I stumbled across and article regarding Wikileaks. This site an amorphous, international organization, originally based in Sweden that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive documents from governments and other organizations, while preserving the anonymity of their sources. I'm struggling with trying to answer the question is this a good thing or not??? Does it violate the idea of social networking and Web 2.0? Thoughts anyone?
Isn't this an extension of the mass amaturization of journalism that Shirky describes? Through the years investigative journalists have long sought to counter the tendency of governments to go beyond protection of national security to actually classify information that is merely embarassing. The classic source for those journalists was the "insider". That is still what is happening--someone inside an agency has knowledge of something that offends their sense of what is right, and they either become a whistleblower or a wikileaker.
ReplyDeleteGood thing or not? It depends. Leak the identity of a deep-cover CIA agent? Bad leak. Leak information about a "Plumbers" team from inside the White House staging break-ins against political opponents? Good leak. Of course, what's missing is the wisdom and judgement of career editors.