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WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

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Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#11

Post by keane »

And then, inexplicably, the WikiLeaks official Twitter account also dove straight for naked anti-Semitism.

The author, Emma Ellis, has no comprehension of the tweet in question. Understanding the background could have prevented this:

1. Neo-Nazis begin to point out to their supporters that the people they are discussing are Jews (or "Jew aiders and abettors" [sic]) by placing three brackets around their name. The subjects are often unaware and their account usernames (obviously) do not display brackets.

2. In reaction to this, numerous camps (social justice activists, evangelical Christians, civil society workers, journalists, etc.) both Jewish and non-Jewish alike begin to place three brackets around their display name to draw attention to the practice and to express solidarity with those who are being discussed in brackets, a practice sometimes revered in Western culture [1][2][3][4].

3. A subset of these self-labelled, self-bracketed individuals criticize WikiLeaks.

4. The WikiLeaks account notices that many of their critics are self-bracketed individuals expressing solidarity and wonders what type of people do this, as one might question the individuals who change their profile pictures to have a flag overlay for the tragedy du jour, and if said people are doing so for their own interest.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deputy#Historical_models [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_(film)#.22I.27m_Spar... [4] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IAmSpartacus

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#12

Post by jganetsk »

keane wrote: post #11

And then, inexplicably, the WikiLeaks official Twitter account also dove straight for naked anti-Semitism. The author, Emma Ellis, has no comprehension of the tweet in question. Understanding the background could have prevented this: 1. Neo-Nazis begin to point out to their supporters that the people they are discussing are Jews (or "Jew aiders and abettors" [sic]) by placing three brackets around their name. The sub…

Then why did the tweet start with the word "Tribalist"? Which alleged tribalism did they happen to be referring to there? The myriad tribalisms of social justice activists, evangelical Christians, civil society workers, journalists, etc. Or that of the Jews?

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#13

Post by mywittyname »

keane wrote: post #11

And then, inexplicably, the WikiLeaks official Twitter account also dove straight for naked anti-Semitism. The author, Emma Ellis, has no comprehension of the tweet in question. Understanding the background could have prevented this: 1. Neo-Nazis begin to point out to their supporters that the people they are discussing are Jews (or "Jew aiders and abettors" [sic]) by placing three brackets around their name. The sub…

That's so much of a stretch though. If they really meant "people who self-identify with persecuted jews," they should have said as much.

Then again, when you say it like that, it looks just as bad.

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#14

Post by jandrese »

danso wrote: post #9
jandrese wrote: post #2

This reads like a hit piece. They're lambasting Wikileaks for not understanding some obscure triple parenthesis nomenclature? They're anti-semitic because they're not plugged into the anti-semite culture enough to know their jargon? That three parenthesis thing was news to me. It seems weird that people would brand themselves in such an obscure way. I guess Twitter handles can't have Unicode ?

This was a fairly big meme in media and political circles: http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11853244/google-chrome-exte... > Yesterday, Mic reported that a Google Chrome extension called "Coincidence Detector" was creating a database of Jewish people in order to notify users when they were reading the work of, or reading about, a Jewish person online. The extension placed three sets of parentheses (a symbol used by n…

Wait, so the idea is that the Wikileaks Twitter account operator installed a neo-nazi chrome extension, then forgot he had it installed and tweeted out in confusion as to why people were tagged, thus outing himself as some sort of Hitler youth with bad memory?

Calling that tweet anti-Semitic just doesn't make sense. It reads like someone trying way too hard to turn a molehill into a mountain. I'm guessing if we look through the history we'll discover that the people attacking him on Twitter had changed their usernames to include the parenthesis.

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#15

Post by mywittyname »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #5

I hope WikiLeaks moral high ground and/or credibilty are never huge factors. Their releases should probably always be treated with trust-but-verify disposition. Or maybe distrust-until-verified. The way I look at it, WikiLeaks is basically a parallel construction. We have no idea how or where the info came from, but if it's a map to the bodies, we go there and see if it's accurate info.

> I hope WikiLeaks moral high ground and/or credibilty are never huge factors.

I think they are hugely important factors. Information is power and they have a huge amount of influence because of the trust people have placed in them.

Like it or not, wikileaks will influence all of our lives. To say that they are a mere conduit and have no obligation to vet or squelch the information they've been given is to also assume that they will never get their hands on information (factual, or otherwise) which may have a direct, negative impact to you personally.

Useful information is rarely neutral. There are nearly always winners and losers when it is disclosed.

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#16

Post by krapp »

jganetsk wrote: post #12
keane wrote: post #11

And then, inexplicably, the WikiLeaks official Twitter account also dove straight for naked anti-Semitism. The author, Emma Ellis, has no comprehension of the tweet in question. Understanding the background could have prevented this: 1. Neo-Nazis begin to point out to their supporters that the people they are discussing are Jews (or "Jew aiders and abettors" [sic]) by placing three brackets around their name. The sub…

Then why did the tweet start with the word "Tribalist"? Which alleged tribalism did they happen to be referring to there? The myriad tribalisms of social justice activists, evangelical Christians, civil society workers, journalists, etc. Or that of the Jews?

Maybe it's an anarchist thing? "Tribalists" being anyone who believes in the estabishment hierarchies Wikileaks wants to undermine?

I searched Reddit and found it used as a perjorative for capitalists/statists a few times.

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#17

Post by mywittyname »

jandrese wrote: post #14
danso wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a fairly big meme in media and political circles: http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11853244/google-chrome-exte... > Yesterday, Mic reported that a Google Chrome extension called "Coincidence Detector" was creating a database of Jewish people in order to notify users when they were reading the work of, or reading about, a Jewish person online. The extension placed three sets of parentheses (a symbol used by n…

Wait, so the idea is that the Wikileaks Twitter account operator installed a neo-nazi chrome extension, then forgot he had it installed and tweeted out in confusion as to why people were tagged, thus outing himself as some sort of Hitler youth with bad memory? Calling that tweet anti-Semitic just doesn't make sense. It reads like someone trying way too hard to turn a molehill into a mountain. I'm guessing if we look…

Not really. The Chrome extension has kind of catapulted the idea of "(((name))) == jew" into internet nomenclature. But since isn't quite into popular culture yet, it holds this juxtaposition of being unambiguous, but with plausible deniability.

"I didn't know this dog whistle made a sound."

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#18

Post by krapp »

mywittyname wrote: post #15
spacemanmatt wrote: post #5

I hope WikiLeaks moral high ground and/or credibilty are never huge factors. Their releases should probably always be treated with trust-but-verify disposition. Or maybe distrust-until-verified. The way I look at it, WikiLeaks is basically a parallel construction. We have no idea how or where the info came from, but if it's a map to the bodies, we go there and see if it's accurate info.

> I hope WikiLeaks moral high ground and/or credibilty are never huge factors. I think they are hugely important factors. Information is power and they have a huge amount of influence because of the trust people have placed in them. Like it or not, wikileaks will influence all of our lives. To say that they are a mere conduit and have no obligation to vet or squelch the information they've been given is to also assum…

Edward Snowden refused to trust them for a reason - he knew they would probably refuse to vet anything that could damage the US, and just dump everything they were given.

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#19

Post by keane »

jganetsk wrote: post #12
keane wrote: post #11

And then, inexplicably, the WikiLeaks official Twitter account also dove straight for naked anti-Semitism. The author, Emma Ellis, has no comprehension of the tweet in question. Understanding the background could have prevented this: 1. Neo-Nazis begin to point out to their supporters that the people they are discussing are Jews (or "Jew aiders and abettors" [sic]) by placing three brackets around their name. The sub…

Then why did the tweet start with the word "Tribalist"? Which alleged tribalism did they happen to be referring to there? The myriad tribalisms of social justice activists, evangelical Christians, civil society workers, journalists, etc. Or that of the Jews?

WikiLeaks writes: "Most of our critics have 3 (((brackets))) around their names... Tribalist symbol for establishment climbers?"

Tribalist here in the sense of those who are complicit with In-Group/Out-Group dynamics [1]. Knowing that Assange is some sort of anarchist helps [2]. Such language is common within a certain political perspective that includes anarchism; these 'horizontalist' 'global citizens' envision a utopia and as they work towards it, in addition to opposing establishment climbers especially, they often look down on and view 'identity politics' or 'lifestyle politics' (and the use of ideological labels and in-group signaling all together) as base and beneath them [3]. And yes, they often practice the same things they critique and theoretically oppose.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups [2] http://web.archive.org/web/20060712184552/http://iq.org/inde... [3] http://new-compass.net/articles/beyond-ideology

Re: WikiLeaks Has Officially Lost the Moral High Ground

#20

Post by danso »

jandrese wrote: post #14
danso wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a fairly big meme in media and political circles: http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11853244/google-chrome-exte... > Yesterday, Mic reported that a Google Chrome extension called "Coincidence Detector" was creating a database of Jewish people in order to notify users when they were reading the work of, or reading about, a Jewish person online. The extension placed three sets of parentheses (a symbol used by n…

Wait, so the idea is that the Wikileaks Twitter account operator installed a neo-nazi chrome extension, then forgot he had it installed and tweeted out in confusion as to why people were tagged, thus outing himself as some sort of Hitler youth with bad memory? Calling that tweet anti-Semitic just doesn't make sense. It reads like someone trying way too hard to turn a molehill into a mountain. I'm guessing if we look…

Uh. No, the Chrome extnsion had long been booted by the time this tweet came along. The meme is that Jewish folks and their allies would intentionally put "(((" and ")))" around their own names as a show of solidarity against this purported targeting. But the implicit meaning of those triple parentheses is, "this person is Jewish". Are you suggesting that the Wikileaks tweeter was just throwing that symbolism out there randomly?
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