Elon Musk went after Snopes hard after the left-wing “fact-checker” linked his Starlink satellite to the Titanic sub disappearance.
Seemingly in too much of a rush to smear Musk, Snopes initially rated as true the following claim, “Was the missing titanic submersible relying on satellites from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to communicate?”
But the embarrassment would continue for the fact-checking website, which ended up altering its findings twice after suggesting the loss of the vessel was the result of a Starlink error, first to say the allegation was “unproven,” and then to declare the allegation “false.”
“You can’t even run a good psy op,” Musk tweeted after Twitter’s Community Notes pointed out an important factor: Starlink can’t be used underwater.
You can’t even run a good psy op
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2023
Musk also responded to a tweet from Mike Solana, vice president of Founders Fund and editor-in-chief At Pirate Wires, laying waste to the site: “Snopes is a con.”
Snopes is a con
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2023
Even after finally rating the claim false, Snopes still appeared to take a subtle shot at Musk’s SpaceX-operated Starlink satellites via an editor’s note acknowledging the updates.
“Since the original publication of this fact check on June 20, 2023, Snopes clarified its rating and text to make clear that — while OceanGate, the company overseeing the submersible’s expedition, said it was using Starlink satellites for the trip — the submersible itself was not using the technology to communicate. How, or to what extent, the vessel’s mothership was using Starlink to communicate remained unknown,” the note read.
OceanGate Expeditions was charging tourists $250,000 to visit the remains of the Titanic in its “experimental” sub. Earlier this month, the company took to Twitter to voice its appreciation for Starlink’s internet service.
Despite being in the middle of the North Atlantic, we have the internet connection we need to make our #Titanic dive operations a success – thank you @Starlink! pic.twitter.com/sujBmPr3JD
— OceanGate Expeditions (@OceanGateExped) June 1, 2023
There were five people aboard the sub and they are now believed to be dead after it was reported on Thursday that a debris field was found — a U.S. Navy acoustic system detected an “anomaly” on Sunday, which is widely believed to be the sub’s fatal implosion.
Here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:
Community Notes > Snopes
— LilHumansBigImpact (@BigImpactHumans) June 21, 2023
Fact checkers are simply “misinformation launderers”
— Danny Bowen (@DannyBowen) June 21, 2023
Suing them out of existence would be fun. But they’re doing a good job discrediting themselves so they should just be labeling themselves a parody account at this point.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 21, 2023
The establishment media is resorting to propaganda, using it in a targeted manner to attack Elon Musk’s company, Starlink. They’re accusing Starlink without providing a shred of evidence to support their claims of the company’s supposed culpability. pic.twitter.com/UWeFLLxyub
— Misha Fitton (@MishaFitton) June 21, 2023
Snopes is nothing more than a propaganda wing of the DNC masquerading as a legitimate fact-checker.
— David Wohl (@DavidWohl) June 21, 2023
Darn, I invested in a company designing a wetsuit with built-in Starlink, based out of Nigeria.
— Dr. Joe Borelli (@DocBorelli) June 21, 2023
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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