The scandal surrounding the release of the Panama papers has fueled many publications over the week to release their own version of the event based on what was originally released on Sunday. In particular, the hacktivist group, Anonymous, has been releasing statements that surround these papers all week.
On Monday, they released an overview of the leak, focusing the driving force of their commentary on political officials involved and highliting with useful graphics the sheer size of this leaked data.
I hope my graphics work okay this time...
Next, Anonymous honed in on one of their least favorite corporations: Walmart.
Anonymous posted information that was found in an article written in June of 2015 under the tag line "Well, now we know where it is. Thanks to Panama papers." The report, originally posted by Americans for Tax Fairness accused Walmart of hiding roughly 76 billion dollars in offshore accounts. It's interesting that even old news can be added to the fuel for this fire.
Next, as Anonymous is wont to do, they posted an article highlighting the biased portrayal of the leak by conventional media sources. Anonymous criticized the release of the data by western sources, citing that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is funded by the USA's Center for Public Integrity. As a result, they say, the media that is being released to the American Public is highly geared toward a western political agenda. They state that even though many other heads of state have been involved, the release has been geared toward Vladamir Putin and Assad while skimming over the presence of "hundreds of Israeli companies and shareholders" in the leaked reports.
Though Anonymous is not the most trustworthy news sorce in my opinion(they have an agenda, just like everyone else...) they are usually more centered on filtering out media bias and corruption and are not particularly geared toward caring that this money is not being taxed. As a result, the tenor of their coverage of this situation is uniquely interesting. It will be interesting to see what they have to say about the leak when the data is released in its entirety next month.
Im curious about how you're thinking about publics in the context of this post. Do you think we as a general public have a a stake in the happenings of the panama papers? After all, very few, and any of us will directly feel the effects of the leak. It should come as no surprise that while some of the mentioned people were in fact, involved in illicit trading and laundering, there are many more people who were operating fully within legal boundaries. Interesting to think that all the names mentioned are now a stigmatized public group. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteCrikett,
ReplyDeleteReally good thinking here. I find it interesting how something as blatant as the Panama Papers leak can be interpreted and construed for different purposes. I had not even noticed the Western-agenda slant, but now that you say it, I definitely see its tenor in the articles. For example, no where had I read that WalMart was implicated in the papers. Because the U.S. is so capitalist and McDonaldization-driven, that makes sense.
But, I suppose the bias reveals how texts can be construed in a variety of different ways for different means, and texts really have little value aside from the meaning we construct through them. Crazy! Is anything really "safe" from this interpreting process?
-Anjeli