If we require every whistleblower to be a saint, then we’ll never hear a whistle. If you have a serious criticism of their credibility, that’s potentially different, but arbitrary criticisms of someone’s moral worth is mostly irrelevant.

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RHSeeger 9 hours ago | parent [-]

The fact that someone actively worked against the welfare of society as a whole, in significant and impactful ways, _is_ a criticism of their credibility. It speaks to their morals and empathy for others.

It doesn't mean that what they're saying is a lie, but it puts them firmly in the bucket where what they say needs to be verified.

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navane 8 hours ago | parent [-]

It doesn't matter if she's as bad as the others. The message is that the others are bad. Pointing out that she's also bad is meek at best.

	▲	RHSeeger an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You are missing the entire point > The message is that the others are bad The message is that they're bad and the fact that they did these bad things proves they're bad. And the key thing here is that we need to decide if we believe "they did these bad things". If the person reporting them is well known as someone the is truthful and trustworthy, we're likely to believe them with little proof. If the person reporting them is well known as a bad person that does things to harm others for their own benefit... we're less likely to believe them until we can verify the truth of their statements. You're completely skipping over the "is this person telling the truth" part; I assume because they're saying things that fit in with your pre-existing view of the world. And that's not a good thing.