Snopes Lead Writer Admits She Gets High While Fact Checking

Snopes lead writer Kim LaCapria admitted in her personal blog that she smokes pot while fact checking political articles.

The Daily Mail report that LaCapria, who boasts of being a dominatrix called Vice Vixen, also keeps a personal sex blog. In her personal blog she described what she did on a day off, writing that she “played scrabble, smoked pot, and posted to Snopes.” She then added, “That’s what I did on my day ‘on,’ too.”

The revelation raises further alarm bells for those uncomfortable with Facebook’s inclusion of Snopes in their fact checking team. Should a team of unqualified, avowedly liberal bloggers in California, who operate in a company with no checks and measures or standardized quality control, be given the power to decide what constitutes “real news” that will be allowed on Facebook timelines?

Snopes became the voice of reason by debunking Bigfoot stories and accounts of UFOs in Haiti, then in an ill-advised case of mission creep moved into political fact checking. Snopes have been added to the Red Flagged Spam Sites list – curated and shared by young progressive Democrats – as a “hit and miss” source. Snopes are no more trusted than most of the sites they disagree with politically and loftily claim to debunk.

When it comes to politics, Snopes’ modus operandi involves framing questions artfully so they can answer with the FALSE or UNPROVEN verdict that suits their partisan agenda. For more information see here and here. Being debunked by Snopes these days feels like being savaged by a dead sheep.

In a world where news that doesn’t confirm one’s bias gets flagged as fake, and the snowflake generation seek the solace of a partisan liberal fact checking site to tell them the world is exactly like they think it is, Snopes are thriving. The Daily Mail exposé revealed David Mikkelson, the founder, takes $50K holidays and divorced his wife for a porn star/prostitute.

But the most troubling part of the exposé of the Snopes HQ den of depravity is the fact that lead fact checker Kim LaCapria admits she smokes weed while fact checking. It’s California, it’s legal. That’s not the problem. The problem is that fact checking political news is a serious business, and it should be taken seriously by Snopes – especially now that Facebook have anointed them watchdogs of all of our news feeds.

Facebook should draw the line at using the services of a fact checking company whose senior staff admit they work while stoned. There is too much at stake.