4 ms·

What's wrong with that? In the past, Wikileaks has not been the moral arbiter. If a whistleblower decides that exposing information is in the public interest,

What's wrong with that? In the past, Wikileaks has not been the moral arbiter. If a whistleblower decides that exposing information is in the public interest, that is on them, Wikileaks provides a medium. Here, whether or not information should remain secret, there is an incentive to expose it. Wikileaks has decided what deserves to be public -- it's irrelevant if I, personally, agree with that judgment when I say: this makes me question Wikileaks as a trusted medium.

evgen 11y ago
If this is the first thing that has made you question Wikileaks as a trusted medium then you have not been paying attention.
- StavrosK 11y ago
  I have not been paying attention, would you care to enlighten me?
  - tedunangst 11y ago
    After months of talking up the BofA files, "oops, they're all gone."
    - StavrosK 11y ago
      Oh wow. What do people supposed happened?
    - misterbishop 11y ago
      It's open to interpretation whether you want to blame this on "Wikileaks" or question their integrity over it. But it should be acknowledged that Daniel Domscheit-Berg 'stole' 5GB of Bank of America documents from Wikileaks servers as well as their submission system, which he used to launch openleaks. So you can definitely question their internal security, but it should not be presented as an affirmative decision on the part of the organization.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Please give sources for this statement.
alokdhari 11y ago
I very much agree with you. It should be up to the person who has the information to decide whether it should be made public or not. Morally speaking, it could cause outage and even war, who knows.. but it should be up to that person to decide. Monetary incentives dilute the idea of moral responsibility and also gives some people an opportunity to shout : "Oh! They did it for the money". What next .. will the information be put on auction !!
- vasilipupkin 11y ago
  it's still up to the person though. It's an incentive not an imperative.
  - richmarr 11y ago
    I wouldn't even call it an incentive, it's more the balancing out of a strong negative incentive that already exists. Considering that Wikileaks exists to make conspiracies harder/smaller I think this totally fits with their purpose. The only question being why it applies to this, but not to other leaks.
liquidise 11y ago
While i agree that this is unusually activist of wikileaks, i have a hard time arguing this move as worse than the status quo. I would rather see governments be actively transparent than actively secretive. Thought experiment: if governments knew that any decision made had a chance of becoming public, would their behavior shift for the better?
jarradhope 11y ago
Well, isn't the bounty is crowdfunded? So it's the public asking for this, via WikiLeaks. The press value of this move puts the issue in the media spotlight which also good for the issue in public favour, WikiLeaks using it's name makes more sense from a media perspective as opposed to "some random assortment of people". Really, the TPP should be public, shouldn't we be questioning the trust of the Governments?
DSMan195276 11y ago
I agree with you on pretty much everything. However, I think it's worth noting that Wikileaks isn't actually the one paying $100,000, in that way the title is misleading IMO. What Wikileaks is doing is holding a funding goal of $100,000, with the funding currently around $35,000. So, while it was Wikileaks' idea, ultimately it's the general public (Or, at-least, a few people who would like this to be leaked) who are offering this money as a bounty. So I wouldn't consider it exactly the same as Wikileaks just flat-out offering $100,000 - This bounty won't happen unless there are a decent amount of people which support this decision and fund it. It still does change the dynamic like you've said though.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Organizing and coordinating a fundraising goal isn't all that different than giving it yourself. Wikileaks already subsists substantially off of donations.
yAnonymous 11y ago
Not true. They usually redact information they find unsuited for public release.
DominikR 11y ago
> this makes me question Wikileaks as a trusted medium. Aren't you overreacting? There are many possibilities why Wikileaks needs the money. For one it might be that they had to pay the informant to get the information. Also they probably don't get their infrastructure (including legal) for free. Last but not least I have to ask you this: Do you equally question every medium that charges for its services? I mean sure, the New York Times and Washington Post uses a different business model, but they charge nonetheless. Edit: I also have to say that I doubt, Wikileaks wouldn't leak the data in any case.
- tedunangst 11y ago
  Do the Times and Post pay their government sources?
  - DominikR 11y ago
    What makes you think they never did? Maybe its are rare thing to do in the US, but with foreign governments, especially those where corruption is rampant I'd imagine this is nothing unheard of. By the way, TPP is circulating within many governments. For example it could have been leaked by a Vietnamese government official.

evgen 11y ago

If this is the first thing that has made you question Wikileaks as a trusted medium then you have not been paying attention.

StavrosK 11y ago
I have not been paying attention, would you care to enlighten me?
- tedunangst 11y ago
  After months of talking up the BofA files, "oops, they're all gone."
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    Oh wow. What do people supposed happened?
  - misterbishop 11y ago
    It's open to interpretation whether you want to blame this on "Wikileaks" or question their integrity over it. But it should be acknowledged that Daniel Domscheit-Berg 'stole' 5GB of Bank of America documents from Wikileaks servers as well as their submission system, which he used to launch openleaks. So you can definitely question their internal security, but it should not be presented as an affirmative decision on the part of the organization.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
Please give sources for this statement.

alokdhari 11y ago

I very much agree with you. It should be up to the person who has the information to decide whether it should be made public or not. Morally speaking, it could cause outage and even war, who knows.. but it should be up to that person to decide. Monetary incentives dilute the idea of moral responsibility and also gives some people an opportunity to shout : "Oh! They did it for the money". What next .. will the information be put on auction !!

vasilipupkin 11y ago
it's still up to the person though. It's an incentive not an imperative.
- richmarr 11y ago
  I wouldn't even call it an incentive, it's more the balancing out of a strong negative incentive that already exists. Considering that Wikileaks exists to make conspiracies harder/smaller I think this totally fits with their purpose. The only question being why it applies to this, but not to other leaks.

liquidise 11y ago

While i agree that this is unusually activist of wikileaks, i have a hard time arguing this move as worse than the status quo. I would rather see governments be actively transparent than actively secretive. Thought experiment: if governments knew that any decision made had a chance of becoming public, would their behavior shift for the better?

jarradhope 11y ago

Well, isn't the bounty is crowdfunded? So it's the public asking for this, via WikiLeaks. The press value of this move puts the issue in the media spotlight which also good for the issue in public favour, WikiLeaks using it's name makes more sense from a media perspective as opposed to "some random assortment of people". Really, the TPP should be public, shouldn't we be questioning the trust of the Governments?

DSMan195276 11y ago

I agree with you on pretty much everything. However, I think it's worth noting that Wikileaks isn't actually the one paying $100,000, in that way the title is misleading IMO. What Wikileaks is doing is holding a funding goal of $100,000, with the funding currently around $35,000. So, while it was Wikileaks' idea, ultimately it's the general public (Or, at-least, a few people who would like this to be leaked) who are offering this money as a bounty. So I wouldn't consider it exactly the same as Wikileaks just flat-out offering $100,000 - This bounty won't happen unless there are a decent amount of people which support this decision and fund it. It still does change the dynamic like you've said though.

vinceguidry 11y ago
Organizing and coordinating a fundraising goal isn't all that different than giving it yourself. Wikileaks already subsists substantially off of donations.

yAnonymous 11y ago

Not true. They usually redact information they find unsuited for public release.

DominikR 11y ago

> this makes me question Wikileaks as a trusted medium. Aren't you overreacting? There are many possibilities why Wikileaks needs the money. For one it might be that they had to pay the informant to get the information. Also they probably don't get their infrastructure (including legal) for free. Last but not least I have to ask you this: Do you equally question every medium that charges for its services? I mean sure, the New York Times and Washington Post uses a different business model, but they charge nonetheless. Edit: I also have to say that I doubt, Wikileaks wouldn't leak the data in any case.

tedunangst 11y ago
Do the Times and Post pay their government sources?
- DominikR 11y ago
  What makes you think they never did? Maybe its are rare thing to do in the US, but with foreign governments, especially those where corruption is rampant I'd imagine this is nothing unheard of. By the way, TPP is circulating within many governments. For example it could have been leaked by a Vietnamese government official.