Video Of Last Week's Thoughtful Discussion On Wikileaks
from the take-the-time-to-watch dept
Last week, I wrote about the fascinating panel discussion about Wikileaks I attended, which had Daniel Ellsberg (of Pentagon Papers fame), Clay Shirky, Roy Singham, Peter Thiel and Jonathan Zittrain. In the discussion, I noted that there really wasn’t anyone on the panel who felt that Wikileaks was definitively “bad,” which made some in the comments falsely assume that the panel just involved people all agreeing with each other. Thankfully, the video is now up (and embedded below) so you can see the full discussion for yourself. It’s long — nearly two hours — but worth it. As you can see, the panel most certainly does not agree with each other, each of the participants raises thoughtful ideas and questions, with many being challenged by others. I thought it was a very productive and worthwhile discussion that should get people thinking a lot about how they view Wikileaks.
Filed Under: clay shirky, daniel ellsberg, discussion, jonathan zittrain, peter thiel, roy singham, wikileaks
Comments on “Video Of Last Week's Thoughtful Discussion On Wikileaks”
They don’t agree with each other on specific points, but they do agree with each other overall. It’s back slapping self justification at it’s best. As soon as I see Shirky’s name on anything, I know it’s going to be a bust.
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“It’s back slapping self justification at it’s best.”
Funny thing, I could say the same thing about a recording industry get together I watched last year.
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I wouldn’t disagree with you. But what is wrong on one side doesn’t justify similar action on the other.
ZOMG! DHS Seized Shriky.com!
I wanted to read more about this Clay Shirky guy, especially this “Rant against women” article. Anyways, it looks like your friend, Clay Shirky’s website is down. I’m pretty sure DHS seized it.
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/01/a-rant-about-women/
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“But what is wrong on one side doesn’t justify similar action on the other.”
You are totally correct in your statement, and I fully agree with you.
… wait for it … I mean really wait for it …
But, this story is about people discussing wikileaks in a civil manner. It is how things should work in a democratic republic. Views expressed, discussions in an open form, determining what is right and just for society, and what is correct from the standard of law in a society. That is what we see in this video.
From the other side we see a government and world power, yelling assasinate him, shut down his funds, kick him off his servers, put pressure on him and isolate him, assasinate his character, calling for the press to be reigned in, and generally bad mouthing a flawed but idealistic man. Watching the US government in this instance is like watching an errant child, behaving badly, getting caught, and having a temper tantrum.
This is not the US I believe in.
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Touch?.
For a number of years now I have viewed the US as an adolescent who went through a sudden growth spurt and is now significantly larger and stronger than his classmates. Most of the time he is well meaning, but he often underestimates (and occasionally abuses) his power. He also doesn’t really have the maturity (yet) to use his strength wisely or with restraint. In a few years the young teenager may be viewed as a “gentle giant”, but he isn’t there yet.
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“He also doesn’t really have the maturity (yet) to use his strength wisely or with restraint. In a few years the young teenager may be viewed as a “gentle giant”, but he isn’t there yet.”
There are to many corporate hands in the government pie at this point for the gentle giant to occur. All we can hope for is a genital giant that doesn’t piss all over everyone.
The fact is that Wikileaks is something that is not only good for America and the rest of the world, but necessary for world to move on towards the shining light at the end of the tunnel.
The people who rail against WikiLeaks are, by and large, people who are terrified that their own actions and INACTIONS are going to be made public and they are going to have the mob after their butts.
Sure, the papers were ‘stolen’ (actually, a better term is LEAKED, in the same way that the Pentagon Papers were), but sometimes you have to do ‘bad’ things in order to expose worse actions.
Such as the police breaking into people’s homes in order to secure evidence. We call that ‘seizure due to a warrant’ but the former is a more honest description of it.
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Of course they will discuss Wikileaks in a civil manner, because they all agree on the big points. They are discussing divergence of opinion only on the finer points, not on the overall picture. There is no “wikileaks is bad” or “wikileaks is using illegally obtained documents”. Obviously, a discussion is civil when everyone in the room has a very similar opinion.
Actually, the US government has done very little about Wikileaks, at least in public. Pretty much everything that has happened has either been at the hands of hackers of a self inflicted wound by wikileaks looking for attention.
ZOMG! DHS Seized Shriky.com!
You can read the rant via google cache. It’s pretty lame. Basically women need to act more like men to get ahead. Be more corrupt, lie more, do whatever it takes to get ahead. All the things that Wikileaks purports to fight against (at a more extreme level of course).
Of course, that advice holds so long as we value and reward those traits. If we changed the reward/punishment structure, the ideal strategies would also change.
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The fact is that Wikileaks is something that is not only good for America and the rest of the world, but necessary for world to move on towards the shining light at the end of the tunnel.
Not at all. Wikileaks could in fact be the start of something horrible, where the diplomats are no longer willing to talk to each other for fear of getting quoted in a memo that goes public. Rather than work (sometimes against local opinion) to make deals that are beneficial for all of us, they will instead work to cover their asses with their sometimes racist or xenophobic electorate.
The other choice is exactly what people claim here for piracy. The more you push, the further underground it goes. If you think the ACTA negotiations were bad, imagine what it’s like when you don’t even know the name of the agreement or what they are talking about.
Congrats. The free flow of information just changed the world, just not for the better. Take a cookie from the cookie jar and have a nice night.
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“Actually, the US government has done very little about Wikileaks, at least in public.”
Amazon how may I help you? … this is Senator Joe Liebermans office we need to talk.
“Not at all. Wikileaks could in fact be the start of something horrible, where the diplomats are no longer willing to talk to each other for fear of getting quoted in a memo that goes public.”
So how many little boy prostitutes do you want tonight?
So how badly do you want the swedish government to shit on its popluation today?
So how far do you want to push Hadopi? Jail time or just loss of contact with humanity?
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“The more you push, the further underground it goes. If you think the ACTA negotiations were bad, imagine what it’s like when you don’t even know the name of the agreement or what they are talking about.”
It has become abundantly clear that the copyright industry is actively driving a Big Brother society, as it understands that this is the only way to save copyright. Good bye Privacy. Good bye free speech. Hello twenty four hour a day monitoring of all communications. Hello feature creep. Hello New World Order.
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Reading that it sounded over the top … sorry about that … other than the quote it was all true.
I so have to throw this one out ...
I so have to throw this one out ...
“where the diplomats are no longer willing to talk to each other for fear of getting quoted in a memo that goes public.”
The reason, we the population, should not be afraid to be monitored is … if we are doing nothing wrong then we shouldn’t be afraid of being monitored.
Kinda sucks when the tables are turned doesn’t it.
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You make the mistake of confusing the acts of a single senator with the acts of the government in power. It would be like assuming that the Pirate Party runs the EU.
Try again.
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You might appreciate this lists …
of people who want jullian assange assasinated. Do a google search on the quotes and see who made them.
Also you might like this google search …
list of US politicians that want julian assange killed. Its a list of people and politicians that have called for his death.
One interesting fact. There haven’t been any EU politicians that have called for his death or assasination. Oh wait I think there was one but he was french, and they always surrender to any larger nation putting pressure on them …
Go Hadopi!!!
I so have to throw this one out ...
The proverbial urine in the face. Nice un Heph
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“For a number of years now I have viewed the US as an adolescent who went through a sudden growth spurt and is now significantly larger and stronger than his classmates.”
More like, the only other bully in the school fell ill, and the playground was now his. I can’t wait for a new kid to move into the neighborhood.
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The miracle of misrepresentation. You have learned well from Mike Masnick, you are able to leave people with an impression while avoiding the facts.
Most of those “want him killed” just want him to face justice, and that justice just happens to include the possiblity of the death penalty. They aren’t suggesting they want to meet him in the street and pop a cap in him, or send out secret assassination teams to deal with him. Most importantly, you don’t see any of this talk coming from the administration, rather from the usual collection of yahoos.
I would have to say you are also buying into the Cult of Assange on this one. He is waging an incredible war of dis-information to try to avoid being extradited to the US if they do find a way to press charges on him. Discussions of the death penalty and people wanting to kill him is something he is setting out there to try to get a friendly court to agree not to send him to the US. Many of the stories on that Google search you listed are either blogs, opinion pieces, discuss how much of this is coming out Assange’s own mouth.
So sorry, your points suggest you have a point, but the underlying facts just don’t support them. Please try to find an Obama administration person saying “we want to killAssange” and then you have something. Until then, well, you might as well quote Sarah Palin.
The miracle of misrepresentation
Most of those “want him killed” just want him to face justice…
What ?justice?? Since when has Assange been subject to US law? You?re not talking ?justice?, you?re talking lynching, plain and simple.
Talk about ?misrepresentation??pot, meet kettle.
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“Until then, well, you might as well quote Sarah Palin.”
Sure, may as well do this, “pilot get lower I don’t have a shot.” and “I can see russia from my house”. Happy now?
“Most of those “want him killed” just want him to face justice, and that justice just happens to include the possiblity of the death penalty.”
Talk about splitting hairs, a lack of justice, and a world wide PR nightmare. Yeah, lets bring him over here and put him on trial for being a journalist then execute him after a show trial. Dude, the whole wide world, isn’t just the beltway any more.
Feel free to create a martyr and a rallying point.
Its the nations of the world and 2.2 billion people online. Think Iran after the last election, Tunisia and the other government failures based on communication, the NYC and other western and eastern flash crowds, and then expand on that as the tools get better.
“I would have to say you are also buying into the Cult of Assange on this one.”
No cool aid here. Just a cool rational mind. It seems you are the one that is swallowing the cool aid and believing what the press is saying. That is the sign of a follower, someone who wants, and needs to be part of the system. It is also a sign that you swallow all that is being said, hook, line and sinker.
I pity you.
Following this thread
I so have to throw this one out ...
Thanks … been wanting to use the genital giant joke for a year now just never had anyone give me the lead up …
:===)
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“The more you push, the further underground it goes.”
If you read what Assange wrote, that is exactly the plan. By forcing these organizations to be more secretive, they become less efficient and thus less competitive.
Unfortunately, I am not finding the link to his text right now.
I so have to throw this one out ...
You’re welcome – happy to oblige. 😉
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I wish you Cowards would distinguish yourselves. Because in this case you’re essentially applying some kind of “universalism” to the situation. I believe, but have no proof due to the use of anonymous accounts, that in the past you have advocated exactly the opposite: denying a voice to other participants.
This smacks of hypocrisy, and you’re avoiding it only by the confusion with other anonymous posters.
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lets bring him over here and put him on trial for being a journalist then execute him after a show trial. Dude, the whole wide world, isn’t just the beltway any more.
Nor do I suggest it is. You are saying the US government want him dead, I asked you to cite someone in the administration saying it, and you are unable because it isn’t true. You might as well keep quoting Palin, it’s just as meaningful.
As for being a journalist, can you show me articles he has written at Wikileaks? Actual added content, you know, writing a story, researching it, getting quotes, and doing anything other than just making public illegally obtained documents.
To compare Assange to Woodward and Bernstein is to compare an empty notebook to a great novel. Assange is no more a journalist than you or I.
o cool aid here. Just a cool rational mind. It seems you are the one that is swallowing the cool aid and believing what the press is saying. That is the sign of a follower, someone who wants, and needs to be part of the system. It is also a sign that you swallow all that is being said, hook, line and sinker.
No, I only refuse to fall for the tricks that Assange plays to stay in the media. The whole wikileaks.org “DDoS” thing is an incredible fabrication. The site didn’t have to be down 10 minutes. They chose to play the game and act like they were being attacked with no way out. They could have just changes their name servers and moved on (and they eventually, quietly did when nobody was looking anymore). I laugh when Assange claims to be losing more than half a million dollars a week because of the bank actions, and that wikileaks is going broke.
Someone who is trying to hide by slipping in the cracks between countries, trying to be a resident of nowhere to avoid legal action is, in my mind, a slippery, slippery eel who probably has plenty more issues. It isn’t about taking what the anti-wikileaks media has said and swallowing it whole, it is about having the balls and the brains to think for myself, and realize that his whole deal doesn’t add up right.
You are too busy looking at the message, and forgetting that the messengers have an agenda too. Understanding the agenda makes you understand why this isn’t journalism, just a political attack, information terrorism.
I pity you. You don’t even notice the Kool-Aid (fixed that for you) being injected direct anymore.
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You are EXACTLY correct about this.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… at one time Wikileaks was just a general clearinghouse for leaked documents. And they did a lot of good. But all the sudden, Wikileaks became all about one guy, and it went off the rails. The ‘Collateral Murder’ stunt was the very moment that they nuked the fridge.
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A not-inconsiderable number of people absolutely think that Assange is a douche, as a person. What Wikileaks represents, however, is noble in intent, if not execution.
And as for Assange ‘not being a journalist’, what, may I ask, makes a journalist a journalist? IS it reporting on the news? IS it pointing out how your government screwed over other nations? Is it leaking poorly-held data? OR is it being in a newspaper? Being one of the good-ole-boys.
Somehow, I think it’s all of the above, just not all at once.
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“As for being a journalist, can you show me articles he has written at Wikileaks? Actual added content, you know, writing a story, researching it, getting quotes, and doing anything other than just making public illegally obtained documents.”
I’ve heard this line of thinking before – and I still don’t get it. What’s wrong with the press producing raw data? Is journalism somehow more worthy of protection if it adds analysis, or spin? I for one appreciate raw data.
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“The other choice is exactly what people claim here for piracy. The more you push, the further underground it goes. If you think the ACTA negotiations were bad, imagine what it’s like when you don’t even know the name of the agreement or what they are talking about.”
If something that major (and non-critical to national security) is so secret that nobody outside the government even knows it’s being discussed, democracy is already dead, and everything else is irrelevant; it’s nonsensical to make a game plan for such a contingency because by that point the game is already over.