First published at http://www.edge.

org on dec 7th 2010

Cablegate Is No Watergate by Aalam Wassef

Washington, 1972. Two inquisitive journalists, an informant, tens of supporting sources,

hundreds of physical documents and an editorial board waking up to the word cor-ro-bo-ra-
te! That was the Watergate.

Fast forward to the Cablegate, the Web, November 2010 and be warned that any
ressemblance to journalism, as you knew it, is purely coincidental.

In an interview to the Belfast Telegraph, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks's founder, explains: "We
don't verify our sources, we verify the documents. As long as they are bona fide it doesn't
matter where they come from." And he concludes: "We would rather not know."

The WikiLeaks Cablegate trove, as it is referred to in the press, seems to have disintegrated
journalistic common practice and routines. Verifying your sources then protecting their
identity has shifted to not knowing your sources and digitally encrypting their identities.

Julian Assange seems to believe that truth and good faith are to be found within the
documents: "As long as they [the documents] are bona fide it doesn't matter where they come
from". Challenging thought, considering that forging digital text is easier than forging your
own mother's signature.

Responding to concerned New York Times readers, Bill Keller, executive editor, explains:
"[…] the format is familiar from embassy cables we have seen from other sources." He adds :
"No official has questioned the genuineness of the material, or suggested that they have been
manipulated in any way."

According to Keller, graphic design on one hand, and silence on the other, prove the
authenticity of information.

The Times's safeguards seem too weak compared to the many risks potentially involved but
yet, and for a reason we wish to understand, five world famous newspapers have endorsed
this material, namely the New York Times, The Guardian, El País, Der Spiegel and Le
Monde. Why ? On what grounds ? The previous grounds — source verification,
corroboration, material proof — seem to be definitely out of fashion.

When so much opacity, encryption and silence are involved, how exactly does WikiLeaks
gain a newspaper's trust and, consequently, how does a newspaper gain its readers' trust.
Answering the second question is an easy call : we trust the Times, period.

As for the first question, someone should step forward and provide us with a proper
explanation.

While claiming that violating secrets in the name of greater transparency is good and
informative, one should be reminded that those secrets are in the very hands of men and
women, institutions and administrations that have been entrusted and elected by the people.

In that respect, Wikileaks's opacities can in no way be compared to US diplomatic secrecy.

WikiLeaks is unlected, unmonitored and unregulated by the people or any of its
representatives.

The Cablegate raises, again, two issues that challenge the "Wiki" world and the Web in
general : Internet popularity versus authority, and Internet popularity versus quality.

Wikipedia is impressive and popular, but can we trust it? Is it an authoritative source on the
information it provides? WikiLeaks is powerful and is potentially an amazing "contre
pouvoir", but have they been granted the authority — by any international organization — to
handle material that involves the public good on a global scale?

Popularity of online content grants it high rankings in search engines such as Google. The
first results are not necessarily the best or the most accurate, they are the ones getting the
highest number of hits.

On its Twitter page, WikiLeaks boasted on December 4th 2010 that, according to Google, it
was twice as known as Wikipedia.

This quantitative metric alone might well explain the global media’s interest for WikiLeaks
considering it — just as search engines would do — worthy of attention and authoritative by
popularity.

Everything would then fall into place. Wikileaks is popular, meaning it is authoritative.
According to the same logic, one should consider WikiLeaks as an acclaimed and legitimate
representative of those who searched it, clicked it and made it more famous than Wikipedia.

"One click, one vote" says Google, making its ranking algorithm sound like the very essence
of democracy.

The prospect of knowledge and information becoming authoritative by popularity is a rather

disturbing one. If the production processes of one and the other started mimicking "bottom-
up" marketing strategies, wouldn’t the end product merely reflect the crowd’s "likes" and
expectations, regardless of facts, regardless of what is right and regardless of the truth ?

AALAM WASSEF
Founder of PeerEvaluation.org