It appears that NPR has simply reported on the fin

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Snopes has endured because it has proved reliable. And the site has had a significant influence on how journalism is practiced in the digital era.

"Snopes laid the foundation for online fact-checking," says Bill Adair, the founder of PolitiFact, a Pulitzer-prize winning offshoot of the Tampa Bay Times. "The site's early work debunking urban myths showed there was a substantial digital audience that wanted accurate information."

While many newspapers and television stations were scrutinizing the veracity of campaign ads, many claims made more broadly often passed without challenge.

Snopes has since been joined by many other players; Factcheck.org, affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, was established in 2003, and PolitiFact started in the early part of the 2008 presidential cycle. Major news organizations including NPR, the New York Times and the Washington Post now routinely fact-check statements made by major public figures.

Among its more recent posts, Snopes has unraveled claims that Pope Francis endorsed President Trump's campaign, that the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was staged, and that the star of a Nickelodeon sitcom for kids was arrested for prostitution. All were false.

Facebook has turned to Snopes as one of the five U.S.-based fact-checking it relies upon to help stave off the spread of hoax accounts, often called "fake news." (Trump has adopted and co-opted the term to encompass mainstream news reports he doesn't like or that are critical of his administration.)

In a project still in the testing phase, Facebook users can flag posts shared on the social media site as questionable; if enough users do so it is sent to the fact-checking outfits, which can share related posts that evaluate the veracity of its claims. If something has been debunked, a badge saying so is attached to the post to caution Facebook users.

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