Five years later, and Mikkelson's just been suspended by Snopes after BuzzFeed uncovered massive plagiarism - including instructing other Snopes writers to 'cut-and-paste' mainstream breaking news stories without attribution, and then alter them after the fact.

In total, Mikkelson 'wrote and published 54 articles with plagiarized material,' under his own name as well as a pseudonym, and the Snopes byline. In addition, an internal review by the 'fact-checking' company identified 140 articles with possible problems.

Snopes VP of Editorial and Managing Editor Doreen Marchionni suspended Mikkelson from editorial duties pending "a comprehensive internal investigation." He remains an officer and a 50% shareholder of the company.

"Our internal research so far has found a total of 54 stories Mikkelson published that used appropriated material, including all of the stories Buzzfeed shared with us," Marchionni and Snopes Chief Operating Officer Vinny Green said in a statement.

"Let us be clear: Plagiarism undermines our mission and values, full stop," Marchionni added [ZH: and then not full-stopping]. "It has no place in any context within this organization." -BuzzFeed