> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://tools.osintnewsletter.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://tools.osintnewsletter.com/osint-tools/snopes.md). # Snopes Tool Description : Fact-checking and investigative journalism platform used to assess the accuracy, origin and context of online claims, rumours, images, videos and misinformation. | **Snopes** | **Quick Overview** | | ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | URL | | | What it does | Fact-checks claims, rumours, images, videos and online misinformation. | | How to use it | Search a claim, keyword or subject and review Snopes' fact-check, evidence and sources. | | Cost | Partially Free. | | Account required | No | | Cookies | A mixture of advertising/identity cookies, analytics/referral information, and a site-location cookie. | | Ownership | Owned by Chris Richmond and Drew Schoentrup, USA based. | | Use in Reporting | Useful for verifying disputed claims, identifying misinformation and locating supporting/contradicting evidence. | ### What does Snopes do? Snopes investigates claims circulating online and publishes assessments supported by evidence and source material. Its coverage includes: * Viral social-media claims. * Misleading or manipulated images. * Videos and memes. * Political claims. * Rumours and hoaxes. * Misleading statistics. * Conspiracy theories. * Satire presented as fact. * AI-generated or manipulated content. The platform uses ratings including False, Mostly False, Mixture, Mostly True, True and Unproven, although it increasingly publishes investigations and explainers that do not necessarily receive a simple true/false rating. **The lowdown:** Plain and simple it’s a verification tool. It also maintains a large searchable archive, making it useful for checking whether a particular rumour or image has previously been investigated. ### How to Use: **1. Search for the claim, phrase, person, event or subject you are investigating. Try distinctive wording from the original post or headline.** **2. Read the Snopes article results and examine the rating, explanation, evidence and cited sources. Pay particular attention to the distinction between what is established, what is false and what remains uncertain.** **3. Follow Snopes' underlying sources and independently verify the evidence. Record the Snopes article, rating, publication date and relevant primary sources in your investigation.** ### Cost * [ ] Free * [x] Partially Free * [ ] Paid Substantial public content is available, with paid membership providing additional benefits/content. ## Data Processing ### Account Required: * [ ] Yes * [x] No No for ordinary fact-check searches. An account is required for certain membership features. ### Cookies: The site uses first- and third-party cookies for functionality, referral attribution, advertising and audience measurement. Observed cookies included Criteo's cto\_bundle, Prebid Unified ID cookies (pbjs-unifiedid and pbjs-unifiedid\_cst), Scorecard Research identifiers (UID and XID), a first-party referral cookie (snopes\_tdata) and a regional user-location cookie. ### Use in Reporting Snopes can be used to: * Verify claims encountered during an OSINT investigation. * Identify misinformation, hoaxes and manipulated narratives circulating online. * Determine whether an image, video, quotation or social-media post has previously been investigated. * Corroborate findings from social-media, reverse-image and open-web research. * Identify the original sources and evidence used to assess a disputed claim. * Document fact-check ratings, publication dates and supporting evidence for an investigative record. * Identify the origins and development of recurring rumours or misinformation narratives. | **Capabilities** | **Limitations** | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Provides researched assessments of online claims and rumours. | Snopes is a secondary source, not the original evidence behind every claim. | | Covers images, videos, social-media posts, quotations, statistics and narratives. | A fact-check may not cover a new variation of an existing rumour. | | Provides explanations and supporting sources rather than simply labelling content true or false. | Some claims are genuinely inconclusive. Snopes uses ‘Unproven’ where available evidence does not support a definitive conclusion | | Maintains a large searchable archive of previous fact checks. | Ratings can simplify complex claims and should be read alongside the underlying article. | | Can help identify misinformation, satire, manipulated content and misleading context. | The quality of a conclusion depends partly on the evidence available to the researchers at the time. | | Can provide useful leads to primary sources, experts, records and other evidence. |


| ### Summary Snopes itself has increasingly described its work as extending beyond traditional fact-checks into deeper news explainers and investigations, particularly where claims cannot be reduced neatly to ‘true’ or ‘false’. The platform is particularly valuable during the verification stage of the OSINT workflow when an investigator encounters a viral claim, questionable photograph, suspicious quotation, manipulated image or piece of misinformation. ### Ownership The site is owned by [Chris Richmond ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Richmond_\(entrepreneur\))and Drew Schoentrup, who acquired 100% of the company in September 2022. It was originally owned and founded by David and Barbara Mikkelson who launched the site in 1994 as an urban legend and folklore reference resource. ### Ethical Considerations * Follow and assess the underlying sources cited by Snopes. * Be aware that some claims are genuinely inconclusive and may receive an Unproven assessment. * Check publication dates because misinformation can reappear in altered forms years later. * Avoid presenting a Snopes rating without explaining what specific version of the claim was assessed. * Consider whether the original material has subsequently changed or been deleted. * Do not assume that because Snopes has investigated a claim, every related claim or variation has also been investigated. ### Related Tools: * Full Fact * Google Fact Check Tools * [Politifact](/osint-tools/politifact.md) * [Fact Check](/osint-tools/fact-check.md) #### Sources