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I mean it’s pretty hard to bullshit the public if your only method is to release authentic documents.

by Tycho 8y ago

meowface 8y ago
Yes, but in the past 2-3 years, Assange and WikiLeaks have been doing far, far more than that. For one, just look at their Twitter and leaked Twitter DMs: https://twitter.com/wikileaks https://twitter.com/wikileaks Also, releasing authentic documents, even if they were the sole thing they ever did, can be itself a form of bullshit, even if the documents are 100% real and not doctored, edited, or manipulated in any way. "Bullshit" is distinct from "lying" or "faked evidence". Selectively releasing documents that only push a certain narrative, while not releasing documents and/or intentionally not attempting to acquire documents associated with other narratives, is a form of manipulation, not a form of journalism. I don't know to what extent Assange practiced these kind of intelligence tradecraft games before the 2016 election, but during and after it, WikiLeaks effectively transformed itself into a private intelligence agency, presumably with Julian Assange at the helm. Maybe it was because of Assange's personal vendetta against Hillary Clinton (his vendetta being pretty justifiable, considering Clinton's frequent attempts to have him extradited, arrested, and imprisoned, and her alleged but unproven references to having him assassinated as cited by what has been claimed to be anonymous State Department sources; this still doesn't excuse Assange's loss of impartiality, though). Maybe it was because Assange saw this as a way of making the US geopolitically weaker and shuffling the superpower deck a bit, due to his issues with the US government. Maybe it was because he wanted to see the world burn. Maybe he was being blackmailed, threatened, or otherwise coerced by non-US countries' governments. Maybe he became a witting agent of a non-US government (though I kind of doubt that). Maybe a mixture. But either way, he lost all pretenses of neutrality and credibility after his actions during the 2016 election were revealed. I don't take issue with WikiLeaks releasing the DNC and Clinton campaign emails - they should've released them - but I do take issue with their underlying campaign, strategy, goals, and motives, as made very evident by their PR efforts, public statements, and leaked private conversations. Organizations like WikiLeaks are a good thing in concept, and WikiLeaks' original stated goals and disclosures do seem to have generally been good and moral, but either something changed, or Assange was playing a long con from the start.
- Tycho 8y ago
  It just doesn’t really matter what Wikileaks say on their Twitter account, the important thing is the documents they host on their site. They’re not a newspaper. They only ask that people examine the documents they publish. Their own impartiality and credibility is simply not an important issue. Maybe if there were known cases of Wikileaks intentionally taking parts of documents out of context to make things look damning, that would be a concern, but i’m not aware of anything like that. They are a conduit for whistle-blowing - if they are holding back documents that don’t suit an agenda then presumably the whistleblower would leak to some other outlet, so I don’t see a big concern there either.

I mean it’s pretty hard to bullshit the public if your only method is to release authentic documents.

by Tycho 8y ago

I mean it’s pretty hard to bullshit the public if your only method is to release authentic documents.

Yes, but in the past 2-3 years, Assange and WikiLeaks have been doing far, far more than that. For one, just look at their Twitter and leaked Twitter DMs: https://twitter.com/wikileaks https://twitter.com/wikileaks Also, releasing authentic documents, even if they were the sole thing they ever did, can be itself a form of bullshit, even if the documents are 100% real and not doctored, edited, or manipulated in any way. "Bullshit" is distinct from "lying" or "faked evidence". Selectively releasing documents that only push a certain narrative, while not releasing documents and/or intentionally not attempting to acquire documents associated with other narratives, is a form of manipulation, not a form of journalism. I don't know to what extent Assange practiced these kind of intelligence tradecraft games before the 2016 election, but during and after it, WikiLeaks effectively transformed itself into a private intelligence agency, presumably with Julian Assange at the helm. Maybe it was because of Assange's personal vendetta against Hillary Clinton (his vendetta being pretty justifiable, considering Clinton's frequent attempts to have him extradited, arrested, and imprisoned, and her alleged but unproven references to having him assassinated as cited by what has been claimed to be anonymous State Department sources; this still doesn't excuse Assange's loss of impartiality, though). Maybe it was because Assange saw this as a way of making the US geopolitically weaker and shuffling the superpower deck a bit, due to his issues with the US government. Maybe it was because he wanted to see the world burn. Maybe he was being blackmailed, threatened, or otherwise coerced by non-US countries' governments. Maybe he became a witting agent of a non-US government (though I kind of doubt that). Maybe a mixture. But either way, he lost all pretenses of neutrality and credibility after his actions during the 2016 election were revealed. I don't take issue with WikiLeaks releasing the DNC and Clinton campaign emails - they should've released them - but I do take issue with their underlying campaign, strategy, goals, and motives, as made very evident by their PR efforts, public statements, and leaked private conversations. Organizations like WikiLeaks are a good thing in concept, and WikiLeaks' original stated goals and disclosures do seem to have generally been good and moral, but either something changed, or Assange was playing a long con from the start.

Tycho 8y ago
It just doesn’t really matter what Wikileaks say on their Twitter account, the important thing is the documents they host on their site. They’re not a newspaper. They only ask that people examine the documents they publish. Their own impartiality and credibility is simply not an important issue. Maybe if there were known cases of Wikileaks intentionally taking parts of documents out of context to make things look damning, that would be a concern, but i’m not aware of anything like that. They are a conduit for whistle-blowing - if they are holding back documents that don’t suit an agenda then presumably the whistleblower would leak to some other outlet, so I don’t see a big concern there either.