8 ms·

I think he's missing the point. The issue was never if some of the info on the laptop was correct/validated. It was: 1. Was the laptop/information stolen, and

by phonon 5y ago

I think he's missing the point. The issue was never if some of the info on the laptop was correct/validated. It was: 1. Was the laptop/information stolen, and then "laundered" through the repair shop. 2. Was true information mixed with false--a classic misinformation technique. 3. If either 1. or 2. was true, was it through the intelligence efforts of Russia or the like.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
But surely he knows all that, so why is he pretending not to? I've never really followed his work, but has he always been like this or was this a recent development?
mint2 5y ago
This is what makes me tear my hair out. why is it that despite serious flaws that are nearly impossible to attribute to ignorance, do people trust and treat his opinions as quality reasoning? My only answer is they seek confirmation bias.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stickyricky 5y ago
With respect, I think you're missing the point. What is the author's main critique? The author is stating that the CIA, the "liberal-wing of the corporate media", and Big Tech companies conspired to suppress and censor information that was politically damaging to their preferred candidate. Even if that information was verified to be correct. According to the article, the authenticity of the laptop's information was verifiable. > "From the start, the evidence of authenticity was overwhelming. The Post published obviously genuine photos of Hunter that were taken from the laptop. Investigations from media outlets found people who had received the emails in real-time and they compared the emails in their possession to the ones in the Post's archive, and they matched word-for-word." The counter point would be that the "intelligence community" declared it a Russian disinformation campaign. But, as the author notes, they did so without evidence. > "in their words — “we do not know if the emails are genuine or not,” and also admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.”" You don't have to take the author's word for it. You can read the statement issued by former intelligence officials which is linked in the source. > "We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case." The assertion or "concern" that the laptop is Russian disinformation has never had any evidence to support it. And yet that was sufficient to completely censor the story on facebook and twitter. So with all the said, let's recap your points. > 1. Was the laptop/information stolen, and then "laundered" through the repair shop. There is no evidence for this. > 2. Was true information mixed with false--a classic misinformation technique. There is no evidence for this. > 3. If either 1. or 2. was true, was it through the intelligence efforts of Russia or the like. Again, no evidence. So why was it censored?
yostrovs 5y ago
I would argue you're missing the point since he's arguing that the media never tried to confirm the story. It took the narrative that this was "Russian disinformation" and made it seem that that's probably what it is, without actually doing the work that is expected of journalists. Obviously had this laptop belonged to Don Jr., they would have certainly done the due diligence to dig through it and confirm its contents. The issue is Joe Biden is part of the "system" and is therefore protected, unlike those that don't come from it.
nightowl_games 5y ago
1. Who cares where it came from? What matters is whether it is true or not. 2. This is the first time I've heard anyone suggest this and I followed this story form the start. Can you cite your sources for where this topic was consideres "the issue"? And besides, if some of it is misinformation, why is the obviously not misinformation stuff still censored? All the pro-censorship people I read wrote the whole thing off as Russian disinformation. It was clearly to influence the election because so many prioritized "Trump Losing" above the truth. Something I can't get on board with. I thought Trump was terrible, but censorship like that was obviously gross. It was some ends justify the means type stuff, and it really showed the CIA/Media links, which is what Greenwald specialises in. The issue was always about censorship and bias in the media. That's what Greenwald talks about a lot. It's trivially verifiable to confirm Greenwald's suggestions of DNC bias in these institutions. Seems as though you have something against this concept or against Greenwald? This seems common lately, is it because he attacks DNC institutions? For me, I just value truth above politics. I value Greenwald's reporting because I trust him.
- tdfx 5y ago
  I thought it was astounding that the media wrote this off so quickly and thoroughly. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. As soon as it might be "Russian disinformation", everyone except the craziest far right people immediately stopped wondering about the meaning of "10 points for the big guy". It was right on the cusp of providing some conclusive evidence that Hunter Biden's international antics were part of a family scheme of corruption as opposed to just fishing his last name around for perks. But because the story was essentially buried, it seems we'll never know.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Indeed. It was pretty breathtaking to see it happen so completely and quickly (it had to, the election was fast approaching). Normally they’d wait for the story to die on its own after a few news cycles. And your comment about “crazy far right people” is correct and why we shouldn’t censor. The same websites that everyone rails against as “kooky and conspiratorial” (many are!) were the only ones actually reporting on this. All of the stakeholders involved - CIA, mass media, political parties - have a vested interested in labeling websites as “disinformation” and pushing them out of the mainstream conversation.
chuckee 5y ago
> 1. Was the laptop/information stolen, and then "laundered" through the repair shop. The problem is that this standard is not consistently applied. If the US intelligence apparatus launders some information through "anonymous officials", they are taken at their word and their statement is parroted. Only when the Bad Guys reveal some bit of information do we become more concerned with where the information came from, than whether it's true.
nullc 5y ago
> 2. Was true information mixed with false--a classic misinformation technique. This point only applies to the the extent that the true material isn't the activities of concern. The existence and content of the email from "v.pozharskyi.ukraine@gmail.com" to "hbiden@rosemontseneca.com" was itself directly thing people were raising a concern about, and it's something which you can check for yourself and is essentially indisputable. > 1. Was the laptop/information stolen, and then "laundered" through the repair shop. This seems totally irrelevant. A few months back propublic published a series of articles which exposed that they received the complete tax documentation including audits and supporting documentation for a significant fraction of the Americans (potentially all Americans, they don't specify but the description of their validation of the info doesn't make sense unless it was a very large percentage). The data was unambiguously stolen, and the distribution of tax records is a felony. No social media site censored these articles because they don't censor journalists who publish articles based on illegally obtained information. ... yet they claimed to be required to do so by their policy in the case of the Hunter Biden data. Twitter even added a separate reporting category for "hacked material" -- yet when nutball rightwing heavy sites or org get hacked and people are posting private PII from the hacks on twitter (e.g. recent EPIK hack or GAB hack) twitter takes no action in response to these reports, even for tweets whos content directly contains doxing information that would be generally prohibited under twitter's rules, even absent the hacking. Moreover, hunter could easily have made a public statement that the laptop had been stolen but did not do so. Even if the information being lawfully obtained was a consideration, it's kind of absurd to act as though it was unlawfully obtained absent a claim of that by the victim.
lazyeye 5y ago
I always use the Trump test. How would the media have dealt with an identical situation except implicating Trump instead Biden. I think we can say with absolute certainty the story would have been handled quite differently I think. The media doesnt report news, they disseminate propaganda.

by phonon 5y ago

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

But surely he knows all that, so why is he pretending not to? I've never really followed his work, but has he always been like this or was this a recent development?

mint2 5y ago

This is what makes me tear my hair out. why is it that despite serious flaws that are nearly impossible to attribute to ignorance, do people trust and treat his opinions as quality reasoning? My only answer is they seek confirmation bias.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

stickyricky 5y ago

With respect, I think you're missing the point. What is the author's main critique? The author is stating that the CIA, the "liberal-wing of the corporate media", and Big Tech companies conspired to suppress and censor information that was politically damaging to their preferred candidate. Even if that information was verified to be correct. According to the article, the authenticity of the laptop's information was verifiable. > "From the start, the evidence of authenticity was overwhelming. The Post published obviously genuine photos of Hunter that were taken from the laptop. Investigations from media outlets found people who had received the emails in real-time and they compared the emails in their possession to the ones in the Post's archive, and they matched word-for-word." The counter point would be that the "intelligence community" declared it a Russian disinformation campaign. But, as the author notes, they did so without evidence. > "in their words — “we do not know if the emails are genuine or not,” and also admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.”" You don't have to take the author's word for it. You can read the statement issued by former intelligence officials which is linked in the source. > "We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case." The assertion or "concern" that the laptop is Russian disinformation has never had any evidence to support it. And yet that was sufficient to completely censor the story on facebook and twitter. So with all the said, let's recap your points. > 1. Was the laptop/information stolen, and then "laundered" through the repair shop. There is no evidence for this. > 2. Was true information mixed with false--a classic misinformation technique. There is no evidence for this. > 3. If either 1. or 2. was true, was it through the intelligence efforts of Russia or the like. Again, no evidence. So why was it censored?

yostrovs 5y ago

I would argue you're missing the point since he's arguing that the media never tried to confirm the story. It took the narrative that this was "Russian disinformation" and made it seem that that's probably what it is, without actually doing the work that is expected of journalists. Obviously had this laptop belonged to Don Jr., they would have certainly done the due diligence to dig through it and confirm its contents. The issue is Joe Biden is part of the "system" and is therefore protected, unlike those that don't come from it.

nightowl_games 5y ago

1. Who cares where it came from? What matters is whether it is true or not. 2. This is the first time I've heard anyone suggest this and I followed this story form the start. Can you cite your sources for where this topic was consideres "the issue"? And besides, if some of it is misinformation, why is the obviously not misinformation stuff still censored? All the pro-censorship people I read wrote the whole thing off as Russian disinformation. It was clearly to influence the election because so many prioritized "Trump Losing" above the truth. Something I can't get on board with. I thought Trump was terrible, but censorship like that was obviously gross. It was some ends justify the means type stuff, and it really showed the CIA/Media links, which is what Greenwald specialises in. The issue was always about censorship and bias in the media. That's what Greenwald talks about a lot. It's trivially verifiable to confirm Greenwald's suggestions of DNC bias in these institutions. Seems as though you have something against this concept or against Greenwald? This seems common lately, is it because he attacks DNC institutions? For me, I just value truth above politics. I value Greenwald's reporting because I trust him.

tdfx 5y ago
I thought it was astounding that the media wrote this off so quickly and thoroughly. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. As soon as it might be "Russian disinformation", everyone except the craziest far right people immediately stopped wondering about the meaning of "10 points for the big guy". It was right on the cusp of providing some conclusive evidence that Hunter Biden's international antics were part of a family scheme of corruption as opposed to just fishing his last name around for perks. But because the story was essentially buried, it seems we'll never know.
- refurb 5y ago
  Indeed. It was pretty breathtaking to see it happen so completely and quickly (it had to, the election was fast approaching). Normally they’d wait for the story to die on its own after a few news cycles. And your comment about “crazy far right people” is correct and why we shouldn’t censor. The same websites that everyone rails against as “kooky and conspiratorial” (many are!) were the only ones actually reporting on this. All of the stakeholders involved - CIA, mass media, political parties - have a vested interested in labeling websites as “disinformation” and pushing them out of the mainstream conversation.

chuckee 5y ago

> 1. Was the laptop/information stolen, and then "laundered" through the repair shop. The problem is that this standard is not consistently applied. If the US intelligence apparatus launders some information through "anonymous officials", they are taken at their word and their statement is parroted. Only when the Bad Guys reveal some bit of information do we become more concerned with where the information came from, than whether it's true.

nullc 5y ago

> 2. Was true information mixed with false--a classic misinformation technique. This point only applies to the the extent that the true material isn't the activities of concern. The existence and content of the email from "v.pozharskyi.ukraine@gmail.com" to "hbiden@rosemontseneca.com" was itself directly thing people were raising a concern about, and it's something which you can check for yourself and is essentially indisputable. > 1. Was the laptop/information stolen, and then "laundered" through the repair shop. This seems totally irrelevant. A few months back propublic published a series of articles which exposed that they received the complete tax documentation including audits and supporting documentation for a significant fraction of the Americans (potentially all Americans, they don't specify but the description of their validation of the info doesn't make sense unless it was a very large percentage). The data was unambiguously stolen, and the distribution of tax records is a felony. No social media site censored these articles because they don't censor journalists who publish articles based on illegally obtained information. ... yet they claimed to be required to do so by their policy in the case of the Hunter Biden data. Twitter even added a separate reporting category for "hacked material" -- yet when nutball rightwing heavy sites or org get hacked and people are posting private PII from the hacks on twitter (e.g. recent EPIK hack or GAB hack) twitter takes no action in response to these reports, even for tweets whos content directly contains doxing information that would be generally prohibited under twitter's rules, even absent the hacking. Moreover, hunter could easily have made a public statement that the laptop had been stolen but did not do so. Even if the information being lawfully obtained was a consideration, it's kind of absurd to act as though it was unlawfully obtained absent a claim of that by the victim.

lazyeye 5y ago

I always use the Trump test. How would the media have dealt with an identical situation except implicating Trump instead Biden. I think we can say with absolute certainty the story would have been handled quite differently I think. The media doesnt report news, they disseminate propaganda.