[gregpardo]

The problem these 'fact' checkers have become leftist doctrines... You just point to snopes or politifact and that is end of discussion? That's not how the world works. Wikileaks is a far more credible source than either of these. People need to do their own research if they want to form conclusions not just little to prepackaged conclusions.

[nkassis]

I would argue that wikileaks on it's own can also be very misleading. Reading emails out of context and without knowing if they've been altered is probably not the best way to get a full picture. The value add of media looking at them is they can also go and get other sources to add context or to corroborate what they are reading in the wikileaks releases. Sources which aren't available to everyone. It's also easy to be fooled into seeing things as nefarious which are in the end benign when given context.

[EvilTerran]

Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, and I would find something in them to have him hanged.

... and now Wikileaks has invited the whole internet to come play Richelieu with them, only with ten thousand times the ammunition the Cardinal (apocryphally) asked for. The online mob has been accusing (eg) Podesta and his correspondents of all kinds of insane things - from corruption & arms dealing to satanism & child abduction - based on the flimsiest of cherry-picked quotes, even when the context (beyond the leaks, within them, even in the very same email sometimes) showed without doubt that their claims were obvious bunk.

And Assange merrily fed into that: drawing spurious connections on his twitter feed; linking/retweeting the fever dreams of naked partisans; and dragging out a single dump into an episodic drip-fed spectacle, all the better to whip his fans into an inquisitorial vigilante frenzy.

"wikileaks on it's own can also be very misleading"? I can't argue with that - except perhaps to say it's far too charitable.

[jerkstate]

There's a lot of stuff in wikileaks that merits investigation but the MSM never did their job. Just wholesale dismissal from comedianchors like John Oliver. Not surprising that the MSM were asleep at the wheel when it came to predicting the outcome, or that most of the country no longer trusts them.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media...

[gregpardo]

Oh I'm not saying that they could not be faked or altered. And to be honest when you have a supposedly accurate track record like this it's a perfect brewing storm for someone to come in and exploit it.

But dismissing them as Russian hacking didn't really give a lot of people the choice to make up for themselves. Yes I believe according to wikileaks that the DNC colluded with media and fact checking orgs and pushed their agenda too far. I read the information and made up my mind. So when someone points to Politifact again I'll do the same. Not saying they can't be saved but it's the idea of looking at it as doctrine from the start with a stamp of 'True' or 'False' that I don't like. Things are never that simple.

[hedonistbot]

>... and now Wikileaks has invited the whole internet to come play Richelieu with them

But why do you think that the whole internet wants to play the part of Richelieu, everyone is allowed to choose the role they want and wikileaks does not hide the context of the emails, everyone is perfectly able to check the whole correspondence. If anything the mass media is hiding the context because of their format and time limits.

[sushiwarrior]

Wikileaks is being unbiased by claiming to be entirely unbiased on what they choose to release (yes, they CHOOSE what they want to release, what to save for insurance, etc.) yet not acknowledging the dangerous false equivalency of saying that this system implies there is no possible way that the other party would do the same things. Until we have equal information about both sides, this is dangerous. Wikileaks gets to be the unfair arbiter of truth while claiming total transparency that we know doesn't exist.

[knz]

Wikileaks has it's own issues - the suggestions of Russian influence, the timing of their data releases, questions about Assages political bias against the US/Clintons etc.

"People need to do their own research if they want to form conclusions not just little to prepackaged conclusions." - I could not agree more.

[tomp]

Would you rather that Wikileaks kept the information for itself? Wouldn't that be just as much of an influence on the election?

[knz]

Personally I think they should just leak it all rather than controlling the flow to suit their political agenda.

[tomp]

The way I understand, they've been burned before by leaking all at the same time - there's an initial "shock", theneveryone forgets about it. If your purpose is generating the maximum amount of outrage and controversy (and, consequentially, change), it makes sense to publish things slowly.

Although I agree that the timing was probably connected with the US elections. But again, that's a good think - the only way organisations will change is if it will hurt them. Now both US parties know that they can easily be targets next time.

[sushiwarrior]

So is Wikileaks an organization interested in free information, or using "free information" for maximum political effect? If they are twisting the knife and trying to find out how to cause the maximum possible damage for one side only, then they are clearly not a neutral organization and obviously should be treated as such. If their goal is maximum political discourse, then they are obviously a political organization, not an information or "truth" organization.

[tomp]

Why do you think they wouldn't be causing damage for the other side, if they could? I mean, even if they had emails of the GOP, I doubt it would really hurt Trump in any way, it's not like he had their support anyways... Actually, it would probably help him!

[gregpardo]

I'll agree with this.