There is definitely some bad blood between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Wikileaks, the controversial organization which posted thousands of pages of classified Iraqi War documents. On the Charlie Rose last night, towards the end of his interview, Wales says, “If I had some information, the last thing I would ever do with it is send it to Wiikileaks.”
He prefaced that remark by noting that he has “mixed feelings about Wikileaks.” People with information about wrongdoing in open societies should have the opportunity to make that information public. His concern is the way that Wikileaks chose to do that without regard for the safety of people “who are not the wrongdoers.” ” I think they should be slower in releasing things,” he says.
So what would Wales do with that information? He would send it to the New York Times or some “responsible” journalistic enterprise. The relevant segment is in the video above, or you can watch the entire interview here.
Wales has criticized Wikileaks before. Some of this bad blood stems from the fear that some people might associate Wikileaks with Wikipedia or the Wikimedia foundation. Wales gets into that as well with Rose, noting that he has traded emails with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange “about the domain name.” He describes a dispute there, with the Wikimedia Foundation registering defensive domains and then transferring them, which seems to be in the process of being resolved.