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Maybe Publishing the Epstein Files Was a Bad Idea

When the people who claim to be on the victims’ side repeatedly make elementary mistakes, when they’re being led by their emotions, it helps the criminals, who can then reasonably call their opponents’ credibility into question.

Maybe Publishing the Epstein Files Was a Bad Idea
Photo by Leiada Krözjhen / Unsplash

I’m starting to think that publishing the Epstein files may not have been a good idea after all.

At first, I was in favor of the Department of Justice releasing the files, in the name of error correction. The public might connect some dots the authorities missed, which could in turn help victims get justice. Law enforcement has little incentive to do things right: their income is guaranteed and they have no competition.

Some good has come of the release. Especially the open-source projects making the files accessible, like Jmail, were promising. They inspired me to make my own map of Epstein’s flights. I figured I could bring a tiny bit of light into all this darkness. But now I’m considering taking the map down.

What we’re seeing after this most recent release is public hysteria and mob justice. The conspiracy theories, rampant antisemitism, confirmation bias… Some people don’t seem to understand simple emails; they don’t seem to know what the term ‘evidence’ means or how to evaluate evidence. They don’t know the difference between fact and conjecture/speculation.

While I’ve seen many of the newly released files, I have not seen all of them. People are still going through the files as I write this, so there may be new developments I’m currently unaware of. In addition, I realize that I risk contradicting myself by re-releasing some of the files in this post, but hopefully I can put them in the right context.

Consider this exchange, which is currently making the rounds of outrage over on X (read bottom to top):

The conspiracy theorists who actually believe that Epstein ran a global ring of elite necrophiles take this exchange to confirm their fantasy: they think Epstein is literally joking about decapitating women and having sex with their lifeless bodies. But he might as well have joked about putting a paper bag over an ugly face. Is it in poor taste? Of course. Is it evidence of murder or necrophilia? No.

Consider this email:

Some people are interpreting this exchange as confirmation that Epstein ran an extortion ring. But it actually sounds like he, or someone close to him, was being extorted.

The following email in particular has caused a ton of outrage:

Brian Krassenstein (among many others) tweeted this photo and got 37,000 likes at the time of writing:

To be sure, outrage over a 9-year-old being trafficked would be completely appropriate. But it wasn’t a 9-year-old. As the community notes say, the equal sign replaces a ‘1’ due to an issue with file exports. She was actually 19:

At the time of writing, I’m not aware that Krassenstein retracted his tweet or issued a correction, even though this artifact can be found in many files, and even though several commenters have pointed out the error to him. And it would still be his responsibility to get the facts right even if nobody did point out the error.

Consider this photo of (who I understand to be) Prince Andrew and a female:

Some people thought she was dead, but her raised arm in another photo proved that she wasn’t. And if she had been, why on earth would Prince Andrew, of all people, who presumably has a lot to lose, casually let someone take a photo of him with a dead body? That wouldn’t make any sense. But these arguments don’t convince conspiracy theorists who want to believe that the global elite is a bunch of necrophiles.

Somebody else posted, in response to the above photo, “God damn. You can tell she isn't up to 16 from the images. This is a child”. But it’s not clear at all how old this female is. Since we can’t see her face, all we can go on is her body. That could be a developed 15-year-old or a 25-year-old. We just don’t know. These assertions are arbitrary. Again, ‘evidence’ that could just as well mean something else simply isn’t evidence.

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, is currently in a pissing match with Elon Musk over their (real or alleged, who knows at this point) associations with Epstein. Hoffman implied that Musk may have sent Epstein a photo of a “young girl” wearing a t-shirt with a logo of one of Musk’s companies, Space X. But the logo is clearly photoshopped into the picture. You’d think someone like Hoffman would be smarter than that:

I’ve seen several calls for guillotines and beheadings – from the same camp complaining about Epstein’s decapitation joke. That’s contradictory. People are being led by their emotions. That’s dangerous. The general public seems to have made no moral progress since the French revolution.

Guilt by association, guilty until proven innocent… I thought more people understood that these were bad ideas. I was wrong. Think of all the innocent people who ended up in the files, who did nothing more than attend one dinner where nothing questionable happened, whose lives, marriages, and careers are now being wrecked. Those who point out errors in hysterics’ thinking get labeled pedophiles, conspirators, or supporters. I don’t see how any of that helps the victims, when that should be the main focus. On the contrary, when the people who claim to be on the victims’ side repeatedly make elementary mistakes and get basic facts wrong, when they’re being led by their emotions, it undermines the good side and helps the criminals, who can then reasonably call their opponents’ credibility into question.

I expected too much from the general public. I don’t recall ever seeing so many people being so confidently yet so obviously wrong. Maybe matters like this one should be reserved for professionals after all. Dumping a bunch of files and letting the hyenas have at it was not the right way to do it.

I also hosted a space on X about this topic. Listen to the recording.

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