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I posted this in the BBC thread linked: Despite my low level of contribution to this site, I must say I'm tired of seeing WikiLeaks/Assange on the Hacker News

by tung 16y ago

I posted this in the BBC thread linked: Despite my low level of contribution to this site, I must say I'm tired of seeing WikiLeaks/Assange on the Hacker News front page. Granted, all this may be newsworthy, but going by the Hacker News Guidelines, it feels more "Off-Topic" than on, in that it's about politics and would be covered on TV news, like the TSA submissions a while ago. Edit: I'll take the opportunity to at least explain my point of view to people. I come to Hacker News to see people talk about technology, innovation, trends, start-ups and tiny projects that pop up that do things that seem so obvious in hind-sight, but are in fact really clever. This recent news about WikiLeaks and Assange I feel don't really fit in any of these categories. The Hacker News Guidelines [1] may be open to interpretation, but it does explicitly state: > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics and > If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. There is a bit after the first quote that states "unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon," which I suppose is where I disagree with others. Nonetheless, if people feel it fits here, I'll respect your opinions. [1] http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

papaf 16y ago
I find this to be a huge technology story. In the past, leaks have generally gone through journalists in newspapers. This had 2 qualities about it. The public didn't have access to the raw leaked information and the journalists, in most democracies, are protected from prosecution. By making the leaks downloadable on the internet, so much more information has been made available and this is having repercussions that I haven't seen before. The organisation that released the leaks is being attacked from many directions - denial of service, refusal of corporations to handle web services or money and an Interpol alert for questioning about a condom breaking. I don't know how this will turn out but this is history in the making. It will surely have repercussions on the way we will be allowed to use the internet in future.

by tung 16y ago

papaf 16y ago

I find this to be a huge technology story. In the past, leaks have generally gone through journalists in newspapers. This had 2 qualities about it. The public didn't have access to the raw leaked information and the journalists, in most democracies, are protected from prosecution. By making the leaks downloadable on the internet, so much more information has been made available and this is having repercussions that I haven't seen before. The organisation that released the leaks is being attacked from many directions - denial of service, refusal of corporations to handle web services or money and an Interpol alert for questioning about a condom breaking. I don't know how this will turn out but this is history in the making. It will surely have repercussions on the way we will be allowed to use the internet in future.