10 ms·

I just want to know, from the people who seemed to have turned against Assange, how do you know it's not a concerted disinformation / propaganda campaign to rem

I just want to know, from the people who seemed to have turned against Assange, how do you know it's not a concerted disinformation / propaganda campaign to remove all his credibility and reduce public support? By my reckoning It's really hard to know what to even believe about a guy who might credibly be targeted by that.

betterunix2 7y ago
Coordinating the releases of DNC emails with the Trump campaign is what did it for me. Wikileaks as a neutral outlet for leaking evidence of corruption is fine and in the past the worst anyone could say is that they were in way over their heads (remember the "insurance file"?). In 2016 Assange allowed politics to slip into the decision-making process, and gave up what credibility he and Wikileaks had.
- akhilcacharya 7y ago
  Wikileaks even sold anti-Hillary merchandise on their website.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    Hillary had "joked" about droning Assange before.
    - hannasanarion 7y ago
      There is no evidence that this happened except an article from Wikileaks itself citing "sources at the State Department". https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/julian-assange-drone-strike/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/julian-assange-drone-strik...
      - monocasa 7y ago
        Clinton's 'I didn't say that, but if I did, it would have been a joke' is exactly what politicians say when they said something they don't want attributed to them but aren't sure if there's any evidence of them saying it.
        yonkshi 7y ago
        Occam's razor applies here. Your theory is that she had 1. intended to assassinate Assange, 2. attempted to cover it as a joke and then 3. further covering it up by implying she doesn't remember this statement. Let me offer you another theory: she's almost certain that she didn't say it, but she couldn't remember every word she's said. Which theory do you think is more likely? Now I am not saying you are wrong, but you'd need external evidence to support your theory, until then, Occam's rule apply. If you agree that my theory is more probable but do not like it, then it's possible your current belief is skewed by your prior belief.
        monocasa 7y ago
        Using Occam's razor like that is essentially a logical fallacy.
        yonkshi 7y ago
        Elaborate? We are discussing event probability, not logical inference, so how can there be fallacy in the first place.
        threwawasy1228 7y ago
        Yes and you are assigning event probability arbitrarily. This is why it is hard to use occams razor correctly in a non-subjective way. I can just as easily say that there is a very high probability that she said it, and doesn't want it on the record. There is nothing backing this as being more or less probable than what you said, it is all arbitrarily subjective prob assignments since we are both going on nearly no information.
        7y ago
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      Pretty much every major Republican figure and many non-Hillary Democrats openly, publicly called for him to be treated as an unlawful enemy combatant and either killed or detained in the same manner as Taliban/al-Qaeda fighters seized on the battlefield. Even if the supposed comment whose only source seems to be Wikipedia itself actually occurred, Hillary would still be one of the more moderate American public figures on the issue of WikiLeaks and Assange outside of Trump's open praise during the 2016 campaign.
      - monocasa 7y ago
        Those people weren't secretary of state at the time, ie. one of the people that can in fact authorize drone strikes.
- 50656E6973 7y ago
  Are you merely upset about the timing of the releases? If so, when would have been a good time for them to release the evidence of DNC corruption?
fixermark 7y ago
If it was, WikiLeaks would have leaked the details by now.
- hallihax 7y ago
  I doubt anybody involved in targeting and suppressing Wikileaks post-2016 is leaking their plans to Wikileaks itself.
  - fixermark 7y ago
    Why? Every organization has whistleblowers. By the same token that Chelsea Manning leaked the state department cables, one can imagine a middle-tier operative with differing political ideology dropping a hint.
    - hallihax 7y ago
      Sure, it's definitely a possibility - but not a likely one. The people in charge of any such operation against Wikileaks would be particularly mindful of their own operatives leaking to WL itself. There's no reason whatsoever to assume WL has any information about anything at any given time, unless they've publicly suggested that they have.
    - syrrim 7y ago
      >Every organization has whistleblowers. this is not clear. A sufficiently small organization needn't have whistleblowers. The extreme level of confidentially practiced in the relevant organizations ensures that the number of people privy to the knowledge and capable of leaking is very small.
matt4077 7y ago
- By everything I've read of his behaviour, even before he became famous, the accusations seemed to be very much his style - The specifics, i. e. secretly removing the condom, seem to invite all sorts of "that's not rape" opinions, making them a rather bad choice compared to stereotypical violent rape. - The supposed CIA connection of the accuser is a laughable 10-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon connection involving her attending a two-day seminar by a Cuban feminist organisation whose leader supposedly was connected to the CIA in the 1970. - Does anybody believe the CIA has covered secret agents stationed at Swedish feminist literature departments for eight years, just in case some target comes along that needs her couch to crush on? - Assange was travelling all over Europe and other parts of the world in those times. Why not just wait until he is in a country with the perfect extradition treaty and have him arrested at the airport? - Indeed: what exact purpose is the rape accusation, which would have come with probably a few months in jail max, in this scheme? - If you're intent to discredit Assange among his fanbase, which is largely young, male, and online: isn't rape actually the worst possible crime to smear him? Just look at the prevalence of "obviously fake"/"not rape" and various other character assassination in this thread. - At the time of the supposed rape incident, the most prominent leak was the "Collateral Murder" video. The war cables and Snowden leaks came later. That video was somewhat embarrassing, but in no way important enough to warrant such adventures in diplomatic subterfuge as alleged. - All subsequent leaks, i. e. Snowden, Diplomatic Cables, were published in partnership with media organisations such as the New York Times, Guardian, or Spiegel. Why invest so much ressources and potential risk into going after Assange, and not those organisations that were arguably more important going forward? The Times may be immune because they are domestic. But the Spiegel or Guardian could certainly suffer an embarrassing loss of, say, all their subscriber data? - Assange's credibility isn't actually that important. There is nothing Wikileaks published that I consider fake. The Clinton leak was just... underwhelming? There was nothing even remotely illegal in there, and not even much that made her look bad. The Snowden leaks were important. The earlier, lesser-known stuff from Africa etc. was fantastic. The diplomatic cables were already borderline. - Why would the Obama administration go through the risk and difficulty of organising a breathtaking conspiracy to get at him, yet commute Chelsea Manning's sentence? - Why would the Trump "I love Wikileaks" administration continue that adventure, instead of exposing it, damaging Obama's reputation, and helping their friend? - Removing Assange, or even Wikileaks, doesn't actually help: leaks have become a well-known tactic now, and traditional media has actually done a better job than WL to publish them, c. f. Panama Papers. - Hiding in that embassy for seven years is almost definitely worse than whatever may await him in the US. It's just an extraordinarily stupid move. Especially considering the endgame was always that he would face those charges someday. It's just not the decision-making process of a sound mind.
deiznof 7y ago
Right, especially considering the HBGary conspiracy that got revealed years ago against Wikileaks.
seba_dos1 7y ago
The problem is that it works both ways.
kmlx 7y ago
wikileaks/Assange during the recent US presidential elections. that’s what did it for me. even now, knowing what we now about Russian interference, they still have the “Hillary Clinton email archive” proudly displayed on their homepage. also, there are those rape cases for which he ran away. shady stuff.
- wolco 7y ago
  Knowing what we know? What do we know now. The Russian narrative worked so well. I can't believe it was so easy to fool Americans.
  - kmlx 7y ago
    I was born in Eastern Europe. Russian subversion is rife in the region. and they've been at it for decades, no impunity. it's so common that people from my region have a special affinity for detecting Russian propaganda. we see it from a mile away. even so, the Russians know which buttons to press and where. see Ukraine.
- acct1771 7y ago
  Those rape cases are exactly part of what the comment you're responding to is talking about.
  - chronogram 7y ago
    The important part is running away from them. Wasn’t that in 2010 already? Dodging the court is shady.
    - celeritascelery 7y ago
      When you Leak classified international documents, you tend to distrust the courts.
- lowpro 7y ago
  Even if Russia leaked the emails (not certain as the media would have you believe at all, not saying it’s conspiracy but It’s not conclusive), the information regarding massive corruption in the DNC was true, and that information being public is 1) good and 2) important.
dagmx 7y ago
WikiLeaks released the personal information of my colleagues and myself. So much for sticking it to the man, when we have to live the rest of our lives with the risk of identity fraud just because they're dicks.
- mcguire 7y ago
  When and why did they release your personal information?
  - pzone 7y ago
    Without knowing OP, it could have been a large number of things. Wikileaks publishes whatever it gets its hands on and has no scruples for safety or decency of what they post. The only "why" is to make headlines and stir people up.
  - NietTim 7y ago
    He worked with Sony at the time of the leak, which Wikileaks published. It was disturbingly easy to find tbh
fenomas 7y ago
> It's really hard to know what to even believe You might check out this[0] extremely detailed write-up from Andrew O'Hagan, the author who was hired to ghost-write Assange's autobiography, and wound up hanging around his inner circle for some months. It's a pretty sympathetic account, but it's hard to come away from it sympathetic to the man. While O'Hagan praises Assange's ideals and seems to like him personally, he doesn't gloss over his flaws, and the portrait he paints is ultimately of a supremely self-interested guy who spends much of his time scheming against his closest allies and lying to pretty much everyone. One exchange that stuck in my mind: > There are few subjects on which Julian would be reluctant to take what you might call a paternalistic position, but over Snowden, whom he’s never met but has chatted with and feels largely responsible for, he expressed a kind of irritable admiration. ‘Just how good is he?’ I asked. > ‘He’s number nine,’ he said. > ‘In the world? Among computer hackers? And where are you?’ > ‘I’m number three.’ [0] https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting
lifeformed 7y ago
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Correspondence_between_WikiLeaks_and_Donald_Trump_Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Correspondence_betwe...] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russian_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russi...
anthonybsd 7y ago
He did a pretty good job of removing credibility from himself: https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia-ties https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia... The guy is a paid actor for a murderous totalitarian regime. Literally: "Assange became a star on Russia Today (RT), Russia’s state-funded English-language propaganda outlet." "Assange used the WikiLeaks Twitter account to attack the 2016 Panama Papers leaks, which disclosed a $2 billion overseas account of Vladimir Putin’s. Assange labeled the leak a US-sponsored plot to undermine Putin and Russia." If that doesn't scream "I have no ethics" to you, I'm not sure what will.

betterunix2 7y ago

Coordinating the releases of DNC emails with the Trump campaign is what did it for me. Wikileaks as a neutral outlet for leaking evidence of corruption is fine and in the past the worst anyone could say is that they were in way over their heads (remember the "insurance file"?). In 2016 Assange allowed politics to slip into the decision-making process, and gave up what credibility he and Wikileaks had.

akhilcacharya 7y ago
Wikileaks even sold anti-Hillary merchandise on their website.
- monocasa 7y ago
  Hillary had "joked" about droning Assange before.
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    There is no evidence that this happened except an article from Wikileaks itself citing "sources at the State Department". https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/julian-assange-drone-strike/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/julian-assange-drone-strik...
    - monocasa 7y ago
      Clinton's 'I didn't say that, but if I did, it would have been a joke' is exactly what politicians say when they said something they don't want attributed to them but aren't sure if there's any evidence of them saying it.
      - yonkshi 7y ago
        Occam's razor applies here. Your theory is that she had 1. intended to assassinate Assange, 2. attempted to cover it as a joke and then 3. further covering it up by implying she doesn't remember this statement. Let me offer you another theory: she's almost certain that she didn't say it, but she couldn't remember every word she's said. Which theory do you think is more likely? Now I am not saying you are wrong, but you'd need external evidence to support your theory, until then, Occam's rule apply. If you agree that my theory is more probable but do not like it, then it's possible your current belief is skewed by your prior belief.
        monocasa 7y ago
        Using Occam's razor like that is essentially a logical fallacy.
        yonkshi 7y ago
        Elaborate? We are discussing event probability, not logical inference, so how can there be fallacy in the first place.
        threwawasy1228 7y ago
        Yes and you are assigning event probability arbitrarily. This is why it is hard to use occams razor correctly in a non-subjective way. I can just as easily say that there is a very high probability that she said it, and doesn't want it on the record. There is nothing backing this as being more or less probable than what you said, it is all arbitrarily subjective prob assignments since we are both going on nearly no information.
      - 7y ago
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    Pretty much every major Republican figure and many non-Hillary Democrats openly, publicly called for him to be treated as an unlawful enemy combatant and either killed or detained in the same manner as Taliban/al-Qaeda fighters seized on the battlefield. Even if the supposed comment whose only source seems to be Wikipedia itself actually occurred, Hillary would still be one of the more moderate American public figures on the issue of WikiLeaks and Assange outside of Trump's open praise during the 2016 campaign.
    - monocasa 7y ago
      Those people weren't secretary of state at the time, ie. one of the people that can in fact authorize drone strikes.
50656E6973 7y ago
Are you merely upset about the timing of the releases? If so, when would have been a good time for them to release the evidence of DNC corruption?

fixermark 7y ago

If it was, WikiLeaks would have leaked the details by now.

hallihax 7y ago
I doubt anybody involved in targeting and suppressing Wikileaks post-2016 is leaking their plans to Wikileaks itself.
- fixermark 7y ago
  Why? Every organization has whistleblowers. By the same token that Chelsea Manning leaked the state department cables, one can imagine a middle-tier operative with differing political ideology dropping a hint.
  - hallihax 7y ago
    Sure, it's definitely a possibility - but not a likely one. The people in charge of any such operation against Wikileaks would be particularly mindful of their own operatives leaking to WL itself. There's no reason whatsoever to assume WL has any information about anything at any given time, unless they've publicly suggested that they have.
  - syrrim 7y ago
    >Every organization has whistleblowers. this is not clear. A sufficiently small organization needn't have whistleblowers. The extreme level of confidentially practiced in the relevant organizations ensures that the number of people privy to the knowledge and capable of leaking is very small.

matt4077 7y ago

- By everything I've read of his behaviour, even before he became famous, the accusations seemed to be very much his style - The specifics, i. e. secretly removing the condom, seem to invite all sorts of "that's not rape" opinions, making them a rather bad choice compared to stereotypical violent rape. - The supposed CIA connection of the accuser is a laughable 10-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon connection involving her attending a two-day seminar by a Cuban feminist organisation whose leader supposedly was connected to the CIA in the 1970. - Does anybody believe the CIA has covered secret agents stationed at Swedish feminist literature departments for eight years, just in case some target comes along that needs her couch to crush on? - Assange was travelling all over Europe and other parts of the world in those times. Why not just wait until he is in a country with the perfect extradition treaty and have him arrested at the airport? - Indeed: what exact purpose is the rape accusation, which would have come with probably a few months in jail max, in this scheme? - If you're intent to discredit Assange among his fanbase, which is largely young, male, and online: isn't rape actually the worst possible crime to smear him? Just look at the prevalence of "obviously fake"/"not rape" and various other character assassination in this thread. - At the time of the supposed rape incident, the most prominent leak was the "Collateral Murder" video. The war cables and Snowden leaks came later. That video was somewhat embarrassing, but in no way important enough to warrant such adventures in diplomatic subterfuge as alleged. - All subsequent leaks, i. e. Snowden, Diplomatic Cables, were published in partnership with media organisations such as the New York Times, Guardian, or Spiegel. Why invest so much ressources and potential risk into going after Assange, and not those organisations that were arguably more important going forward? The Times may be immune because they are domestic. But the Spiegel or Guardian could certainly suffer an embarrassing loss of, say, all their subscriber data? - Assange's credibility isn't actually that important. There is nothing Wikileaks published that I consider fake. The Clinton leak was just... underwhelming? There was nothing even remotely illegal in there, and not even much that made her look bad. The Snowden leaks were important. The earlier, lesser-known stuff from Africa etc. was fantastic. The diplomatic cables were already borderline. - Why would the Obama administration go through the risk and difficulty of organising a breathtaking conspiracy to get at him, yet commute Chelsea Manning's sentence? - Why would the Trump "I love Wikileaks" administration continue that adventure, instead of exposing it, damaging Obama's reputation, and helping their friend? - Removing Assange, or even Wikileaks, doesn't actually help: leaks have become a well-known tactic now, and traditional media has actually done a better job than WL to publish them, c. f. Panama Papers. - Hiding in that embassy for seven years is almost definitely worse than whatever may await him in the US. It's just an extraordinarily stupid move. Especially considering the endgame was always that he would face those charges someday. It's just not the decision-making process of a sound mind.

deiznof 7y ago

Right, especially considering the HBGary conspiracy that got revealed years ago against Wikileaks.

seba_dos1 7y ago

The problem is that it works both ways.

kmlx 7y ago

wikileaks/Assange during the recent US presidential elections. that’s what did it for me. even now, knowing what we now about Russian interference, they still have the “Hillary Clinton email archive” proudly displayed on their homepage. also, there are those rape cases for which he ran away. shady stuff.

wolco 7y ago
Knowing what we know? What do we know now. The Russian narrative worked so well. I can't believe it was so easy to fool Americans.
- kmlx 7y ago
  I was born in Eastern Europe. Russian subversion is rife in the region. and they've been at it for decades, no impunity. it's so common that people from my region have a special affinity for detecting Russian propaganda. we see it from a mile away. even so, the Russians know which buttons to press and where. see Ukraine.
acct1771 7y ago
Those rape cases are exactly part of what the comment you're responding to is talking about.
- chronogram 7y ago
  The important part is running away from them. Wasn’t that in 2010 already? Dodging the court is shady.
  - celeritascelery 7y ago
    When you Leak classified international documents, you tend to distrust the courts.
lowpro 7y ago
Even if Russia leaked the emails (not certain as the media would have you believe at all, not saying it’s conspiracy but It’s not conclusive), the information regarding massive corruption in the DNC was true, and that information being public is 1) good and 2) important.

dagmx 7y ago

WikiLeaks released the personal information of my colleagues and myself. So much for sticking it to the man, when we have to live the rest of our lives with the risk of identity fraud just because they're dicks.

mcguire 7y ago
When and why did they release your personal information?
- pzone 7y ago
  Without knowing OP, it could have been a large number of things. Wikileaks publishes whatever it gets its hands on and has no scruples for safety or decency of what they post. The only "why" is to make headlines and stir people up.
- NietTim 7y ago
  He worked with Sony at the time of the leak, which Wikileaks published. It was disturbingly easy to find tbh

fenomas 7y ago

> It's really hard to know what to even believe You might check out this[0] extremely detailed write-up from Andrew O'Hagan, the author who was hired to ghost-write Assange's autobiography, and wound up hanging around his inner circle for some months. It's a pretty sympathetic account, but it's hard to come away from it sympathetic to the man. While O'Hagan praises Assange's ideals and seems to like him personally, he doesn't gloss over his flaws, and the portrait he paints is ultimately of a supremely self-interested guy who spends much of his time scheming against his closest allies and lying to pretty much everyone. One exchange that stuck in my mind: > There are few subjects on which Julian would be reluctant to take what you might call a paternalistic position, but over Snowden, whom he’s never met but has chatted with and feels largely responsible for, he expressed a kind of irritable admiration. ‘Just how good is he?’ I asked. > ‘He’s number nine,’ he said. > ‘In the world? Among computer hackers? And where are you?’ > ‘I’m number three.’ [0] https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting

lifeformed 7y ago

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Correspondence_between_WikiLeaks_and_Donald_Trump_Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Correspondence_betwe...] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russian_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Allegations_of_Russi...

anthonybsd 7y ago

He did a pretty good job of removing credibility from himself: https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia-ties https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia... The guy is a paid actor for a murderous totalitarian regime. Literally: "Assange became a star on Russia Today (RT), Russia’s state-funded English-language propaganda outlet." "Assange used the WikiLeaks Twitter account to attack the 2016 Panama Papers leaks, which disclosed a $2 billion overseas account of Vladimir Putin’s. Assange labeled the leak a US-sponsored plot to undermine Putin and Russia." If that doesn't scream "I have no ethics" to you, I'm not sure what will.