's press secretary requesting an update to the 2021 article. 

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"We take such requests seriously and are always willing to review a fact check in light of new information," Kessler wrote in an "update" of his report. "Cotton primarily received the Two-Pinocchio rating because his comments lacked context… Still, Cotton’s predictive powers should be acknowledged. He said the Boston bomber would get a stimulus check — and Tsarnaev did."

"But in retrospect, the use of the phrase of ‘scaremongering’ was inappropriate. Cotton had raised a legitimate issue of concern, even if he framed it in a political way. The term ‘hyped up’ in the headline went too far as well," Kessler admitted. "Thus, we will reduce the rating on this claim to One Pinocchio — our version of 'mostly true.' His statement still lacks some context, but he was certainly correct that Tsarnaev would receive a stimulus check."

In November 2021, PolitiFact doubled down on an erroneous fact-check from 2020 claiming Kyle Rittenhouse's possession of a weapon during the Kenosha riots wasn't legal, despite the judge overseeing the murder trial tossing out a charge against him of having a dangerous weapon as a minor. 

The outlet originally challenged a claim made by a random Facebook user in August 2020 who wrote, "Carrying a rifle across state lines is perfectly legal," adding, "Based on the laws I can find of this area at 17 years old Kyle was perfectly legal to be able to possess that rifle without parental supervision."

"Is that true? State laws suggest not," PolitiFact's Daniel Funke wrote at the time.

"The Wisconsin Department of Justice honors concealed carry permits issued in Illinois. But Rittenhouse did not have a permit to begin with, and he was not legally old enough to carry a firearm in Wisconsin," Funke wrote, before going into concealed and open carry laws in Wisconsin and Rittenhouse's home state of Illinois.

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Funke did cite a Wisconsin gun rights attorney who noted an exception to shotguns and rifles, which allows "children ages 16 and 17" to hunt, but said it doesn't apply to Rittenhouse because he "wasn’t in Kenosha to hunt."

"Whether Rittenhouse violated Wisconsin law by possessing a firearm underage is the subject of ongoing litigation. But the Facebook post claimed that it was ‘perfectly legal’ for the teenager to carry an assault-style rifle in Kenosha," Funke continued. "At best, that’s unproven. At worst, it’s inaccurate. Either way, we rate the post False."

After the fact-check resurfaced during the Rittenhouse trial when the gun charge was dismissed, PolitiFact updated its report with a lengthy editor's note, which concluded, "These subsequent events show the grey areas of local gun laws — hardly a case of something being ‘perfectly legal.’ Our fact-check remains unchanged." 

Notably, Funke was the same "fact-checker" behind USA Today's Biden fact-check. He is now an editor at Agence France-Presse (AFP) News Agency. 

CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale co-authored a "Facts First" report in March 2020 challenging a litany of alleged COVID-related falsehoods made by then-President Trump and his administration. Among them was Trump's assertion that a vaccine would come "relatively soon."

‘Relatively soon’ is too vague a phrase to call this claim false, but Trump did not mention that Fauci had told him earlier that day that a vaccine was ‘a year to a year and a half’ away. Fauci similarly told the Senate the next day that the process of getting a vaccine ready to deploy ‘will take at least a year and a year and a half,’" Dale wrote at the time. 

Of course, the COVID vaccines came much sooner than a year and a half as companies like Pfizer and Moderna announced they had developed their own vaccines just eight months later. 

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Perhaps the biggest failure to come from the fact-checkers was when they collectively dismissed the COVID lab leak theory in 2020.

In the early months of the pandemic, several prominent Republicans, including Cotton, suggested COVID leaked from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology instead of stemming from a natural origin like the often-cited wet markets. It wasn't until more recently that multiple government agencies, including the FBI have publicly concluded that COVID "most likely" came from the lab.

At the time, however, Cotton and others were hit with an onslaught of fact-checks rejecting the lab leak theory.

USA Today confidently stated in its fact-check that the lab leak theory was "false information" that was pushed by right-leaning outlets, calling it a "conspiracy" and giving it a "FALSE" rating. 

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Snopes similarly declared in April 2020 that the infectiousness of COVID "is a testament to natural selection, not bioengineering" and that any notion that it originated from a lab was a "conspiracy theory." 

In March 2021, a separate fact-check from Snopes took a swipe at Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who implied that COVID came from a lab, writing, "Repeating something countless times over the course of a year does not actually make it a fact." 

CNN published a "Facts First" examination of Cotton's claims in February 2020, insisting "it’s possible, yet unlikely, that the lab was connected to the start of the outbreak." 

A separate CNN headline from April 2020 read "Nearly 30% in the US believe a coronavirus theory that’s almost certainly not true" and was based on a Pew Research poll taken at the time. 

"Its origin is up for debate, but it wasn’t made in a lab," CNN reported. "There’s still much we don’t know about the coronavirus pandemic, but virus experts agree on one piece of its origin story: The virus likely originated in a bat, not in a Chinese lab."

Liberal outlet Vox delved into the fact-checking game in April 2020 when it published a report, titled "Why these scientists still doubt the coronavirus leaked from a Chinese lab." The article criticized the Trump administration for seeking "new ways to blame China for the pandemic" to "divert attention from his failures" and implied the "spy-novel-worthy" lab leak theory simply wasn’t logical. 

"Five scientists I interviewed, some of whom have worked extensively in China with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, say the pandemic can’t logically be pinned on an accident at that lab," Vox's then-science, health and climate editor Eliza Barclay – now the climate editor for New York Times Opinion – wrote in 2020. "And one expert added that it could be dangerous to get too preoccupied with this theory when the threat of another disease with pandemic potential from wildlife is so high."

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The Washington Post released a 10-minute video report tackling the subject concluding it was "doubtful" the virus came from a lab. 

"The balance of scientific evidence strongly suggests the conclusion of the new coronavirus emerged from nature, be it in the Wuhan market or somewhere else," The Post fact-checker said. "Too many perfect coincidences would have had to take place for it to have escaped from a lab, but the Chinese government has not been willing or able to provide information that would clarify lingering questions about any possible role played by the Wuhan labs."

PolitiFact had one of the most alarming "fact checks" on Sept. 16, 2020, calling the lab leak possibility a "debunked conspiracy theory" that was "inaccurate and ridiculous," handing it a "Pants on Fire" ruling. 

USA Today, Vox, PolitiFact and The Washington Post would ultimately revise their reporting, while CNN and Snopes chose not to update their erroneous articles.

Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.