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Maybe I'm just too much of a pessimist, but I think Assange (and others like him) are naive to assume that bringing leaks to the general public really has that
by paulchap 6y ago
Maybe I'm just too much of a pessimist, but I think Assange (and others like him) are naive to assume that bringing leaks to the general public really has that much of an effect in today's world - people just don't care enough. You won't find many people actually reading the documents... maybe they notice those going viral, but that's probably it. People don't associate WikiLeaks with the idea of transparency, they associate it with scandals. A tabloid newspaper isn't something the majority of the population respects. WikiLeaks seems to share that negative image. Most of my (Gen Z) peers don't even know WikiLeaks exists.
- annadane 6y agoWhat are they meant to do then? Nothing? I'm super confused by your comment
- paulchap 6y agoI'm not saying they shouldn't have done what they did. I'm just saying that, from what I've read from him, Assange totally miscalculated the effect this would have on the public. The Manning Documents didn't lead to fundamental changes in society. Neither did leaking US diplomatic cables. I'm not really criticizing their actions (well, I'm calling them naive, which, in retrospect, seems like a bad choice of words). If I'm criticizing anyone, it would be our society in general, which only engages with information in a very shallow fashion.