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Thursday's Most Active Threads

by Jeff Steele last modified Apr 14, 2023 11:43 AM

The topics with the most engagement yesterday included the leak of US military documents, a schizophrenic neighbor, the cost of weddings, and a fragile generation.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Massive pentagon leak re Ukraine conflict" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started back on April 6 after the New York Times reported about a leak of secret US military documents regarding Ukraine. The thread gained interest yesterday due to the arrest of the alleged leaker. This story, and as a result the thread, has had an interesting trajectory. When the leak first occurred, it was portrayed as being bad for the Biden administration because it allegedly documented that that Ukraine-Russian war was going worse for the Ukrainians than it was being portrayed. When it was shown that some of the leaked documents had been doctored, many concluded that this was a Russian disinformation operation. As is true of almost everything these days, posters reacted based mostly on their political leanings. Biden supporters blamed the leaks on MAGA supporters aligned with Russia and downplayed the importance of the leaked information. Anti-Biden posters claimed that the leaks undermined public statements about the war and demonstrated that Biden was a liar. Much of the discusion focused on the origin of the documents. The New York Times article noted that the documents were circulating on Twitter and Telegram, but posters soon learned that prior to reaching those networks, the documents had surfaced in various discussion groups on Discord. The trail eventually led to a Discord group that had been disbanded. Many posters were convinced that the leaker must be member of Congress and there was quite a bit of discussion about which Member of Congress or which party might be behind the leak. Those suspicions eventually proved unfounded. The New York Times, working with an investigator from Bellingcat, was able to identify and interview a member of the now disbanded group and provide information about the leaker whose name the newspaper revealed yesterday. The leaker turned out to be a member of the Air National Guard who allegedly only intended to use the documents to educate members of the small Discord group about world affairs. Liberal posters were quick to claim vindication for predicting a conservative was behind the leak. Conservative posters were not able to respond with a cohesive message. Some tried to portray the leaker as a libertarian rather than a conservative. Posters who followed Donald Trump's lead and insisted that this was the most damaging leak in the history of leaks suddenly saw this as the brave act of an anti-war patriot. Some of the more conspiratorial-minded theorized that the airman was a fall guy for higher ups and urged posters not to trust the New York Times or Washington Post who are — according to these posters — in Biden's pocket.

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