[p2p-research] Fwd: <nettime> Twelve Theses on Wikileaks by Geert Lovink & Patrice Riemens

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 7:03 PM
Subject: Fwd: <nettime> Twelve Theses on Wikileaks by Geert Lovink & Patrice
Riemens
To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Geert Lovink <geert at xs4all.nl>
Date: Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 2:26 PM
Subject: <nettime> Twelve Theses on Wikileaks by Geert Lovink & Patrice
Riemens
To: nettime-l at kein.org



Geert Lovink & Patrice Riemens
Twelve theses on WikiLeaks

Web version:
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2010-12-07-lovinkriemens-en.html

Thesis 0
"What do I think of WikiLeaks? I think it would be a good
idea!" (after Mahatma Gandhi's famous quip on "Western Civilization")

Thesis 1
Disclosures and leaks have been a feature of all eras, however never
before has a non-state or non- corporate affiliated group done
anything on the scale of what WikiLeaks has managed to do, first with
the "collateral murder" video, then the "Afghan War Logs", and now
"Cablegate". It looks like we have now reached the moment that the
quantitative leap is morphing into a qualitative one. When WikiLeaks
hit the mainstream early in 2010, this was not yet the case. In a
sense, the "colossal" WikiLeaks disclosures can be explained as the
consequence of the dramatic spread of IT use, together with the
dramatic drop in its costs, including for the storage of millions of
documents. Another contributing factor is the fact that safekeeping
state and corporate secrets -- never mind private ones -- has become
difficult in an age of instant reproducibility and dissemination.
WikiLeaks becomes symbolic for a transformation in the "information
society" at large, holding up a mirror of things to come. So while one
can look at WikiLeaks as a (political) project and criticize it for
its modus operandi, it can also be seen as the "pilot" phase in an
evolution towards a far more generalized culture of anarchic exposure,
beyond the traditional politics of openness and transparency.

Thesis 2
For better or for worse, WikiLeaks has skyrocketed itself into the
realm of high-level international politics. Out of the blue, WikiLeaks
has become a full-blown player both on the world scene as well as in
the national spheres of some countries. Small player as it is,
WikiLeaks, by virtue of its disclosures, appears to be on a par with
governments or big corporations (its next target) -- at least in the
domain of information gathering and publication. At same time, it is
unclear whether this is a permanent feature or a temporary, hype-
induced phenomenon -- WikiLeaks appears to believe the former, and
that looks more and more likely to be the case. A puny non-state and
non-corporate actor, in its fight against the US government WikiLeaks
nonetheless does not believe it is punching above its weight -- and is
starting to behave accordingly. One might call this the
"Talibanization" stage of the postmodern "Flat World" theory, where
scales, times and places are declared largely irrelevant. What counts
is celebrity momentum and the intense accumulation of media attention.
WikiLeaks manages to capture that attention by way of spectacular
information hacks, where other parties, especially civil society
groups and human rights organizations, are desperately struggling to
get their message across. While the latter tend to play by the rules
and seek legitimacy from dominant institutions, WikiLeaks' strategy is
populist insofar that it taps into public disaffection with mainstream
politics. Political legitimacy, for WikiLeaks, is no longer something
graciously bestowed by the powers that be. WikiLeaks bypasses this Old
World structure of power and instead goes to the source of political
legitimacy in today's info-society: the rapturous banality of the
spectacle. WikiLeaks brilliantly puts to use the "escape velocity" of
IT, using IT to leave IT behind and rudely irrupt the realm of real-
world politics.

Thesis 3
In the ongoing saga called "The Decline of the US Empire", WikiLeaks
enters the stage as the slayer of a soft target. It would be difficult
to imagine it being able to inflict quite same damage to the Russian
or Chinese governments, or even to the Singaporean -- not to mention
their "corporate" affiliates. In Russia or China, huge cultural and
linguistic barriers are at work, not to speak of purely power-related
ones, which would need to be surmounted. Vastly different
constituencies are also factors there, even if we are speaking about
the narrower (and allegedly more global) cultures and agendas of
hackers, info-activists and investigative journalists. In that sense,
WikiLeaks in its present manifestation remains a typically "western"
product and cannot claim to be a truly universal or global undertaking.

Thesis 4
One of the main difficulties with explaining WikiLeaks arises from the
fact that it is unclear (also to the WikiLeaks people themselves)
whether it sees itself and operates as a content provider or as a
simple conduit for leaked data (the impression is that it sees itself
as either/or, depending on context and circumstances). This, by the
way, has been a common problem ever since media went online en masse
and publishing and communications became a service rather than a
product. Julian Assange cringes every time he is portrayed as the
editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks; yet WikiLeaks says it edits material
before publication and claims it checks documents for authenticity
with the help of hundreds of volunteer analysts. Content vs. carrier
debates of this kind have been going on for decades among media
activists, with no clear outcome. Instead of trying to resolve the
inconsistency, it might be better to look for fresh approaches and
develop new critical concepts for what has become a hybrid publishing
practice involving actors far beyond the traditional domain of the
professional news media. This might be why Assange and his
collaborators refuse to be labelled in terms of "old
categories" (journalists, hackers, etc.) and claim to represent a new
Gestalt on the world information stage.

Thesis 5
The steady decline of investigative journalism caused by diminishing
funding is an undeniable fact. Journalism these days amounts to little
more than outsourced PR remixing. The continuous acceleration and over-
crowding of the so-called attention economy ensures there is no longer
enough room for complicated stories. The corporate owners of mass
circulation media are increasingly disinclined to see the workings and
the politics of the global neoliberal economy discussed at length. The
shift from information to infotainment has been embraced by
journalists themselves, making it difficult to publish complex
stories. WikiLeaks enters this state of affairs as an outsider,
enveloped by the steamy ambiance of "citizen journalism", DIY news
reporting in the blogosphere and even faster social media like
Twitter. What WikiLeaks anticipates, but so far has been unable to
organize, is the "crowd sourcing" of the interpretation of its leaked
documents. That work, oddly, is left to the few remaining staff
journalists of selected "quality" news media. Later, academics pick up
the scraps and spin the stories behind the closed gates of publishing
stables. But where is networked critical commentariat? Certainly, we
are all busy with our minor critiques; but it remains the case that
WikiLeaks generates its capacity to inspire irritation at the big end
of town precisely because of the transversal and symbiotic relation it
holds with establishment media institutions. There's a lesson here for
the multitudes -- get out of the ghetto and connect with the Oedipal
other. Therein lies the conflictual terrain of the political.

Traditional investigative journalism used to consist of three phases:
unearthing facts, crosschecking these and backgrounding them into an
understandable discourse. WikiLeaks does the first, claims to do the
second, but omits the third completely. This is symptomatic of a
particular brand of open access ideology, where content production
itself is externalized to unknown entities "out there". The crisis in
investigative journalism is neither understood nor recognized. How
productive entities are supposed to sustain themselves materially is
left in the dark: it is simply presumed that analysis and
interpretation will be taken up by the traditional news media. But
this is not happening automatically. The saga of the Afghan War Logs
and Cablegate demonstrate that WikiLeaks has to approach and negotiate
with well-established traditional media to secure sufficient
credibility. At the same time, these media outlets prove unable to
fully process the material, inevitably filtering the documents
according to their own editorial policies.

Thesis 6
WikiLeaks is a typical SPO (Single Person Organization, or "UPO":
Unique Personality Organization). This means that the initiative
taking, decision-making and execution is largely concentrated in the
hands of a single individual. Like small and medium-sized businesses,
the founder cannot be voted out, and, unlike many collectives,
leadership does not rotate. This is not an uncommon feature within
organizations, irrespective of whether they operate in the realm of
politics, culture or the "civil society" sector. SPOs are
recognizable, exciting, inspiring, and easy to feature in the media.
Their sustainability, however, is largely dependent on the actions of
their charismatic leader, and their functioning is difficult to
reconcile with democratic values. This is also why they are difficult
to replicate and do not scale up easily. Sovereign hacker Julian
Assange is the identifying figurehead of WikiLeaks, the organization's
notoriety and reputation merging with Assange's own. What WikiLeaks
does and stands for becomes difficult to distinguish from Assange's
rather agitated private life and his somewhat unpolished political
opinions.

Thesis 7
WikiLeaks raises the question as to what hackers have in common with
secret services, since an elective affinity between the two is
unmistakable. The love-hate relationship goes back to the very
beginning of computing. One does not have to be a fan of German media
theorist Friedrich Kittler or, for that matter, conspiracy theories,
to acknowledge that the computer was born out of the military-
industrial complex. From Alan Turing's deciphering of the Nazi Enigma
code up to the role played by the first computers in the invention of
the atomic bomb, from the cybernetics movement up to the Pentagon's
involvement in the creation of the Internet -- the articulation
between computational information and the military-industrial complex
is well established. Computer scientists and programmers have shaped
the information revolution and the culture of openness; but at the
same time they have also developed encryption ("crypto"), closing
access to data for the non-initiated. What some see as "citizen
journalism" others call "info war".

WikiLeaks is also an organization deeply shaped by 1980s hacker
culture, combined with the political values of techno-libertarianism
that emerged in the 1990s. The fact that WikiLeaks was founded -- and
to a large extent is still run -- by hard-core geeks is essential to
understanding its values and moves. Unfortunately, this comes together
with a good dose of the less savoury aspects of hacker culture. Not
that idealism, the desire to contribute to making the world a better
place, could be denied to WikiLeaks: on the contrary. But this brand
of idealism (or, if you prefer, anarchism) is paired with a preference
for conspiracies, an elitist attitude and a cult of secrecy (never
mind condescension). This is not conducive to collaboration with like-
minded people and groups, who are relegated to being the simple
consumers of WikiLeaks output. The missionary zeal to enlighten the
idiotic masses and "expose" the lies of government, the military and
corporations is reminiscent of the well-known (or infamous) media-
culture paradigm from the 1950s.

Thesis 8
Lack of commonality with congenial, "another world is possible"
movements drives WikiLeaks to seek public attention by way of
increasingly spectacular and risky disclosures, thereby gathering a
constituency of often wildly enthusiastic, but generally passive
supporters. Assange himself has stated that WikiLeaks has deliberately
moved away from the "egocentric" blogosphere and assorted social media
and nowadays collaborates only with professional journalists and human
rights activists. Yet following the nature and quantity of WikiLeaks
exposures from its inception up to the present day is eerily
reminiscent of watching a firework display, and that includes a "grand
finale" in the form of the doomsday-machine pitched, yet-to-be-
unleashed "insurance" document (".aes256"). This raises serious doubts
about the long-term sustainability of WikiLeaks itself, and possibly
also of the WikiLeaks model. WikiLeaks operates with ridiculously
small staff -- probably no more than a dozen of people form the core
of its operation. While the extent and savviness of WikiLeaks' tech
support is proved by its very existence, WikiLeaks' claim to several
hundreds of volunteer analysts and experts is unverifiable and, to be
frank, barely credible. This is clearly WikiLeaks Achilles' heel, not
only from a risk and/or sustainability standpoint, but politically as
well -- which is what matters to us here.

Thesis 9
WikiLeaks displays a stunning lack of transparency in its internal
organization. Its excuse that "WikiLeaks needs to be completely opaque
in order to force others to be totally transparent" amounts, in our
opinion, to little more than Mad magazine's famous Spy vs. Spy
cartoons. You beat the opposition but in a way that makes you
indistinguishable from it. Claiming the moral high ground afterwards
is not helpful -- Tony Blair too excelled in that exercise. As
WikiLeaks is neither a political collective nor an NGO in the legal
sense, and nor, for that matter, a company or part of social movement,
we need to discuss what type of organization it is that we are dealing
with. Is WikiLeaks a virtual project? After all, it does exist as a
(hosted) website with a domain name, which is the bottom line. But
does it have a goal beyond the personal ambition of its founder(s)? Is
WikiLeaks reproducible? Will we see the rise of national or local
chapters that keep the name? What rules of the game will they observe?
Should we rather see it as a concept that travels from context to
context and that, like a meme, transforms itself in time and space?

Thesis 10
Maybe WikiLeaks will organize itself around its own version of the
Internet Engineering Task Force's slogan "rough consensus and running
code"? Projects like Wikipedia and Indymedia have both resolved this
issue in their own ways, but not without crises, conflicts and splits.
A critique such as the one voiced here is not intended to force
WikiLeaks into a traditional format; on the contrary, it is to explore
whether WikiLeaks (and its future clones, associates, avatars and
congenial family members) might stand as a model for new forms of
organization and collaboration. The term "organized network" has been
coined as a possible term for these formats. Another term has been
"tactical media". Still others have used the generic term "internet
activism". Perhaps WikiLeaks has other ideas about the direction it
wants to take. But where? It is up to WikiLeaks to decide for itself.
Up to now, however, we have seen very little by way of an answer,
leaving others to raise questions, for example about the legality of
WikiLeaks' financial arrangements (Wall Street Journal).

We cannot flee the challenge of experimenting with post-
representational networks. As ur-blogger Dave Winer wrote about the
Apple developers, "it's not that they're ill-intentioned, they're just
ill-prepared. More than their users, they live in a Reality Distortion
Field, and the people who make the Computer For the Rest of Us have no
clue who the rest of us are and what we are doing. But that's okay,
there's a solution. Do some research, ask some questions, and listen."

Thesis 11
The widely shared critique of the self-inflicted celebrity cult of
Julian Assange invites the formulation of alternatives. Wouldn't it be
better to run WikiLeaks as an anonymous collective or "organized
network"? Some have expressed the wish to see many websites doing the
same work. One group around Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who parted company
with Assange in September, is already known to be working on a
WikiLeaks clone. What is overlooked in this call for a proliferation
of WikiLeaks is the amount of expert knowledge required to run a leak
site successfully. Where is the ABC tool-kit of WikiLeaks? There is,
perhaps paradoxically, much secrecy involved in this way of making-
things-public. Simply downloading a WikiLeaks software kit and getting
going is not a realistic option. WikiLeaks is not a plug 'n' play blog
application like Wordpress, and the word "Wiki" in its name is really
misleading, as Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales has been at pains to stress.
Contrary to the collaboration philosophy of Wikipedia, WikiLeaks is a
closed shop run with the help of an unknown number of faceless
volunteers. One is forced to acknowledge that the know-how necessary
to run a facility like WikiLeaks is pretty arcane. Documents not only
need to be received anonymously, but also to be further anonymized
before they are released online. They also need to be "edited" before
being dispatched to the servers of international news organizations
and trusted, influential "papers of record".

WikiLeaks has built up a lot of trust and confidence over the years.
Newcomers will need to go through that same, time-consuming process.
The principle of WikiLeaks is not to "hack" (into state or corporate
networks) but to facilitate insiders based in these large
organisations to copy sensitive, confidential data and pass it on to
the public domain -- while remaining anonymous. If you are aspiring to
become a leak node, you'd better start to get acquainted with
processes like OPSEC or operations security, a step-by-step plan which
"identifies critical information to determine if friendly actions can
be observed by adversary intelligence systems, determines if
information obtained by adversaries could be interpreted to be useful
to them, and then executes selected measures that eliminate or reduce
adversary exploitation of friendly critical information" (Wikipedia).
The WikiLeaks slogan says: "courage is contagious". According to
experts, people who intend to run a WikiLeaks-type operation need
nerves of steel. So before we call for one, ten, many WikiLeaks, let's
be clear that those involved run risks. Whistleblower protection is
paramount. Another issue is the protection of people mentioned in the
leaks. The Afghan Warlogs showed that leaks can also cause "collateral
damage". Editing (and eliding) is crucial. Not only OPSEC, also
OPETHICS. If publishing is not carried out in a way that is absolutely
secure for all concerned, there is a definite risk that the
"revolution in journalism" -- and politics -- unleashed by WikiLeaks
will be stopped in its tracks.

Thesis 12
We do not think that taking a stand for or against WikiLeaks is what
matters most. WikiLeaks is here to stay, until it either scuttles
itself or is destroyed by opposing forces. Our point is rather to (try
to) assess and ascertain what WikiLeaks can, could -- and maybe even
should -- do, and to help formulate how "we" could relate to and
interact with WikiLeaks. Despite all its drawbacks, and against all
odds, WikiLeaks has rendered a sterling service to the cause of
transparency, democracy and openness. As the French would say, if
something like it did not exist, it would have to be invented. The
quantitative -- and what looks soon to become the qualitative -- turn
of information overload is a fact of contemporary life. The glut of
disclosable information can only be expected to continue grow -- and
exponentially so. To organize and interpret this Himalaya of data is a
collective challenge that is clearly out there, whether we give it the
name "WikiLeaks" or not.

Amsterdam, December 2, 2010

(This is an entirely rewritten and updated version of the Ten Thesis
on Wikileaks, posted on nettime, August 30, 2010. This version was
translated in German and published in the Frankfurter Rundschau
newspaper, December 7, 2010)



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