[notwhoyouthink]

Has Wikileaks ever published a bad leak?

I'm not talking about their write-ups and descriptions -- which I sometimes find sensationalized -- but the raw data. I don't remember any instances where they have published falsified information.

[Coincoin]

Me neither, which is surprising. I would have expected the CIA to feed them some false flags to then discredit them from a long time ago.

[ry_ry]

I'd always assumed they spent a large amount of their time sifting through Fake Leaks from well-meaning cranks, internet trolls and various agencies trying to poison the well, looking for stuff they could corroborate to some degree.

I didn't actually check the timelines, so I could be well wide of the mark here, but had assumed these leaks were published after the NYT article about the frequency of North Korean missile failures went out too, which would lend a degree of public legitimacy to the leak.

[viraptor]

Conspiracy theory: if you have a source that takes a monopoly on leaks about agencies X, Y, and Z, you can ignore other submissions. They will give you something every once in a while to retain relevance and when the source wants something specific published, they just do so.

[mikeyouse]

They famously omitted documents that showed corruption from the Central Bank of Syria to a state-owned bank in Russia. While Syria was under international sanctions, their central bank transferred 2 billion euros to VTB Bank -- which is where Putin has most of his stolen money (e.g. His friend and Cellist has a $2 billion account there).

When the Syria Leaks came out, none of the mentions of VTB were released even though Wikileaks published other emails from the same accounts on the same day.

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-...

[travmatt]

They'd kill their credibility with an outright lie. It's much more useful for them to omit information that they don't find useful - like when they helped coverup Russian banks involvement in Syria.

[jonnybgood]

Out of curiosity, how would you know? Anybody can create an official looking document. Ask an agency and you'll get the Glomar response.