6 ms·

The leaks were subversive...to the camp that thinks Wikileaks didn't also spread state sponsored Russian disinfo (unwittingly or not).

by meroes 5y ago

cwkoss 5y ago
Do you have a source on any instance where Wikileaks spread "disinfo"? Wikileaks likely did spread information which was provided by and served the interests of Russia, but I've never seen a credible argument that false information was published.
- meroes 5y ago
  I view the GRU stealing private data and using Wikileaks to coordinate releasing it as disinfo.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    I think classifying 'stolen' data that is accurate being released as "disinfo" is a horrifying and dangerous precedent. Where do you draw the line between what wikileaks did and other investigative reporting that uses information from whistleblowers? Were the pentagon papers disinfo? It seems like your position taken to its extreme would disregard all information except info willingly broadcasted by the state, and make us blind to stories of war crimes, corruption, anything else that embarrasses or threatens the state.
    - ABCLAW 5y ago
      The issue isn't the content of the data. It's the context of the release. You're trying to threaten a slippery slope wherein all information needs to be state sanctioned, but the definition of disinformation makes it clear that the only time information gains that moniker is when it's actively being spread to mislead for malicious purposes. Quite the contrary to your 'extreme' extrapolation, the term disinformation allows us to identify the use of malicious state-sponsored information warfare. It FIGHTS state sponsored narratives. It doesn't support it.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  A carefully chosen+edited truth can be worth fifty lies... And as a result, disinformation is commonly meant to include lies of omission, etc. The wikileaks approach of 'publish all the things' was just begging to be used by a state propaganda machine.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    Using the term "disinfo" for "accurate but incomplete info" seems like an Orwellian misuse of the term. Are there any credible sources indicating that Wikileaks selectively edited or chose what to publish based on political goals? I think they have some sort of process to validate legitimacy of leaks before they publish them, but I've never heard claims that they intentionally edited or chose not to leak information for Wikileaks own political goals. Certainly possible that Russia leaked true-but-incomplete information to Wikileaks, but isn't, like, all discussion of reality true-but-incomplete? Edit: Sibling thread found a claim of selective editing I was not previously aware of. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-russia-bank-2-billion/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-r...
    - meroes 5y ago
      I view the GRU stealing private data and using Wikileaks to coordinate releasing for the purpose of sowing discord and possibly to help Trump win the election as disinfo. > After the Soviet term became widely known in the 1980s, native speakers of English broadened the term as "any government communication (either overt or covert) containing intentionally false and misleading material, often combined selectively with true information, which seeks to mislead and manipulate either elites or a mass audience."[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation - March 16: Internal WikiLeaks messages indicate the purpose of the archive is to annoy Clinton and establish WikiLeaks as a "resource/player" in the election.[29]:44–45 - June 14: The GRU uses its @dcleaks_ persona to reach out to WikiLeaks and offer to coordinate the release of sensitive information about Clinton, including financial documents.[353][29]:45 - June 22: WikiLeaks reaches out to "Guccifer 2.0" via Twitter. They ask "Guccifer 2.0" to send them material because it will have a bigger impact if they publish it. They also specifically ask for material on Clinton they can publish before the convention.[256] I'm not saying Assange is guilty of any crimes, or doctored evidence. But Wikileaks had an agenda beyond "the facts". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections#cite_note-MuellerReportAssangeSmearedDailyBeast-20190418-353 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_interferen...
- slg 5y ago
  The whole Seth Rich debacle is the most obvious example in which they strongly implied that he was the source of leaked DNC docs. We later found out that Wikileaks was still in contact with the source after Seth Rich was already dead. There are plenty of source links in the Wikipedia article[1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#WikiLeaks_statements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#WikiLeaks_...
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    Ah, that's fair. Wikileaks' twitter account played much faster and looser than what they published on their website. I'm curious if we'll ever get an accounting of the internal organizational power struggles that occurred during the 2016 election. It felt like Assange and his proxies were seeking vengeance through Twitter (to be fair, its claimed Hillary Clinton joked "Can't we just drone this guy" about Assange - no lack of bad blood between them), but that somehow never seemed to bleed onto the Wikileaks website itself.
  - pydry 5y ago
    Strongly implied by saying "we don't comment on who our sources are"? It's not clear that Wikileaks even knew who their source was.
    - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
      While you might not know who your source was, if you're in contact with them after the proposed contact point's death you clearly are aware it is not that person. They played coy when they knew overtly he was not the contact point.
      - pydry 5y ago
        Is a good journalist supposed to hint revealingly with a nod and a wink and compromise their source? Isn't the whole point that they supposed to play coy?
        5y ago
- nemo 5y ago
  Wikileaks disinfo has almost always been in deeply misleading and sometimes explicitly false editorializing and framing of leaks rather than the content. They also post a lot of misinformation to their Twitter account - falsely claiming Bob Beckel was a Clinton staffer, boosting the false Seth Rich story, boosting bogus Clinton health claims, and much more besides. They also posted selectively edited leaks to hide information that made Russia look bad: https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/09/09/wikileaks-hid-syrian-deposits-in-russian-bank https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/09/09/wikileaks-hi... Their selective choice of leaks which they did and did not choose to accept also suggests a lot of bias: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l... Their internal leaked chats from 2016 showed they were consciously and deliberately skewing their coverage to help the GOP and harm Dems: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-election-clinton-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks... They're very biased, and their biases come out in what they choose to publish, what they refuse to publish, and how they choose to editorialize, and in one known case in selective editing of a leak, but in general the leaks themselves aren't "false information" but are documents which they're spreading to create a specific narrative, and in several cases like the Syria, Podesta, DCCC, and DNC leaks it's clear they're serving as a front for Russian intelligence agencies to spread a specific narrative to aid Russian goals rather than further the truth. Since they serve as a front for foreign intelligence agencies, it's totally possible they're getting drops from other intelligence agencies with similar agendas.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    Interesting, that's the first I've read of the selective editing claim. It seems like there is some room for ambiguity (What if RevoluSec intentionally withheld these emails to discredit wikileaks? Is RevoluSec CIA/NSA?) but certainly shifts my bayesian priors a bit. Thanks for sharing. Short of evidence that they published falsehoolds, I'd still argue that "disinfo" is a misnomer. But your above points certainly demonstrate biased reporting, as is found in any other journalistic organization.
- pydry 5y ago
  >Wikileaks likely did spread information which was provided by and served the interests of Russia There was a strange schizophrenia about those email leaks from DNC media outlets. They routinely said that it held nothing of any interest (e.g. the story about the recipes - https://www.vox.com/2016/10/12/13253852/wikileaks-john-podesta-risotto https://www.vox.com/2016/10/12/13253852/wikileaks-john-podes... ) but that it was also done to serve the interests of Russia and derailed the election - https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17569030/mueller-indictments-russia-hackers-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-democratic-national-convention https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17569030/mueller-indictments-r... The idea that truthfully informing voters about the views and actions of a candidate was reprehensible if it affected the outcome of the election was never actually justified, it was simply assumed.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    Those aren't contradictory, and both are supported by the evidence. Which do you actually disagree with, or do you simply not see how both can be true? Affecting the outcome of an election is not inherently wrong. Foreign countries affecting the outcome of our elections is dangerous, and has historically been very frowned upon. There's reasons that only Americans are allowed to donate to election campaigns. Our elections are supposed to be for _us_. If whatever countries want a particular outcome start having an outsized voice, our elections will be even less connected to what's best for Americans than they already were.
    - pydry 5y ago
      I disagreed that there was nothing in the emails and explained below. I also disagree with the notion that a foreign power revealing truths about a candidate is wrong. If you reject a foreign truth over a domestic lie you reject the very heart of democracy itself. It's all the more ironic given the amount of meddling the US has done in foreign elections, including Russia's.
      - kadoban 5y ago
        You didn't really say what was in them that you found valuable, unless I missed it? What important truths did they reveal? Okay, but then you're welcoming well-funded nations to spend outsized money and effort on attacking whatever candidate they will get the least from. How does that not devolve into our elections just being playthings of our enemies? What is ironic about this? I also do not think that the US should meddle in foreign elections, but that doesn't really have anything to do with this.

The leaks were subversive...to the camp that thinks Wikileaks didn't also spread state sponsored Russian disinfo (unwittingly or not).

by meroes 5y ago

The leaks were subversive...to the camp that thinks Wikileaks didn't also spread state sponsored Russian disinfo (unwittingly or not).

cwkoss 5y ago

Do you have a source on any instance where Wikileaks spread "disinfo"? Wikileaks likely did spread information which was provided by and served the interests of Russia, but I've never seen a credible argument that false information was published.

meroes 5y ago
I view the GRU stealing private data and using Wikileaks to coordinate releasing it as disinfo.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  I think classifying 'stolen' data that is accurate being released as "disinfo" is a horrifying and dangerous precedent. Where do you draw the line between what wikileaks did and other investigative reporting that uses information from whistleblowers? Were the pentagon papers disinfo? It seems like your position taken to its extreme would disregard all information except info willingly broadcasted by the state, and make us blind to stories of war crimes, corruption, anything else that embarrasses or threatens the state.
  - ABCLAW 5y ago
    The issue isn't the content of the data. It's the context of the release. You're trying to threaten a slippery slope wherein all information needs to be state sanctioned, but the definition of disinformation makes it clear that the only time information gains that moniker is when it's actively being spread to mislead for malicious purposes. Quite the contrary to your 'extreme' extrapolation, the term disinformation allows us to identify the use of malicious state-sponsored information warfare. It FIGHTS state sponsored narratives. It doesn't support it.
sdenton4 5y ago
A carefully chosen+edited truth can be worth fifty lies... And as a result, disinformation is commonly meant to include lies of omission, etc. The wikileaks approach of 'publish all the things' was just begging to be used by a state propaganda machine.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  Using the term "disinfo" for "accurate but incomplete info" seems like an Orwellian misuse of the term. Are there any credible sources indicating that Wikileaks selectively edited or chose what to publish based on political goals? I think they have some sort of process to validate legitimacy of leaks before they publish them, but I've never heard claims that they intentionally edited or chose not to leak information for Wikileaks own political goals. Certainly possible that Russia leaked true-but-incomplete information to Wikileaks, but isn't, like, all discussion of reality true-but-incomplete? Edit: Sibling thread found a claim of selective editing I was not previously aware of. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-russia-bank-2-billion/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-r...
  - meroes 5y ago
    I view the GRU stealing private data and using Wikileaks to coordinate releasing for the purpose of sowing discord and possibly to help Trump win the election as disinfo. > After the Soviet term became widely known in the 1980s, native speakers of English broadened the term as "any government communication (either overt or covert) containing intentionally false and misleading material, often combined selectively with true information, which seeks to mislead and manipulate either elites or a mass audience."[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation - March 16: Internal WikiLeaks messages indicate the purpose of the archive is to annoy Clinton and establish WikiLeaks as a "resource/player" in the election.[29]:44–45 - June 14: The GRU uses its @dcleaks_ persona to reach out to WikiLeaks and offer to coordinate the release of sensitive information about Clinton, including financial documents.[353][29]:45 - June 22: WikiLeaks reaches out to "Guccifer 2.0" via Twitter. They ask "Guccifer 2.0" to send them material because it will have a bigger impact if they publish it. They also specifically ask for material on Clinton they can publish before the convention.[256] I'm not saying Assange is guilty of any crimes, or doctored evidence. But Wikileaks had an agenda beyond "the facts". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections#cite_note-MuellerReportAssangeSmearedDailyBeast-20190418-353 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_interferen...
slg 5y ago
The whole Seth Rich debacle is the most obvious example in which they strongly implied that he was the source of leaked DNC docs. We later found out that Wikileaks was still in contact with the source after Seth Rich was already dead. There are plenty of source links in the Wikipedia article[1]. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#WikiLeaks_statements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#WikiLeaks_...
- cwkoss 5y ago
  Ah, that's fair. Wikileaks' twitter account played much faster and looser than what they published on their website. I'm curious if we'll ever get an accounting of the internal organizational power struggles that occurred during the 2016 election. It felt like Assange and his proxies were seeking vengeance through Twitter (to be fair, its claimed Hillary Clinton joked "Can't we just drone this guy" about Assange - no lack of bad blood between them), but that somehow never seemed to bleed onto the Wikileaks website itself.
- pydry 5y ago
  Strongly implied by saying "we don't comment on who our sources are"? It's not clear that Wikileaks even knew who their source was.
  - AutumnCurtain 5y ago
    While you might not know who your source was, if you're in contact with them after the proposed contact point's death you clearly are aware it is not that person. They played coy when they knew overtly he was not the contact point.
    - pydry 5y ago
      Is a good journalist supposed to hint revealingly with a nod and a wink and compromise their source? Isn't the whole point that they supposed to play coy?
      - 5y ago
nemo 5y ago
Wikileaks disinfo has almost always been in deeply misleading and sometimes explicitly false editorializing and framing of leaks rather than the content. They also post a lot of misinformation to their Twitter account - falsely claiming Bob Beckel was a Clinton staffer, boosting the false Seth Rich story, boosting bogus Clinton health claims, and much more besides. They also posted selectively edited leaks to hide information that made Russia look bad: https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/09/09/wikileaks-hid-syrian-deposits-in-russian-bank https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/09/09/wikileaks-hi... Their selective choice of leaks which they did and did not choose to accept also suggests a lot of bias: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l... Their internal leaked chats from 2016 showed they were consciously and deliberately skewing their coverage to help the GOP and harm Dems: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-election-clinton-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks... They're very biased, and their biases come out in what they choose to publish, what they refuse to publish, and how they choose to editorialize, and in one known case in selective editing of a leak, but in general the leaks themselves aren't "false information" but are documents which they're spreading to create a specific narrative, and in several cases like the Syria, Podesta, DCCC, and DNC leaks it's clear they're serving as a front for Russian intelligence agencies to spread a specific narrative to aid Russian goals rather than further the truth. Since they serve as a front for foreign intelligence agencies, it's totally possible they're getting drops from other intelligence agencies with similar agendas.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  Interesting, that's the first I've read of the selective editing claim. It seems like there is some room for ambiguity (What if RevoluSec intentionally withheld these emails to discredit wikileaks? Is RevoluSec CIA/NSA?) but certainly shifts my bayesian priors a bit. Thanks for sharing. Short of evidence that they published falsehoolds, I'd still argue that "disinfo" is a misnomer. But your above points certainly demonstrate biased reporting, as is found in any other journalistic organization.
pydry 5y ago
>Wikileaks likely did spread information which was provided by and served the interests of Russia There was a strange schizophrenia about those email leaks from DNC media outlets. They routinely said that it held nothing of any interest (e.g. the story about the recipes - https://www.vox.com/2016/10/12/13253852/wikileaks-john-podesta-risotto https://www.vox.com/2016/10/12/13253852/wikileaks-john-podes... ) but that it was also done to serve the interests of Russia and derailed the election - https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17569030/mueller-indictments-russia-hackers-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-democratic-national-convention https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17569030/mueller-indictments-r... The idea that truthfully informing voters about the views and actions of a candidate was reprehensible if it affected the outcome of the election was never actually justified, it was simply assumed.
- kadoban 5y ago
  Those aren't contradictory, and both are supported by the evidence. Which do you actually disagree with, or do you simply not see how both can be true? Affecting the outcome of an election is not inherently wrong. Foreign countries affecting the outcome of our elections is dangerous, and has historically been very frowned upon. There's reasons that only Americans are allowed to donate to election campaigns. Our elections are supposed to be for _us_. If whatever countries want a particular outcome start having an outsized voice, our elections will be even less connected to what's best for Americans than they already were.
  - pydry 5y ago
    I disagreed that there was nothing in the emails and explained below. I also disagree with the notion that a foreign power revealing truths about a candidate is wrong. If you reject a foreign truth over a domestic lie you reject the very heart of democracy itself. It's all the more ironic given the amount of meddling the US has done in foreign elections, including Russia's.
    - kadoban 5y ago
      You didn't really say what was in them that you found valuable, unless I missed it? What important truths did they reveal? Okay, but then you're welcoming well-funded nations to spend outsized money and effort on attacking whatever candidate they will get the least from. How does that not devolve into our elections just being playthings of our enemies? What is ironic about this? I also do not think that the US should meddle in foreign elections, but that doesn't really have anything to do with this.