> Is it the job of places like Snopes to only review the literal interpretation of statements being reviewed, or is their job to provide more insight and context into the matter as a whole?
Both!
Rate the claim literally. As a fact-checker, it's not your job to wonder what someone is implying.
Then provide more insight and context. Let readers make their own decisions about hidden meanings.
Literally rating the claim is worthless, though. If all people were wondering about was whether Clinton defended a sexual predator as a lawyer and whether Clinton laughed at any aspect of that it wouldn't be worth putting on snopes in the first place.
If anything, you've argued that snopes overstepped their bounds by covering it at ALL if their job is to cover literal claims. The only reason the claim is interesting is because of context and implication.
Snopes should REALLY evaluate who's on first; I think we all agree that's a good use of their time.
I think that they can privately decide okay, this is worth rating because of implications.
In the presentation, though, I think the implications should be left out. You're a fact checker, and whatever implication you pull from a claim is not necessarily the same as what others pull.
Anyway, I don't want my fact-checkers pushing an agenda, or defeating an agenda, with anything except facts. Let me use facts to side with the truth!
Don't you agree that if you present the facts in the Hillary claim, the implication & agenda is defeated? Why undermine your own trustworthiness by rating the (literal) claim false?
Is there a serious question to what the original claim was implying?
If sites like Snopes only based their ratings on the literal meanings, that would create a huge loophole for any number of dishonest techniques, and obvious cases of lying by omission and quote-mining would end up with a giant "True" label.
Both!
Rate the claim literally. As a fact-checker, it's not your job to wonder what someone is implying.
Then provide more insight and context. Let readers make their own decisions about hidden meanings.