8 ms·

I think out of all the "news" media so far Wikileaks is probably the most trustworthy. I've seen people claim they altered the emails or Russians wrote the ema

by rdtsc 10y ago

I think out of all the "news" media so far Wikileaks is probably the most trustworthy. I've seen people claim they altered the emails or Russians wrote the emails, I think they'd have to point to specific instances for me to see it. I don't remember a single instance of them altering an email. I don't remember anyone credible refuting and saying they didn't write it. How do we know these emails are interesting and useful -- we listen to the CNN of course, remember folks "...it is illegal to possess these stolen documents. It is different from the media. So everything you learn about this, you are learning from us." that was my first hint documents should be read very closely. When mass media lies about something it overcompensates, and one heuristic I use is I just reverse the meaning of it. "don't read the documents" and I interpret it as "that's a place to take a look", or "we are exporting democracy to the Middle East" that means "we are installing puppet regimes there" and so on. It is a funny exercise.

grandalf 10y ago
> I've seen people claim they altered the emails or Russians wrote the emails, I think they'd have to point to specific instances for me to see it. I don't remember a single instance of them altering an email. I don't remember anyone credible refuting and saying they didn't write it. Yes, once Wikileaks showed cryptographic proof that the emails were authentic, those criticisms stopped.
TAForObvReasons 10y ago
> I don't remember anyone credible refuting and saying they didn't write it. The criticisms were generally of a different sort: editorializing in their selection of leaks. "selective omission", if you will. They have information about Trump but chose not to release it. According to Breitbart (so you know it's not from a "liberal media" source): http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/wikileaks-info-donald-trump/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/wikileaks-info-dona... > “We do have some information about the Republican campaign,” Assange said. “I mean, it’s from a point of view of an investigative journalist organization like WikiLeaks, the problem with the Trump campaign is it’s actually hard for us to publish much more controversial material than what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth every second day ..." I don't know about you, but I feel like it would have been helpful for the people to know what they had on Trump. Seems oddly opaque and politically motivated. It really doesn't help that they were selling explicitly anti-Clinton merchandise in their store: http://i.imgur.com/AjsWfqg.jpg http://i.imgur.com/AjsWfqg.jpg This is one example. In other cases, such as the Syria files, known-to-have-existed emails that involved Russia mysteriously weren't leaked and many people have speculated that stemmed from a pro-Russia bias. If they were releasing everything they had, it would be hard to criticize. But when you see the pattern of leaks and omissions, it's hard not to make the argument that they are playing politics.
- grandalf 10y ago
  > This is one example. In other cases, such as the Syria files, known-to-have-existed emails that involved Russia mysteriously weren't leaked and many people have speculated that stemmed from a pro-Russia bias. I thought of this, but certainly there would have been someone CC'ed on one of those emails who would have leaked it to prove WL was sitting on relevant emails. This didn't happen.
  - wrongc0ntinent 10y ago
    Mind explaining the logic?
    - grandalf 10y ago
      All they'd need to do is leak a single email, or even a snippet of a single email that was in the relevant date range but not released, and assert that WL had suppressed it. FWIW we also saw HRC and her cronies claiming that the recently released emails were doctored. They made this claim straight-faced and it was cryptographically proven to be completely false. So claims about WL's motivations and actions have thus far not stood up to scrutiny, and our officials have thus far been proven to be dishonest.
      - wrongc0ntinent 10y ago
        Their motivations are irrelevant. Proving politicians are hypocrites is easier than finding metaphors in the bible. Their releases have undeniably been assimilated by one candidate using WL's credibility and flavor of scandal. WL went along with it. "Troves" don't have signatures. Omissions and context matter. See the ICIJ approach.
        grandalf 10y ago
        > "Troves" don't have signatures. Omissions and context matter. See the ICIJ approach. Even a single email offered by anyone claiming WL omitted emails would suggest you might be right. None have been offered.
akytt 10y ago
The e-mails don't have to be altered. Russians just have to make sure they get the data, filter out stuff they don't like leaving neutral and desired content and the publish the data in the right time accompanied by a specific media coverage so it gets noticed. This is information warfare. A statement that a body specifically not subject to any self-regulation mechanisms and unknown data sources (that has hurt people before, remember the Turkish leaks) is somehow more trustworthy than media, that has ages of ethical and regulatory history? Of course you have to think of what you were told, of course you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc. But Wikileaks fits too snugly into both russian agenda and ideology (everybody is lying and our blatant fabrications ate therefore as much truth as anything) to ignore.
- meowface 10y ago
  Wikileaks may be following a Russian agenda (due to shared goals; enemy of my enemy is my friend), but what do you mean by "blatant fabrications"? Wikileaks hyperbolized the marketing about some of the emails, but never once fabricated anything that I'm aware of.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > But Wikileaks fits too snugly into both russian agenda Agree it does. And if I had to pick a country not to like (or rather I'd say a government) Russia would be it. My family has tangibly been hurt by them. And I'd like to blame them, but the whole "it is the Russians" excuse is a bit too much. This seems to be like a classical PR technique of deflection. And it was pushed too far by Hillary's campaign and the rest of the mass media. When they overemphasize something, it is probably a lie and I know to look the other way. As for hacking the email server, I would say Russian did it, but probably any state actor which were moderately advanced probably got into it. If they knew the Secretary of State of the most powerful country in the world had a private server and didn't try to hack into it, whoever was doing "hacking" should have been fired probably. > has ages of ethical and regulatory history? Unfortunately how mass media has behaved, I put their ethical and trustworthiness below Wikileaks at this point. > you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc. Yap I do that. I found in general, media is a bit more trustworthy if they don't have an inherent conflict of interest. For example Al Jazeera is not to be trusted with any news from ME or especially close to Qatar for example. Who do you listen to? Is BBC a pretty good source?
akytt 10y ago
The e-mails don't have to be altered. Russians just have to make sure they get the data, filter out stuff they don't like leaving neutral and desired content and the publish the data in the right time accompanied by a specific media coverage so it gets noticed. This is information warfare. A statement that a body specifically not subject to any self-regulation mechanisms and unknown data sources (that has hurt people before, remember the Turkish leaks) is somehow more trustworthy than media, that has ages of ethical and regulatory history? Of course you have to think of what you were told, of course you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc. But Wikileaks fits too snugly into both russian agenda and ideology (everybody is lying and our blatant fabrications ate therefore as much truth as anything) to ignore.
wahern 10y ago
It's easy to trust Wikileaks. The only standard they have to adhere to is to not invent, adulterate, or filter material. That's a pretty low standard. By contrast, professional journalists seek out and independently confirm leaks with other insiders. They associate, summarize, and contextualize. Wikileaks doesn't do this--they can't do this--because their sources are anonymous, and because Wikileaks has foresworn taking upon itself the responsibility and concomitant risk (of error, of bias) of doing those other things. That means Wikileaks is in no better position than anyone else. Their value add, beyond serving as an initial depot for leaks, is thin. And that's fine. Similarly, there's little to criticize. (I've seen claims on HN that Assange rejected some purported Trump leaks, but I didn't check on that myself.) I absolutely think Wikileaks is useful and essential. But if the outlet you trust the most is Wikileaks, you'll never really know or understanding anything. It's like saying the only source of information you can trust is the Internet. What does that even mean? How can you possibly think you can consume all of that data unassisted? While you claim Wikileaks is the most trustworthy, I suspect that most of your opinions (whatever they are) were principally informed by other journalists reviewing, criticizing, and editorializing on what Wikileaks publishes. You're flying blind if you don't realize that. For example, you claim that CNN is lying about the legality of possessing classified documents. How did you form that opinion? All on your own? Are you a lawyer specializing in the confluence of national security and free speech law? The person spreading falsehood here is Sarah Hannon. She said, CNN has even suggested, wrongly, that readers may have legal troubles if they download documents from our site. The reality--which you can confirm with a few moments of Googling--is that the government interprets the relevant statues such that if you hold a security clearance, then reading classified material without authorization, no matter where it came from, is considered illegal. You have an affirmative duty not to read it under their interpretation. That rule makes more sense than you'd think because you don't want people claiming that they "stumbled" onto classified information. Criminal law in the U.S. requires intention, and without the law requiring that you affirmatively avoid classified information, it's much easier to get out of a charge on a technicality. It also incentivizes people who do stumble onto classified information to notify authorities. Furthermore, acquiring a security clearance is something you choose to do, not something forced upon you, which means typical Free Speech defenses are far less likely to help you. And that presumes that it is legal for everyone else to possess _any_ classified information that has been published via Wikileaks. (Which is, at best, highly debatable. And I definitely cannot see SCOTUS creating a blanket, bright-line rule like that without leaving a caveat for unforeseen circumstances.) And on top of that, Hannon even acknowledges that CNN hedged with "may have legal troubles". Clearly they're less comfortable making such absolute claims than Hannon. Now, we can agree or disagree with the law or the government's interpretation. I'm not about to defend any aspect of how the U.S. government classifies and manages information. (Which is to say, I think much of the system is ethically indefensible.) But facts are far tricker things than you'd think. Not acknowledging that is very dangerous.

by rdtsc 10y ago

grandalf 10y ago

> I've seen people claim they altered the emails or Russians wrote the emails, I think they'd have to point to specific instances for me to see it. I don't remember a single instance of them altering an email. I don't remember anyone credible refuting and saying they didn't write it. Yes, once Wikileaks showed cryptographic proof that the emails were authentic, those criticisms stopped.

TAForObvReasons 10y ago

> I don't remember anyone credible refuting and saying they didn't write it. The criticisms were generally of a different sort: editorializing in their selection of leaks. "selective omission", if you will. They have information about Trump but chose not to release it. According to Breitbart (so you know it's not from a "liberal media" source): http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/wikileaks-info-donald-trump/ http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/08/27/wikileaks-info-dona... > “We do have some information about the Republican campaign,” Assange said. “I mean, it’s from a point of view of an investigative journalist organization like WikiLeaks, the problem with the Trump campaign is it’s actually hard for us to publish much more controversial material than what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth every second day ..." I don't know about you, but I feel like it would have been helpful for the people to know what they had on Trump. Seems oddly opaque and politically motivated. It really doesn't help that they were selling explicitly anti-Clinton merchandise in their store: http://i.imgur.com/AjsWfqg.jpg http://i.imgur.com/AjsWfqg.jpg This is one example. In other cases, such as the Syria files, known-to-have-existed emails that involved Russia mysteriously weren't leaked and many people have speculated that stemmed from a pro-Russia bias. If they were releasing everything they had, it would be hard to criticize. But when you see the pattern of leaks and omissions, it's hard not to make the argument that they are playing politics.

grandalf 10y ago
> This is one example. In other cases, such as the Syria files, known-to-have-existed emails that involved Russia mysteriously weren't leaked and many people have speculated that stemmed from a pro-Russia bias. I thought of this, but certainly there would have been someone CC'ed on one of those emails who would have leaked it to prove WL was sitting on relevant emails. This didn't happen.
- wrongc0ntinent 10y ago
  Mind explaining the logic?
  - grandalf 10y ago
    All they'd need to do is leak a single email, or even a snippet of a single email that was in the relevant date range but not released, and assert that WL had suppressed it. FWIW we also saw HRC and her cronies claiming that the recently released emails were doctored. They made this claim straight-faced and it was cryptographically proven to be completely false. So claims about WL's motivations and actions have thus far not stood up to scrutiny, and our officials have thus far been proven to be dishonest.
    - wrongc0ntinent 10y ago
      Their motivations are irrelevant. Proving politicians are hypocrites is easier than finding metaphors in the bible. Their releases have undeniably been assimilated by one candidate using WL's credibility and flavor of scandal. WL went along with it. "Troves" don't have signatures. Omissions and context matter. See the ICIJ approach.
      - grandalf 10y ago
        > "Troves" don't have signatures. Omissions and context matter. See the ICIJ approach. Even a single email offered by anyone claiming WL omitted emails would suggest you might be right. None have been offered.

akytt 10y ago

The e-mails don't have to be altered. Russians just have to make sure they get the data, filter out stuff they don't like leaving neutral and desired content and the publish the data in the right time accompanied by a specific media coverage so it gets noticed. This is information warfare. A statement that a body specifically not subject to any self-regulation mechanisms and unknown data sources (that has hurt people before, remember the Turkish leaks) is somehow more trustworthy than media, that has ages of ethical and regulatory history? Of course you have to think of what you were told, of course you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc. But Wikileaks fits too snugly into both russian agenda and ideology (everybody is lying and our blatant fabrications ate therefore as much truth as anything) to ignore.

meowface 10y ago
Wikileaks may be following a Russian agenda (due to shared goals; enemy of my enemy is my friend), but what do you mean by "blatant fabrications"? Wikileaks hyperbolized the marketing about some of the emails, but never once fabricated anything that I'm aware of.
rdtsc 10y ago
> But Wikileaks fits too snugly into both russian agenda Agree it does. And if I had to pick a country not to like (or rather I'd say a government) Russia would be it. My family has tangibly been hurt by them. And I'd like to blame them, but the whole "it is the Russians" excuse is a bit too much. This seems to be like a classical PR technique of deflection. And it was pushed too far by Hillary's campaign and the rest of the mass media. When they overemphasize something, it is probably a lie and I know to look the other way. As for hacking the email server, I would say Russian did it, but probably any state actor which were moderately advanced probably got into it. If they knew the Secretary of State of the most powerful country in the world had a private server and didn't try to hack into it, whoever was doing "hacking" should have been fired probably. > has ages of ethical and regulatory history? Unfortunately how mass media has behaved, I put their ethical and trustworthiness below Wikileaks at this point. > you need to balance your sources with al jazeera, bbc etc. Yap I do that. I found in general, media is a bit more trustworthy if they don't have an inherent conflict of interest. For example Al Jazeera is not to be trusted with any news from ME or especially close to Qatar for example. Who do you listen to? Is BBC a pretty good source?

akytt 10y ago

wahern 10y ago

It's easy to trust Wikileaks. The only standard they have to adhere to is to not invent, adulterate, or filter material. That's a pretty low standard. By contrast, professional journalists seek out and independently confirm leaks with other insiders. They associate, summarize, and contextualize. Wikileaks doesn't do this--they can't do this--because their sources are anonymous, and because Wikileaks has foresworn taking upon itself the responsibility and concomitant risk (of error, of bias) of doing those other things. That means Wikileaks is in no better position than anyone else. Their value add, beyond serving as an initial depot for leaks, is thin. And that's fine. Similarly, there's little to criticize. (I've seen claims on HN that Assange rejected some purported Trump leaks, but I didn't check on that myself.) I absolutely think Wikileaks is useful and essential. But if the outlet you trust the most is Wikileaks, you'll never really know or understanding anything. It's like saying the only source of information you can trust is the Internet. What does that even mean? How can you possibly think you can consume all of that data unassisted? While you claim Wikileaks is the most trustworthy, I suspect that most of your opinions (whatever they are) were principally informed by other journalists reviewing, criticizing, and editorializing on what Wikileaks publishes. You're flying blind if you don't realize that. For example, you claim that CNN is lying about the legality of possessing classified documents. How did you form that opinion? All on your own? Are you a lawyer specializing in the confluence of national security and free speech law? The person spreading falsehood here is Sarah Hannon. She said, CNN has even suggested, wrongly, that readers may have legal troubles if they download documents from our site. The reality--which you can confirm with a few moments of Googling--is that the government interprets the relevant statues such that if you hold a security clearance, then reading classified material without authorization, no matter where it came from, is considered illegal. You have an affirmative duty not to read it under their interpretation. That rule makes more sense than you'd think because you don't want people claiming that they "stumbled" onto classified information. Criminal law in the U.S. requires intention, and without the law requiring that you affirmatively avoid classified information, it's much easier to get out of a charge on a technicality. It also incentivizes people who do stumble onto classified information to notify authorities. Furthermore, acquiring a security clearance is something you choose to do, not something forced upon you, which means typical Free Speech defenses are far less likely to help you. And that presumes that it is legal for everyone else to possess _any_ classified information that has been published via Wikileaks. (Which is, at best, highly debatable. And I definitely cannot see SCOTUS creating a blanket, bright-line rule like that without leaving a caveat for unforeseen circumstances.) And on top of that, Hannon even acknowledges that CNN hedged with "may have legal troubles". Clearly they're less comfortable making such absolute claims than Hannon. Now, we can agree or disagree with the law or the government's interpretation. I'm not about to defend any aspect of how the U.S. government classifies and manages information. (Which is to say, I think much of the system is ethically indefensible.) But facts are far tricker things than you'd think. Not acknowledging that is very dangerous.