6 ms·

I've honestly been amazed in these past few years how many people have started hating Wikileaks for leaking things that didn't agree with either their interpret

I've honestly been amazed in these past few years how many people have started hating Wikileaks for leaking things that didn't agree with either their interpretation of the world, or made their favorite politician look bad. The only interpretation I can draw from it is that many people crave ignorance. And when they're confronted with something that challenges their ignorance they blame the messenger. Overall I find the sentiment pathetic and cowardly. I want to know what my government and powerful people are up to. I have a right to know it and Wikileaks was giving me information about this. IMO people who get angry at WL for telling them what powerful people and governments do behind their back are pathetic bootlickers.

andirk 4y ago
A lot of people in the USA were fans of Wikileaks when it was almost entirely anti the current administration of the time, which was Bush Jr. Not by design but because that's who was in charge of the illegal offensive wars at the time. But then the diplomatic cable leaks in 2010 included high profile Democratic party leaders, and that's when I believe people not only turned their backs on Wikileaks but leaks in general. They already knew their enemies were garbage and they didn't want to admit their own were too.
- keewee7 4y ago
  Most people were supportive of their leaks that were critical of the Obama administration aggressive use of drone strikes, his support for Israel etc. It was only when they turned out to be pro-Russian propagandists that the support turned.
  - loup-vaillant 4y ago
    Wikileaks, pro-Russian propagandists? I believe they have leaks on Russia too, so we're gonna need something more solid than "published documents that happened to come from Russian agents".
    - ix-ix 4y ago
      And selectively not leak documents that would hurt the Russian agenda of having Trump be president.
      - loup-vaillant 4y ago
        It's unclear to me that there was anything to leak. I mean, Trump's scandals were pretty public already, and people voted for him all the same.
      - jonathanstrange 4y ago
        This narrative is fictitious, though. It's not as if an alleged leaker of such content couldn't possibly have sent it elsewhere...
    - 0110101001 4y ago
      Assange had a TV show on Russian state TV.
mrtksn 4y ago
I guess people expected WikiLeaks to expose the corruption in governmental institutions and are not buying the idea that Hillary was corrupt therefore exposed and Trump was clean as an angel and therefore there was nothing to expose. Just at the election time. People don't feel that WikiLeaks is impartial which makes it espionage and not whistle blowing in the eyes of the affected.
- dijit 4y ago
  The major issue with Trump is that his dirty laundry is public. There's very little to leak, even back then. Holding political office gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself, because every day you make difficult decisions. That fancy dinner that someone paid for as a sign of good faith, was that a bribe for a decision you had already made or was it completely innocent? Does it matter if it's a news outlet, what about a diamond miner? What about Google? But a business person not paying taxes, or a bigot misogynist saying something obscene about women? That's expected.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    The major issue is that if a whistleblower takes side, its no longer whistleblowing but espionage. Maybe there was stuff that could have hurt Trump but wasn't released? His presidency wasn't a smooth sail and ended with a bang. We wouldn't know because there's no ant-Trump whistleblower organisation.
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      >The major issue is that if a whistleblower takes side, its no longer whistleblowing but espionage What? So if I'm an employee of the DNC, and I want to blow the whistle on what I see by leaking documents, I need to somehow get the corresponding RNC documents or else I'm a spy? This viewpoint makes no sense. Maybe you're calling Wikileaks the whistleblower, but they really can't be considered one.
      - vntok 4y ago
c16 4y ago
> I've honestly been amazed in these past few years how many people have started hating Wikileaks for leaking things that didn't agree with It feels like the narrative has shifted from us vs them to us vs us with them on the side controlling it all.
jbuhbjlnjbn 4y ago
I agree. But keep in mind the narrative makes the opinion. If modern media has become masterful at one thing, it is manipulating the narrative and deceiving their readers without them realizing.
t0bia_s 4y ago
You should know that any so called leaks could be manipulated. As any other agenda that you can spot, leaks or not. We live in post-factic time when anything can be disputed and I think its one of sign of healthy democracy. TLDR you believe in leaks, others don't. At the end it's just a personal decision of what you want to believe.
- loup-vaillant 4y ago
  > We live in post-factic time when anything can be disputed and I think its one of sign of healthy democracy. Dangerous wording there. The ability to dispute stuff is good, but the facts are the facts, and what we think of the shape of the Earth or whodunnit, doesn't change the actual shape of the Earth, nor who actually did it. And sometimes the evidence is overwhelming enough that disputing it is at best a distraction. > At the end it's just a personal decision of what you want to believe. I hope for your own sake that you only want to believe true things. Besides, you don't really have a choice: what "choosing to believe" a false thing even means? If you make that choice it's too late already: you can't believe something you know to be false. Maybe you can persuade yourself that you believe it, but… you don't. You need to distinguish the political ideal, where it is very important that you do not mandate or forbid people from believing any particular thing, from the rational ideal, where you need to recognise that you don't actually have a say in what you believe. Evidence comes your way, and that evidence is supposed to make you believe things to various degrees. The maths of it (probability theory) is intractable, but it is inevitable. For instance, if you see a green traffic line you probably don't want to walk across that road just yet.
  - t0bia_s 4y ago
    "but the facts are the facts" Leaks on internet are information that you probably cannot verify by yourself. So you cannot clarify it as observable fact. "you can't believe something you know to be false" Yet, a lot of people believe in things that cannot be proved as fact. And I'm not talking about religious things. Just random information in news, internet, etc. For example there are a quite a lot people who believe in in flat earth, third gender, global warming, alliens or immunity from vaccines, even though they cannot prove it (and I'm not saying it if that is right or not).
jll29 4y ago
You are right: People would much rather not know how bad the world really is, especially if it affects those that they held in high esteem. There is only a limited willingness to update one's information state (in the Bayesian sense), they'd rather vilify the bearer of the news (=WikiLeaks, investigative journalists etc.).
q1w2 4y ago
> The only interpretation I can draw from it is that many people crave ignorance. "People" want to be informed themselves, so they themselves seek out novel information, but they do not want that for others. For others, they simply want them to support their causes - even if it means supporting lies and hiding truth.

andirk 4y ago

A lot of people in the USA were fans of Wikileaks when it was almost entirely anti the current administration of the time, which was Bush Jr. Not by design but because that's who was in charge of the illegal offensive wars at the time. But then the diplomatic cable leaks in 2010 included high profile Democratic party leaders, and that's when I believe people not only turned their backs on Wikileaks but leaks in general. They already knew their enemies were garbage and they didn't want to admit their own were too.

keewee7 4y ago
Most people were supportive of their leaks that were critical of the Obama administration aggressive use of drone strikes, his support for Israel etc. It was only when they turned out to be pro-Russian propagandists that the support turned.
- loup-vaillant 4y ago
  Wikileaks, pro-Russian propagandists? I believe they have leaks on Russia too, so we're gonna need something more solid than "published documents that happened to come from Russian agents".
  - ix-ix 4y ago
    And selectively not leak documents that would hurt the Russian agenda of having Trump be president.
    - loup-vaillant 4y ago
      It's unclear to me that there was anything to leak. I mean, Trump's scandals were pretty public already, and people voted for him all the same.
    - jonathanstrange 4y ago
      This narrative is fictitious, though. It's not as if an alleged leaker of such content couldn't possibly have sent it elsewhere...
  - 0110101001 4y ago
    Assange had a TV show on Russian state TV.

mrtksn 4y ago

I guess people expected WikiLeaks to expose the corruption in governmental institutions and are not buying the idea that Hillary was corrupt therefore exposed and Trump was clean as an angel and therefore there was nothing to expose. Just at the election time. People don't feel that WikiLeaks is impartial which makes it espionage and not whistle blowing in the eyes of the affected.

dijit 4y ago
The major issue with Trump is that his dirty laundry is public. There's very little to leak, even back then. Holding political office gives you a lot of rope to hang yourself, because every day you make difficult decisions. That fancy dinner that someone paid for as a sign of good faith, was that a bribe for a decision you had already made or was it completely innocent? Does it matter if it's a news outlet, what about a diamond miner? What about Google? But a business person not paying taxes, or a bigot misogynist saying something obscene about women? That's expected.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  The major issue is that if a whistleblower takes side, its no longer whistleblowing but espionage. Maybe there was stuff that could have hurt Trump but wasn't released? His presidency wasn't a smooth sail and ended with a bang. We wouldn't know because there's no ant-Trump whistleblower organisation.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    >The major issue is that if a whistleblower takes side, its no longer whistleblowing but espionage What? So if I'm an employee of the DNC, and I want to blow the whistle on what I see by leaking documents, I need to somehow get the corresponding RNC documents or else I'm a spy? This viewpoint makes no sense. Maybe you're calling Wikileaks the whistleblower, but they really can't be considered one.
    - vntok 4y ago

c16 4y ago

> I've honestly been amazed in these past few years how many people have started hating Wikileaks for leaking things that didn't agree with It feels like the narrative has shifted from us vs them to us vs us with them on the side controlling it all.

jbuhbjlnjbn 4y ago

I agree. But keep in mind the narrative makes the opinion. If modern media has become masterful at one thing, it is manipulating the narrative and deceiving their readers without them realizing.

t0bia_s 4y ago

You should know that any so called leaks could be manipulated. As any other agenda that you can spot, leaks or not. We live in post-factic time when anything can be disputed and I think its one of sign of healthy democracy. TLDR you believe in leaks, others don't. At the end it's just a personal decision of what you want to believe.

loup-vaillant 4y ago
> We live in post-factic time when anything can be disputed and I think its one of sign of healthy democracy. Dangerous wording there. The ability to dispute stuff is good, but the facts are the facts, and what we think of the shape of the Earth or whodunnit, doesn't change the actual shape of the Earth, nor who actually did it. And sometimes the evidence is overwhelming enough that disputing it is at best a distraction. > At the end it's just a personal decision of what you want to believe. I hope for your own sake that you only want to believe true things. Besides, you don't really have a choice: what "choosing to believe" a false thing even means? If you make that choice it's too late already: you can't believe something you know to be false. Maybe you can persuade yourself that you believe it, but… you don't. You need to distinguish the political ideal, where it is very important that you do not mandate or forbid people from believing any particular thing, from the rational ideal, where you need to recognise that you don't actually have a say in what you believe. Evidence comes your way, and that evidence is supposed to make you believe things to various degrees. The maths of it (probability theory) is intractable, but it is inevitable. For instance, if you see a green traffic line you probably don't want to walk across that road just yet.
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  "but the facts are the facts" Leaks on internet are information that you probably cannot verify by yourself. So you cannot clarify it as observable fact. "you can't believe something you know to be false" Yet, a lot of people believe in things that cannot be proved as fact. And I'm not talking about religious things. Just random information in news, internet, etc. For example there are a quite a lot people who believe in in flat earth, third gender, global warming, alliens or immunity from vaccines, even though they cannot prove it (and I'm not saying it if that is right or not).

jll29 4y ago

You are right: People would much rather not know how bad the world really is, especially if it affects those that they held in high esteem. There is only a limited willingness to update one's information state (in the Bayesian sense), they'd rather vilify the bearer of the news (=WikiLeaks, investigative journalists etc.).

q1w2 4y ago

> The only interpretation I can draw from it is that many people crave ignorance. "People" want to be informed themselves, so they themselves seek out novel information, but they do not want that for others. For others, they simply want them to support their causes - even if it means supporting lies and hiding truth.