Modulo

Snopes

Recommended Ages

Middle school–adult

Snopes is one of the oldest and most widely known fact-checking websites, dedicated to investigating rumors, urban legends, news stories, and viral claims. Each article explains the origin of a claim, evaluates evidence, and assigns a clear rating, from “True” to “False” or “Mixed.” Founded in the 1990s by David and Barbara Mikkelson, Snopes has grown into a small team of researchers working to help the public navigate misinformation. Parents and educators value it as a quick, reliable reference when students encounter questionable stories online. It’s best used with middle schoolers and up, as articles assume some reading stamina. Because it’s a public website, some topics may be sensitive; adult guidance is recommended. To get the most educational value, have students read an article, identify the sources used, and then practice applying the same skeptical lens to new claims they encounter.

Teens and adults who are already online and can handle nuanced explanations, plus families wanting to model real‑time fact‑checking when questionable stories or memes appear.

Pros

Long‑running fact‑checking site known for debunking rumors, hoaxes, and viral claims with detailed sourcing; frequently cited in media‑literacy guides as a key tool for teaching students how to verify information.

Cons

Articles are text‑heavy and written for a general audience rather than children; it’s a tool, not a curriculum, and some readers perceive political bias depending on which myths get debunked.

The site is supported through advertising, subscriptions, and donations, not public‑education funds; families access it for free without involving ESAs or charters.

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Skills

What kids will learn
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Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking
Civics
Civics
Life Skills
Life Skills

Snopes Mission

Snopes’ mission is to help people navigate rumors, hoaxes, and questionable claims by providing well-researched, clearly explained fact-checks. As one of the internet’s earliest myth-busting sites, it investigates everything from viral social-media posts to long-standing urban legends, documenting sources and context so readers can better understand what’s true, what’s false, and what falls in between.

Snopes Story

Snopes began in 1994 when California couple David and Barbara Mikkelson created a hobby website called the Urban Legends Reference Pages to catalog and debunk folklore circulating on early online forums. As email chains and later social media amplified rumors and misinformation, their small project evolved into Snopes.com, a full-time endeavor supported by advertising and a growing editorial staff. Over the years, Snopes has weathered ownership changes and industry headwinds while becoming a widely cited reference for journalists, educators, and everyday readers who need a quick, trustworthy check on dubious stories. [oai_citation:25‡Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/about/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

About Modular Learning

FAQ: Additional Details about Snopes

At the dining‑room table, your teen might hand you their phone and ask, “Is this real?”; together you type a few key words into Snopes, scroll to find the matching claim, and then read the explanation out loud, pausing to discuss how the fact‑checkers traced images, dates, and sources.

Snopes is a long‑running fact‑checking website that investigates rumors, memes, news stories, and viral claims, rating them from True to False (and several shades in between). Homeschoolers use it as a critical‑thinking tool: when a surprising claim appears in a feed, you search for it on Snopes, read the claim and ruling, and then examine the evidence together.

Parents model the habit of checking sensational claims before sharing them, guide kids through reading the evidence, and help them connect Snopes’ process to broader media‑literacy skills.

Best for upper‑elementary through adult learners with solid reading comprehension and basic web‑navigation skills; younger kids can participate if an adult does the searching and summarizing.

Snopes is a fact‑checking site that older teens can use to verify claims, an excellent skill for autistic, ADHD, and gifted youth who encounter misinformation online. Parents can model how to look up rumors and evaluate sources, turning it into a practical media‑literacy habit.

Browsing Snopes is free; any optional subscription or donation refunds are handled directly between users and Snopes according to its current terms.

Not ideal for young children or families expecting a scripted digital‑citizenship course; also not great if you want all content pre‑filtered for age‑appropriateness.

Alternatives and companions include FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, AP Fact Check, News Literacy Project resources, Checkology, and Common Sense Media’s curriculum.

Snopes publishes new fact‑checks continually and has begun experimenting with AI‑powered tools like FactBot to help users query its archives more quickly while still grounding answers in the underlying articles.

When something wild crosses your feed, pull it up on Snopes with your teen, evaluate credibility together, and talk about how you’ll handle similar content in the future before sharing it.

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Meet David and Barbara

David and Barbara Mikkelson, self-described folklore enthusiasts from the San Fernando Valley, co-founded what would become Snopes.com in the mid-1990s, initially drawing on their participation in the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban. Without formal training in investigative reporting, they built a reputation for methodically tracing the origins of rumors and documenting evidence in plain language, helping to pioneer online fact-checking long before social platforms grappled with misinformation. Although both have since stepped back from day-to-day editorial roles, their early work laid the foundation for one of the internet’s best-known fact-checking organizations. [oai_citation:26‡Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes?utm_source=chatgpt.com)