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WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

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Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Guardian’s Summary of Julian Assange’s Interview Went Viral and Was Completely False https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of... Please don't try to spread FAKE NEWS.

You'll forgive me if I decline to take the world of one of the most fundamentally dishonest and unprincipled people in the public sphere on this matter. I'm no fan of the guardian, but if they said the sky was green and he said it was blue, I'd go outside and check.

I'm sorry, but I don't find him dishonest at all. In the other hand, reading the full script of what Assange said, I find YOU dishonest.

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of...

Look, you either believe people like Assange, Greenwald, and Snowden are honest people, or you don't. I do not, to say the least. The three of them strike me as some of the most fundamentally dishonest people in the public sphere.

Glenn Greenwald is known for taking quotes out of context in order to deliberately misrepresent people such as Sam Harris.

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#63
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, you either believe people like Assange, Greenwald, and Snowden are honest people, or you don't. I do not, to say the least. The three of them strike me as some of the most fundamentally dishonest people in the public sphere.

I'm kinda fascinated - why do you think they're fundamentally dishonest? I could maybe understand you thinking this about Assange/Greenwald (I personally don't) since they're essentially reporters - so we have to rely on them accurately reporting what they have been informed by sources, and being able to judge whether the source is credible, and to elect to report on anything regardless of whether it conflicts with t…

They all lie constantly, and have been proven to lie constantly. Snowden lied about pretty much every part of his story. He didn't have the access he claimed, he didn't have the knowledge he claimed, he lied about the timeline of his defection, he lied about reading or screening the documents he stole, he lied about the actual behaviours he exposed, he lied about the safeguards in place... the list goes on.

Snowden, Assange, and Greenwald are all of the same mould: they're anti-American western leftists who believe the United States' foreign policy is the biggest source of evil in the world, and that any lie told in service of taking it down is therefore justifiable.

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'll forgive me if I decline to take the world of one of the most fundamentally dishonest and unprincipled people in the public sphere on this matter. I'm no fan of the guardian, but if they said the sky was green and he said it was blue, I'd go outside and check.

I'm sorry, but I don't find him dishonest at all. In the other hand, reading the full script of what Assange said, I find YOU dishonest.

If this was ever a productive conversation, it is no longer.

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#65

Or they're just a front for Russian intelligence, as has been suggested for years, as evidenced by the fact that Assange says there's no need to report on Russia because of the "free and open media" they have, as evidenced by his show on RT, as evidenced by their facilitating Snowden's defection, as evidenced by... It seems like there are a few die-hards left who thought Assange and Manning were the greatest thing ev…

Yeah... "barely any need" to report on the Russian land of freedom where people are arrested for things like twerking.

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#66
post #35

Ok. I went and read some of the tweets this article is based on. I think what Wikileaks wants to build is a social graph of influential and powerful people (big enough names to have a blue check mark) using their tweets. Then weight and couple that with information on family relations, job, living place and so on - available from other public sources (i.e. Wikipedia biographies, LinkedIn or official websites). Sounds…

The @verified badge does not really signify a "big enough" name. Back when it was a manual process, unless you were a huge celebrity, you got on the list if you were a member of a media organization and if Twitter happened to contact your comms/social media person to submit a list of employees and Twitter names. People with just a hundred or so followers could be verified this way.

Now that you can apply to be verified, just about anyone can get the blue checkmark. You just have to provide proof of identity and fill out a form. I didn't get verified through the manual process even though I worked at a fairly prominent media org. But working in non-media, I got accepted within a couple days by filling out the form.

Check out @Verified's following-list and you'll see lots of similarly non-influential people on there: https://twitter.com/verified/following

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#67
post #3

>“We are thinking of making an online database with all 'verified' twitter accounts & their family/job/financial/housing relationships,” WikiLeaks tweeted Friday. Not WikiLeaks, but "WikiLeaks Task Force" (@WLTaskForce). I'm not even sure it's widely known who exactly is behind that account, though it's interestingly a verified account itself. UPD1 After some googling it seems the account is listed as official on wik…

There's a recent @wikileaks tweet saying only they can make official statements : https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/817538212709203968 The link you posted still mentions the others though.

They haven't disavowed the @WLTaskForce account, though.

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#68
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kinda fascinated - why do you think they're fundamentally dishonest? I could maybe understand you thinking this about Assange/Greenwald (I personally don't) since they're essentially reporters - so we have to rely on them accurately reporting what they have been informed by sources, and being able to judge whether the source is credible, and to elect to report on anything regardless of whether it conflicts with t…

They all lie constantly, and have been proven to lie constantly. Snowden lied about pretty much every part of his story. He didn't have the access he claimed, he didn't have the knowledge he claimed, he lied about the timeline of his defection, he lied about reading or screening the documents he stole, he lied about the actual behaviours he exposed, he lied about the safeguards in place... the list goes on. Snowden,…

I didn't downvote you, but I think you're being downvoted because you're being a little vague. If Snowden is lying constantly (particularly as you say about the behaviours he exposed) I'd expect the criticism to be more specific than what you said.

Also the "they want to take down the United States" thing is pretty extreme and a bit "InfoWars" sounding, and if you listen to him and his justifications for what he did then it's pretty apparent that this is not something he stands for.

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#69
Isn't privacy by obscurity just as broken as security by obscurity is? I mean, if it is possible to build such a list from publicly available data, the bad guys already should have one so why not make it public? Or are they planning on building the list from leaked data? The article doesn't talk about the origin of the data.

Re: WikiLeaks proposes tracking verified Twitter users’ homes, families and finances

#70
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They all lie constantly, and have been proven to lie constantly. Snowden lied about pretty much every part of his story. He didn't have the access he claimed, he didn't have the knowledge he claimed, he lied about the timeline of his defection, he lied about reading or screening the documents he stole, he lied about the actual behaviours he exposed, he lied about the safeguards in place... the list goes on. Snowden,…

I didn't downvote you, but I think you're being downvoted because you're being a little vague. If Snowden is lying constantly (particularly as you say about the behaviours he exposed) I'd expect the criticism to be more specific than what you said. Also the "they want to take down the United States" thing is pretty extreme and a bit "InfoWars" sounding, and if you listen to him and his justifications for what he did…

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