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I'm perfectly willing to trust that the WaPo is reporting truthfully and that their sources are legit, but without concrete evidence it's hard to judge how seri
by simias 6y ago
I'm perfectly willing to trust that the WaPo is reporting truthfully and that their sources are legit, but without concrete evidence it's hard to judge how serious the allegation really is.
Is it "they forgot to switch their VPN on once and we got a direct connection from an IP that belongs to the Russian state" like that other time (still manipulable but fairly conclusive IMO) or is it "that really looks like the modus operandi of those damn russians and we really need somebody to pin it on right now"?
To be clear I'm not making one of those "fake news" pro-russian rants, I can totally believe that Russia would very much do the things being reproached here if given the opportunity, I just have a really hard time taking the word of an anonymous source without concrete elements in these matters because the potential for manipulation is so absolutely tremendous.
- TameAntelope 6y agoI tend to consider news reports more akin to a, “here’s what we know now” report than a, “this is the definitive explanation of what’s taken place.” So in that spirit I agree with you. What this looks like, so far, is a sophisticated Russian attack. From here, we’re going to learn more, and that new info may change how we understand what’s happened substantially. Though I will say I personally don’t care much that the source is anonymous, because I trust WaPo to vet what they’ve said with other sources. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s not like journalists are unaware of the groups trying to manipulate them.