Comment by dlss | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dlss | Hacker News Reader

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> What is Hanlon's razor for including an anti-Semitic key in their tweet?

That they'd never heard of the key? (I hadn't, as the slate reporter seemed to anticipate with their "might be a little hard to follow" comment)

> http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/09/wikileaks_...

Offering a reward is not the same as "[posting] wild conspiracy theories," which is what you claimed they did. Posting a wild conspiracy theory in this case would be openly accusing a specific person or group of people of murder with no evidence.

I would call this "wanting to fact check a conspiracy theory," which I view as a good thing generally, and especially good in the case of wikileaks.

> Intentionally misleading/lying isn't being incompetent. They could know or think that it was an accident, but intentionally spin it as foul play to reinforce the narrative they've been spinning.

They could, but this would require them to assume no one would figure out the actual cause -- aka a lot of cost with no benefit. Seems surprisingly stupid/pointless/shortsighted.

>That they'd never heard of the key?

Then why use it? You're saying it's more likely they hadn't heard of it, but used it anyway? You've never heard of it, have you ever surrounded a reference to people you don't like and are accusing of nefarious deeds with triple parentheses? What about the additional part about a shadowy cabal that you ignored?

>Offering a reward is not the same as "[posting] wild conspiracy theories," which is what you claimed they did.

If I offer a reward for proof that aliens abducted Elvis, you don't consider that lending credence to a conspiracy theory?

>I would call this "wanting to fact check a conspiracy theory," which I view as a good thing generally, and especially good in the case of wikileaks.

Why is Wikileaks in the business of "fact checking a conspiracy theory"? I thought they were about, you know, leaks.

>They could, but this would require them to assume no one would figure out the actual cause

No it doesn't. It just requires that if someone else figures out the actual cause they deny it. Zero cost.

> Then why use it? You're saying it's more likely they hadn't heard of it, but used it anyway?

Yes, right. They used it as a way of naming the thing they were seeing, not using it like someone familiar with it.

> What about the additional part about a shadowy cabal that you ignored?

I just rechecked the article. What shadowy cabal part?

> If I offer a reward for proof that aliens abducted Elvis, you don't consider that lending credence to a conspiracy theory?

I think a reward initially signals interest in the area, and then longer term acts as a disproof of the theory. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_... for a famous example of this effect.

> Why is Wikileaks in the business of "fact checking a conspiracy theory"? I thought they were about, you know, leaks.

Leaks of significance are of course worth more. Soliciting leaks is absolutely something they do (and should do).

> No it doesn't. It just requires that if someone else figures out the actual cause they deny it. Zero cost.

Well, except that denying hard evidence doesn't usually work (#include those who have been leak subjects). Also people all over the web are having conversations like this one, so the situation degenerating into a head-said/she-said situation would have a cost. Which as I pointed out before was an obvious outcome of their tweet.

Happy travels :)

>Yes, right. They used it as a way of naming the thing they were seeing, not using it like someone familiar with it.

You do know that the people they were talking about in their tweet didn't literally have (((echoes))) around their names, right?

Given that no twitter user was specifically mentioned by wikileaks' account, how do you know this?

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