8 ms·

Election meddling is not inherently bad. If your version of "election meddling" is just by sharing facts about a potential electee, than I would say that you ha

by jonfw 8y ago

Election meddling is not inherently bad. If your version of "election meddling" is just by sharing facts about a potential electee, than I would say that you have meddled in a positive manner by making americans more educated. If he was engaged in manipulating vote counts, or if he was spreading false information, I would see the problem. But wikileaks for the most part just shared accurate government secrets. You're just using "election meddling" as a negatively connotated buzzword, without supporting how this was negative to the american people. I also meddled with the election by sharing my opinion on the internet, or at least I attempted to. Does that mean I'm anti-american? What if a foreign person retweeted me, or vice versa? Have I now colluded with foreigners to meddle with the election? The support of foreigners is not evidence of wrong-doing, and the sharing of information in an attempt to influence an election is not wrongdoing. Free speech includes speech about the elections, in fact that's where it is MOST important.

belltaco 8y ago
Selective leaking and delaying/timing leaks for maximum impact is election meddling. > if he was spreading false information https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate Leading to https://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john-podesta-pizzagate-766489/ https://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john-pod... Also implying that Seth Rich was the real leaker and that the DNC had him killed for it. http://www.fox5dc.com/news/wikileaks-founder-addresses-death-of-dnc-staffer-seth-rich-in-fox-news-interview http://www.fox5dc.com/news/wikileaks-founder-addresses-death...
- jonfw 8y ago
  I know that it intends to meddle with the election. Like I said, that isn't inherently a bad thing. I also fully intend on "election meddling" by sharing my opinions on the internet. As should you. It's on you to prove why this is bad for the american people. Here are quotes from the two conspiracy theories you were talking about. Did you even read the articles you linked? he specifically warned in both instances that he did not have damning evidence of either of these things. > WARNING: This investigation is a Speculative investigation which lacks clear and provable evidence, yet could be interesting should additional evidence be presented. > We're not saying that Seth Rich's death necessarily is connected to our publications – that's something that needs to be established Assange is not responsible for the conspiracy theories that other people generate from his information.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > So what you're saying is that he hasn't named the real leaker and hasn't made any firm claims on who the real leaker is? I believe the specific portion most people would find troubling in that article is: “We're not saying that Seth Rich's death necessarily is connected to our publications – that's something that needs to be established,” said Assange. “But if there is any question about a source of WikiLeaks being threatened, then people can be assured that this organization will go after anyone who may have been involved in some kind of attempt to coerce or possibly, in this kill a potential source.” > Assange is not responsible for the conspiracy theories that other people generate from his information. Well, that depends. There are definitely ways I could purposefully word information that would give people a strong impression I was trying to communicate something without saying it. Do I believe Assange made any factual statements here that the staffer was a wikileaks source and he was killed because of the leak? No. Do I believe he was trying to insinuate himself and Wikileaks into a narrative where he knew they had nothing to do with it, possibly wasting resources that could have gone towards finding the actual killer, and lending credence to a narrative that we now know (to my knowledge) was untrue? Yes. That's not illegal. It does affect how people perceive him and his endeavors though.
    - jonfw 8y ago
      For the sake of anybody else reading this, I edited my previous comment before you responded, but at the time you saw my comment your first quote was accurate. My fault for that disjointed communication, I thought I edited it quickly enough. In that quote he has specifically said "We're not saying that Seth Rich's death neccessarily is connected to our publications." I see nothing wrong with entertaining a conspiracy theory if you aren't lying about having evidence you may not have. I'd like to hear how you know that Assange knew that they had nothing to do with it? Because your argument seems to hinge on that idea.
      - kbenson 8y ago
        > I'd like to hear how you know that Assange knew that they had nothing to do with it? Because your argument seems to hinge on that idea. I'm not sure who "they" are in this question. I assume Assange knows who his sources are, and as someone who claims to be a journalist and run a journalistic enterprise, he would not accuse people of something he had no evidence of. At this point, there's plenty of investigations as to whether he was a source, many of which are shown on the relevant portion of his Wikipedia page.[1] Either all the evidence so far is incorrect, or Assange knew he wasn't a source, or Assange didn't know whether he was or was not a source, and in either case, anyone that claims to be a journalist or working towards exposing the truth should not be making statements such as he did, or at least that's the opinion of many people. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Debunking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Debunking
kbenson 8y ago
> Election meddling is not inherently bad. Meddling has a negative connotation, so it's probably not useful to continue using that term if trying to discuss this particular issue as something that may not be negative. Tampering has worse connotations, but if you're "meddling" in something, it's implied you're getting involved where you don't belong. That said, as I noted many people believe it was meddling in this case for numerous reasons (the timing, the specifics of the situation, how it could be perceived as supporting a particular side). I'm not interested in litigating whether it actually was election tampering/meddling, and I worded my comment specifically to note that. I am interesting in shutting down another line of "Ah, another case of [other group] who are {evil,stupid,hypocrites,wrong} because of [belief] which is wrong because of [contrived example which discounts much of the real reasons people believe that]." It's not constructive to the discussion, does not lead to future useful discussions (and any it does lead to can be reached through far more constructive means), and since the same reasoning can be applied to any response, it's ultimately fruitless. It's pointless and nonconstructive in the same way saying "Trump supporters don't care what he does as long as he sticks it to the Democrats" is. Edit: Clarified what I meant by my first sentence.
- jonfw 8y ago
  I'm using the term you used. I'm not concerned with the connotation, I'm concerned with making an argument based in fact. You said that some people make the distinction between "election meddling" and "exposing government actions". What I'm saying is that those two aren't mutually exclusive and you'd be incorrect to make that distinction as a rule. Anytime you expose government actions on a democratic government you're naturally going to have some amount of influence on the next election, so frankly it seems rather unintelligent to attempt to draw a distinction there. Either unintelligent or dishonest.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    > I'm using the term you used. My point is that it's an imprecise term, and one that carries baggage in the language. If you're going to make a case that it's not descriptive of what's going on because the negative connotation it carries may not be present in the situation, it's worth using a neutral re-wording to clarify the point. > You said that some people make the distinction between "election meddling" and "exposing government actions". What I said is people believe wikileaks meddled, and I meant that with all the negative connotations that implies because that's what I was trying to express. That's the point, because we're discussing how some people's opinions changed over time. Ignoring the negative connotation is ignoring the word choice I specifically chose on purpose. As I noted in the prior comment, when discussing opinion and belief over time, facts are irrelevant. Can meddling (or, to clarify, being involved in disseminating information) in an election not be negative? Obviously. That's not what's being discussed here, and whether Wikileaks did or did not do it is irrelevant to whether people have a rational reason for their beliefs given the information they were exposed to.
roguecoder 8y ago
Well, after all, Watergate was just a voter persuasion project.
- jonfw 8y ago
  Running a website that publishes other people's leaks at times convenient for an election is not the same as orchestrating a surveillance program and than a cover-up (as a sitting president!). This is an extremely dishonest comparison.

by jonfw 8y ago

belltaco 8y ago

Selective leaking and delaying/timing leaks for maximum impact is election meddling. > if he was spreading false information https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate https://our.wikileaks.org/Pizzagate Leading to https://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john-podesta-pizzagate-766489/ https://rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john-pod... Also implying that Seth Rich was the real leaker and that the DNC had him killed for it. http://www.fox5dc.com/news/wikileaks-founder-addresses-death-of-dnc-staffer-seth-rich-in-fox-news-interview http://www.fox5dc.com/news/wikileaks-founder-addresses-death...

jonfw 8y ago
I know that it intends to meddle with the election. Like I said, that isn't inherently a bad thing. I also fully intend on "election meddling" by sharing my opinions on the internet. As should you. It's on you to prove why this is bad for the american people. Here are quotes from the two conspiracy theories you were talking about. Did you even read the articles you linked? he specifically warned in both instances that he did not have damning evidence of either of these things. > WARNING: This investigation is a Speculative investigation which lacks clear and provable evidence, yet could be interesting should additional evidence be presented. > We're not saying that Seth Rich's death necessarily is connected to our publications – that's something that needs to be established Assange is not responsible for the conspiracy theories that other people generate from his information.
- kbenson 8y ago
  > So what you're saying is that he hasn't named the real leaker and hasn't made any firm claims on who the real leaker is? I believe the specific portion most people would find troubling in that article is: “We're not saying that Seth Rich's death necessarily is connected to our publications – that's something that needs to be established,” said Assange. “But if there is any question about a source of WikiLeaks being threatened, then people can be assured that this organization will go after anyone who may have been involved in some kind of attempt to coerce or possibly, in this kill a potential source.” > Assange is not responsible for the conspiracy theories that other people generate from his information. Well, that depends. There are definitely ways I could purposefully word information that would give people a strong impression I was trying to communicate something without saying it. Do I believe Assange made any factual statements here that the staffer was a wikileaks source and he was killed because of the leak? No. Do I believe he was trying to insinuate himself and Wikileaks into a narrative where he knew they had nothing to do with it, possibly wasting resources that could have gone towards finding the actual killer, and lending credence to a narrative that we now know (to my knowledge) was untrue? Yes. That's not illegal. It does affect how people perceive him and his endeavors though.
  - jonfw 8y ago
    For the sake of anybody else reading this, I edited my previous comment before you responded, but at the time you saw my comment your first quote was accurate. My fault for that disjointed communication, I thought I edited it quickly enough. In that quote he has specifically said "We're not saying that Seth Rich's death neccessarily is connected to our publications." I see nothing wrong with entertaining a conspiracy theory if you aren't lying about having evidence you may not have. I'd like to hear how you know that Assange knew that they had nothing to do with it? Because your argument seems to hinge on that idea.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      > I'd like to hear how you know that Assange knew that they had nothing to do with it? Because your argument seems to hinge on that idea. I'm not sure who "they" are in this question. I assume Assange knows who his sources are, and as someone who claims to be a journalist and run a journalistic enterprise, he would not accuse people of something he had no evidence of. At this point, there's plenty of investigations as to whether he was a source, many of which are shown on the relevant portion of his Wikipedia page.[1] Either all the evidence so far is incorrect, or Assange knew he wasn't a source, or Assange didn't know whether he was or was not a source, and in either case, anyone that claims to be a journalist or working towards exposing the truth should not be making statements such as he did, or at least that's the opinion of many people. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Debunking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Debunking

kbenson 8y ago

> Election meddling is not inherently bad. Meddling has a negative connotation, so it's probably not useful to continue using that term if trying to discuss this particular issue as something that may not be negative. Tampering has worse connotations, but if you're "meddling" in something, it's implied you're getting involved where you don't belong. That said, as I noted many people believe it was meddling in this case for numerous reasons (the timing, the specifics of the situation, how it could be perceived as supporting a particular side). I'm not interested in litigating whether it actually was election tampering/meddling, and I worded my comment specifically to note that. I am interesting in shutting down another line of "Ah, another case of [other group] who are {evil,stupid,hypocrites,wrong} because of [belief] which is wrong because of [contrived example which discounts much of the real reasons people believe that]." It's not constructive to the discussion, does not lead to future useful discussions (and any it does lead to can be reached through far more constructive means), and since the same reasoning can be applied to any response, it's ultimately fruitless. It's pointless and nonconstructive in the same way saying "Trump supporters don't care what he does as long as he sticks it to the Democrats" is. Edit: Clarified what I meant by my first sentence.

jonfw 8y ago
I'm using the term you used. I'm not concerned with the connotation, I'm concerned with making an argument based in fact. You said that some people make the distinction between "election meddling" and "exposing government actions". What I'm saying is that those two aren't mutually exclusive and you'd be incorrect to make that distinction as a rule. Anytime you expose government actions on a democratic government you're naturally going to have some amount of influence on the next election, so frankly it seems rather unintelligent to attempt to draw a distinction there. Either unintelligent or dishonest.
- kbenson 8y ago
  > I'm using the term you used. My point is that it's an imprecise term, and one that carries baggage in the language. If you're going to make a case that it's not descriptive of what's going on because the negative connotation it carries may not be present in the situation, it's worth using a neutral re-wording to clarify the point. > You said that some people make the distinction between "election meddling" and "exposing government actions". What I said is people believe wikileaks meddled, and I meant that with all the negative connotations that implies because that's what I was trying to express. That's the point, because we're discussing how some people's opinions changed over time. Ignoring the negative connotation is ignoring the word choice I specifically chose on purpose. As I noted in the prior comment, when discussing opinion and belief over time, facts are irrelevant. Can meddling (or, to clarify, being involved in disseminating information) in an election not be negative? Obviously. That's not what's being discussed here, and whether Wikileaks did or did not do it is irrelevant to whether people have a rational reason for their beliefs given the information they were exposed to.

roguecoder 8y ago

Well, after all, Watergate was just a voter persuasion project.

jonfw 8y ago
Running a website that publishes other people's leaks at times convenient for an election is not the same as orchestrating a surveillance program and than a cover-up (as a sitting president!). This is an extremely dishonest comparison.