4 ms·
> essentially a Russian asset This is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. Obviously a platform like Wikileaks can be "weaponized" by any party against another pa
by resters 8y ago
> essentially a Russian asset
This is a bit of a stretch in my opinion. Obviously a platform like Wikileaks can be "weaponized" by any party against another party.
I think it's a question of what is the most relevant aspect of the leak overall, not who leaked it or why. For instance, suppose someone had leaked detailed information about the misconduct of Jerry Sandusky several years before it became widely known. Would it matter if the leaker had been affiliated with a rival football program?
What I think is so ingenious about Wikileaks is that by releasing the full documents and data sets, it is very easy to take the leaked information simply at face value without worrying about what may have been selectively leaked and why.
In the case of the HRC emails, there were a few concerning themes regarding campaign finance and the Foundation, but those items could easily have been diffused if HRC had owned up to it and offered to have various experts dig deeper into the financials to show that nothing unusual was going on. For some reason the campaign chose a strategy of claiming the emails were fake, which was soon revealed as a lie by the DKIM/DomainKeys signatures on the emails themselves.
So unfortunately in the case of the HRC emails, the campaign chose a bad strategy and then got caught in a lie, all of which was much more consequential than the few bits of information that were potentially worthy of a deeper dive.
Also, one has to believe that WL would not have published damning information about Trump if it had been available. There is no evidence to support that claim either.
My take all along has been that all that is required for WL to be a force of good is for there to be no selective releasing or editorially driven redaction, and for there to be no evidence that WL sat on important information to suppress it. Neither of these have been the case.
WL did maximize the PR value of the HRC/Podesta emails, but I view that as being (especially in hindsight) more of a fundraising/bootstrapping decision than an editorial one. There wasn't anything "smoking gun"-like in the latter emails, they were all apparently released at random to much fanfare.
So anyway, I think the point is in the laundry itself, and that intent matters much less than it would with more narrowly focused leaks, such as those that traditional journalists typically use/abuse.
- paulie_a 8y agoI think he is too dumb to realize he was used as a Russian asset. The attention whoring he is known for blinded him. While dumb, I don't think he has specifically kept secrets about Trump. His actions show a definite agenda. Act two, he just doesn't realize that it is someone else's agenda.
- cwkoss 8y agoIf the New York Times gets an anonymous tip from a Russian spy (which is fact checked and found to be true), would you consider the New York Times as a Russian asset? Where is the line? When is transmitting factual information to the public journalism and when is it not?
- metildaa 8y agoIt seems this line is usually drawn based on political leanings by commenters, which is a poor way of drawing said line.
- azernik 8y agoIf they then release it without reporting on context, taking the Russian source's politically-motivated narrative at face value? Absolutely. Same as if they're acting as a politician's assets if they do likewise with an anonymous political source, only with the added twist of international politics.
- resters 8y agoI don't think this holds up. Who leaks information to a journalist and doesn't have some kind of motive for doing so? Wikileaks actually changes the game on malicious leaks because it won't publish the typical "a high ranking source who wishes not to be named claims that ___" rubbish. Instead, it forces the source to provide the full context of the leak in the form of complete documents. Think about how much mischief a high ranking official could cause by leaking selective or misleading tidbits to reporters... FWIW it happens all the time for obviously political reasons. For typical journalists, the relationship with those high ranking sources is a major form of career capital, and so the journalist must accept whatever tidbits are offered, and is incentivized to present them as requested by the source. In the normal press, leaks are used as propaganda by government officials all the time and journalists play along happily, not caring that they are often spreading propaganda in the form of off the record comments. WL operates at an entirely different level and demands that sources not engage in mischief and supply the source material in its entirety so that the material can be judged on its own merits.
- vel0city 8y agoDo we know that Wikileaks has always released full documents and data sets, or do we just take their website at face value that he's truly never been selective on what to publish?
- cwkoss 8y agoAnyone who wishes to discredit Wikileaks has a strong incentive to release documents which could cast doubt on the authenticity of a Wikileaks release, and in turn the organization as a whole. Many people wish to discredit Wikileaks. So far no one has provided evidence that Wikileaks has ever doctored, edited or manufactured anything in their releases. I think that indicates something, but it's certainly not conclusive.
- michaericalribo 8y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
- cwkoss 8y agoUnfortunately, most public debate about intelligence organizations must be rooted in speculation, as we don't have reliable information about their activities.
- kjeetgill 8y agoVel0 only questioned whether WL was selective, not if they were doctoring documents. You've missed the point. And they are, by their own admission.
- akvadrako 8y agoThey are somewhat selective of course - they have stated it explicitly. They also say they time releases to cause the most impact.