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> Wikileaks is a Russian propaganda machine. > They are only interested in Anti-America leaks, not all leaks. Everybody should make their own judgement on the
by wolfgke 8y ago
> Wikileaks is a Russian propaganda machine.
> They are only interested in Anti-America leaks, not all leaks.
Everybody should make their own judgement on the political bias of Wikileaks (which is, in my personal opinion, a very good reason why monopolies are typically bad; in other words: there is a demand on multiple independent Wikileaks-like websites), but the statement that Wikileaks is only interested in Anti-America leaks does not hold in my opinion. See for example the following leak about Russia's mass surveillance apparatus:
> https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/19/wikileaks-releases-documents-it-claims-detail-russia-mass-surveillance-apparatus/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/19/wikileaks-releases-documen...
Or let us quote
> https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/5mv07m/has_wikileaks_ever_published_anything_against/dc6lwnk/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/5mv07m/has_wikil...
"They released Syrian/Russian email exchanges, I don't know if it led to anything extremely controversial. In an interview, Assange said the main reason they don't receive leaks from Russian whistle-blowers is that the whistle-blowers prefer to hand over documents to Russian-speaking leaking organization.
And Wikileaks doesn't have Russian-speakers in their organization. You can tell your friend that if he or she wants Wikileaks to release damaging Russian documents, then he or she should hack the Russian government and give what they find to WL."
Or have a look at
> https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/5mv07m/has_wikileaks_ever_published_anything_against/dc6sd1q/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/5mv07m/has_wikil...
On
> https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wikileaks_staff_despite_our_editor/d9v5m6f/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik...
you can find a list of various counter-arguments to common criticisms of WikiLeaks.
- alehul 8y agoEdit: Seems the parent comment has now reached net positive votes It's a really sad thing you're being downvoted, as I made a similar comment about a year ago [1] in defense of WikiLeaks to over 30 upvotes. HN seems to be getting more and more active with their downvotes towards information that doesn't fit their current perspective. [1] = https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13816762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13816762
- wolfgke 8y ago> It's a really sad thing you're being downvoted, as I made a similar comment about a year ago [1] in defense of WikiLeaks to over 30 upvotes. HN seems to be getting more and more active with their downvotes towards information that doesn't fit their current perspective. > [1] = https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13816762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13816762 I don't see myself as a defender of WikiLeaks. It is, for example, hard not to admit that the Democratic National Committee email leak and the exchange between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks (at least to me) has some kind of "smell" [2]. My argument rather is: a) the position of WikiLeaks (if there exists one) is far more confusing and sometimes self-contradictory than it looks on the surface (in this sense, I am both somewhat sceptical of the "WikiLeaks defenders" and the "WikiLekas prosecutors"). b) do not trust any side as "authoritative". Consider multiple different sources - in particular the ones that do not agree with your personal opinion - and conceive an opinion on the whole story. [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-secret-correspondence-between-donald-trump-jr-and-wikileaks/545738/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-sec...
- alehul 8y agoCompletely agree with that. I just threw you into that category for the purpose of my comment as I believed it was a perceived defense of Wikileaks that you were being downvoted for, rather than something else regarding the content of your comment.