The wikileaks approach of 'publish all the things' was just begging to be used by a state propaganda machine.
Are there any credible sources indicating that Wikileaks selectively edited or chose what to publish based on political goals? I think they have some sort of process to validate legitimacy of leaks before they publish them, but I've never heard claims that they intentionally edited or chose not to leak information for Wikileaks own political goals.
Certainly possible that Russia leaked true-but-incomplete information to Wikileaks, but isn't, like, all discussion of reality true-but-incomplete?
Edit: Sibling thread found a claim of selective editing I was not previously aware of. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikileaks-syria-files-syria-r...
> After the Soviet term became widely known in the 1980s, native speakers of English broadened the term as "any government communication (either overt or covert) containing intentionally false and misleading material, often combined selectively with true information, which seeks to mislead and manipulate either elites or a mass audience."[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation
- March 16: Internal WikiLeaks messages indicate the purpose of the archive is to annoy Clinton and establish WikiLeaks as a "resource/player" in the election.[29]:44–45
- June 14: The GRU uses its @dcleaks_ persona to reach out to WikiLeaks and offer to coordinate the release of sensitive information about Clinton, including financial documents.[353][29]:45
- June 22: WikiLeaks reaches out to "Guccifer 2.0" via Twitter. They ask "Guccifer 2.0" to send them material because it will have a bigger impact if they publish it. They also specifically ask for material on Clinton they can publish before the convention.[256]
I'm not saying Assange is guilty of any crimes, or doctored evidence. But Wikileaks had an agenda beyond "the facts".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_interferen...
I think the
>containing intentionally false and misleading material
portion of the definition is crucial.
By all means, call it foreign election interference or a foreign propaganda campaign. But in my opinion, accurate information can never be 'disinfo'. I think this is a slippery slope towards discrediting all information that embarrasses or threatens the state: whistleblowers, investigative reporting on war crimes and corruption, etc.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/assange-embassy-excl...
[on edit:] And the second point is that Wikileaks, as free-speech ideologues, didn't actually NEED to be explicitly complicit to act as a vector for psyops. If you know your opponent is going to throw rock every time, you can win by throwing paper every time. If you're a Fancy Bear and know that Wikileaks will publish whatever you give them, then you can selectively choose what to hand them.