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      A Clinton Fan Manufactured Fake News That MSNBC Personalities Spread to Discredit WikiLeaks Docs

      A Clinton Fan Manufactured Fake News That MSNBC Personalities Spread to Discredit WikiLeaks Docs

      The phrase "Fake News" has exploded in usage since the election, but the term is similar to other malleable political labels such as "terrorism" and "hate speech": because it lacks any clear definition, it is essentially useless except as an instrument of propaganda and censorship. The most important fact to realize about this new term: those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

      Glenn Greenwald
      Dec 09, 2016

      The phrase "Fake News" has exploded in usage since the election, but the term is similar to other malleable political labels such as "terrorism" and "hate speech": because it lacks any clear definition, it is essentially useless except as an instrument of propaganda and censorship. The most important fact to realize about this new term: those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

      One of the most egregious examples was the recent Washington Post article hyping a new anonymous group and its disgusting blacklist of supposedly pro-Russia news outlets - a shameful article mindlessly spread by countless journalists who love to decry Fake News, despite the Post article itself being centrally based on Fake News. (The Post this week finally added a lame editor's note acknowledging these critiques, which absurdly claimed that it did not mean to "vouch for the validity" of the blacklist even though the article's key claims were based on doing exactly that).

      From the start, it was obvious that it was this accusation from Clinton supporters - not the WikiLeaks documents - that was a complete fraud, perpetrated on the public as deliberate disinformation. With regard to the claim about the Podesta emails, now we know exactly who created it in the first instance: a hard-core Clinton fanatic.

      When Nance - MSNBC's "intelligence analyst" - issued his "Official Warning," he linked to a tweet that warned: "Please be skeptical of alleged #PodestaEmails. Trumpists are dirtying docs." That tweet, in turn, linked to a tweet from an anonymous account calling itself "The Omnivore," which had posted an obviously fake transcript purporting to be a Hillary Clinton speech to Goldman Sachs. Even though that fake document was never published by WikiLeaks, that was the entire basis for the MSNBC-inspired claim that some of the WikiLeaks documents were doctored.

      Read the full article, with possible updates, at The Intercept.

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      Opinion
      Controversy over WikiLeaks Podesta Emails Opens a Debate for Future Journalism

      Controversy over WikiLeaks Podesta Emails Opens a Debate for Future Journalism

      Nozomi Hayase
      Oct 30, 2016

      In its 10th years of existence, WikiLeaks has been at the center of controversy. Ever since its global debut with the 2010 Apache helicopter gun-sight video depicting the killing of civilians in Baghdad, the whistleblowing site has consistently exposed the naked power of empire for the world to see. As a result, the organization has been subject to relentless retaliation. With banking blockades, a secret grand jury and constant character assassination of its founder Julian Assange, who remains arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy, the U.S. government's efforts to divert public attention from evidence of its own crimes have quickly escalated into a war on the First Amendment.

      WikiLeaks' publications influenced the outcome of a Kenyan election and played a role in instigating the Icelandic revolution. Now, by means of email leaks, they began informing U.S. voters of the real working of Corporate America's tradition of lesser-evil politics.

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      Opinion
      Naomi Klein and Glenn Greenwald Tackle Ethics of WikiLeaks' Podesta Emails

      Naomi Klein and Glenn Greenwald Tackle Ethics of WikiLeaks' Podesta Emails

      'There's debate, even among people who believe in radical transparency, over the proper way to handle information like this'

      Nika Knight Beauchamp
      Oct 20, 2016

      A discussion between The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald and author and activist Naomi Klein tackled thorny privacy issues surrounding WikiLeaks' indiscriminate release of John Podesta's hacked emails in a 30-minute discussion published by The Intercept late Wednesday.

      The Intercept has covered the release of thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager in depth, from exploring Clinton's speeches to Wall Street to examining the Clinton campaign's inner workings, and Greenwald had previously described the decision to cover the emails as "an easy call."

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