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I think you are mischaracterizing why Julian Assange has lost support. He has not lost support because of exposing corruption in any political parties, he's los

I think you are mischaracterizing why Julian Assange has lost support. He has not lost support because of exposing corruption in any political parties, he's lost support because its become clear he works with Russian intelligence services. People have leaked data on Russian corruption to WikiLeaks, which went unpublished. His leaks coincide with what is politically favorable to Russia, not with making all information free to the world. To the downvoters: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l... https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia-ties https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia... Maybe provide some feedback, so I can understand why you disagree with me?

ecshafer 5y ago
If what he says is true, why does it matter that its politically favorable to Russia? As a liberal democracy we should strive to be more moral and upstanding, hiding those things for politics is the opposite of that.
- chronicsunshine 5y ago
  Because he specifically refuses to leak information about Russia. He doesn't care about making society more moral or upstanding. He is a pawn of the Russian government to damage their opponents.
  - lajamerr 5y ago
    Doesn't leaking information that exposes flaws of a country make it more resilient in the future against bigger attacks? So even if he is helping Russia spread their propaganda isn't it making us stronger to find this out and plan against it instead of an all out information war? How does Russia win here.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Doesn't leaking information that exposes flaws of a country make it more resilient in the future against bigger attacks? Not necessarily, obviously. For instance: if someone leaks information to an enemy about a fatal flaw in their nation's military equipment, and the enemy nation attacks and exploits that flaw to victory; all the leak did was make their country weaker and more vulnerable. I'm not aware of any improvements in the resiliency of the US in response to Assange's leaks, except that the Democratic party has better opsec now (e.g. uses 2FA and has anti-phishing drills). They may have locked down their secret-level networks in response to Manning's activities, but that could arguably make the US less resilient.
    - the_optimist 5y ago
      Of course it does. In addition, it should true the course of the country to its ideals. Clearly there are some who wish to hide information from our own citizens, lest public opinion root them out of their sinecures.
  - SXX 5y ago
    Disclaimer: I dont have much of an opinion on the topic of Assange himself since years after in his "embassy prison" he certainly went nuts in a way. It's not the same person you could talk with on IRC years ago. He was also pretty much okay back in 2011 durign his iterview with Eric Schmidt. Yet here is the idea for your mind: all around the world including Russia political leaders of authoritarian countries trying to sell bullshit like every single problem their regime has is caused by some US conspiracy. They'll of course tell you that all independent journalist and activists work for US and spread only lies. Does Snowden going for asylum in Russia make what he exposed unimportant? What if famous Iraq civilians killing video would be provided not by someone from US, but Russian FSB or Islaeli Mossad? Will it make people less dead? So obviously any whistleblower or journalist can be biased and some country will benefit more than other. There is absolutely no point of arguing who working for whom - only facts are important.
    - chronicsunshine 5y ago
      This is a fair take. I appreciate your input.
      - metalliqaz 5y ago
        Your first post should not have been removed, it did not violate any rules
    - jollybean 5y ago
      "There is absolutely no point of arguing who working for whom - only facts are important." I don't think so. There's generally no such thing as 'individual blocks of truth' as independent things. The truth is always contextual. New Orgs have biases that exhibit themselves in all sorts of ways, and they matter. I'm not fully sure if either of these things are fully true but if 1) Assange was actively trying to help people steal sensitive information form the US and 2) has some kind of implied relationship with an American adversary whereupon they support him politically or with information - and whereby he returns the favour by suppressing leaks on their behalf - then what does this look like? This person basically becomes a foreign agent, intent on discrediting one party over another. The 'facts' released are ultimately selective. It'd be 'journalism' in the same way that Putin could use his powers to 'uncover' information and then frame and leak the information selectively. Again: I don't know if 1 and 2 are true. I'm also not fully on board with the notion that information about Assange is suppressed in the conspiratorial sense it'd be interesting to see more behind the scenes mechanics of how that might work.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    He knows Russia will kill him for airing dirty laundry. He's biased in favor of preserving his life.
  - yariik 5y ago
    Have you considered any other possible explanation for this besides that he "refuses" to publish stuff about Russia? And why do you just assume that there is anything at all to publish about Russia, anyway? Russia bad, right? You're a brainwashed russophobic bigot.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - dang 5y ago
      Please don't break the site guidelines when posting here. It only makes things worse. I realize it's extremely frustrating when you're representing a minority viewpoint and it feels like the majority is not only wrong but ganging up on you. But there's not much that can constructively be done about it other than to patiently present your substantive points (or, failing that, ignore). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20minority%20view&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - fit2rule 5y ago
    So .. "what about Russia?"
- BeKindAndLearn 5y ago
  2 people run for office, both committed a crime. 1 of them supports Russia in their ongoing aggression. So Russia has WikiLeaks post only the information on the candidate they don't like, securing the election for a politically favorable but perhaps even more corrupt person. How and what information is being presented is an incredibly important part of "the truth" as a whole.
  - TeeMassive 5y ago
    > 2 people run for office, both committed a crime. 1 of them supports Russia in their ongoing aggression. This is simply not supported by the policies enacted during by the Trump Administration: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/25/on-the-record-the-u-s-administrations-actions-on-russia/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/25/o... > So Russia has WikiLeaks post only the information on the candidate they don't like, securing the election for a politically favorable but perhaps even more corrupt person. There are three answers for that: If Wikileaks has a bias than it can easily explained by the fact that Assange's woes were caused by the Obama admistration. And even if they didn't have a bias, most of their staff at Wikileaks do not speak Russian and they try to verify every piece they publish; as opposed to making claims based on partisan funded opposition research. It's also far harder to leak from Russia and other authoritarian/mafious states and also because their intelligence agencies use mechanical typewriters.
  - xgb84j 5y ago
    There are 4 things he could have done: 1. Don't reveal any secrets. 2A Reveal secrets that harm candidate A. 2B Reveal secrets that harm candidate B. 3. Reveal all secrets that harm candidate A and candidate B. I don't think anybody on HN argues that option 3 is preferable over all the other options. You seem to think option 1 is preferable to both options 2A and 2B. GP and I seem to think the opposite. I can understand your argument that half the truth can be worse than no truth at all. But as there are very few sources for information like WikiLeaks I think in cases like this, half the truth might be all the public can get and it at least gives you a basic idea of what is happening when nobody is looking.
    - 5y ago
tomp 5y ago
What’s the point of leaking “Russian corruption”? It’s not like anyone still holds the opinion that Russia is even a semi-democracy.
- chronicsunshine 5y ago
  The hope that the Russian people can free themselves of Putin's tyranny?
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  > It’s not like anyone still holds the opinion that Russia is even a semi-democracy. There's a reason they still conduct elections in Russia, to give the appearance of democracy. Yes, people still think it's a democracy… as long as their favourite leader is in power.
  - atomashpolskiy 5y ago
    Man... Every Soviet schoolboy knows that the existence of an electoral system does not necessitate a democracy. It's not Russia that is your existential problem in US, it's education.
  - sensanaty 5y ago
    There are precisely 0 slavs alive today who trust their government or politicians. We've been fucked over by our own governments for going on nearly a century at this point, and there's no reality in which anyone other than the old and senile believes elections are anything other than a scam. In Serbia's last elections, Vucic falsified COVID numbers on the days leading up to voting day so that his party could convince his voterbase, the elderly, to go out in droves to vote. After the election he stopped the reporting of false numbers and put the country into a lockdown because to no one's surprise, the numbers were sky high. There were massive protests because of the lockdown measures, where police brutality ran rampant, all on Vucic's orders. Expired tear gas was used on unarmed civilians protesting peacefully, cops in full riot gear were beating the crap out of unarmed protesters and chasing them down the streets. He goes around poorer regions of the country and bribes people with sandwiches and basic supplies like wheat and flower for a vote. His son is good friends with famous, high profile criminals, and Vucic himself was buddy-buddy with a bunch of the former guard, more than half of which either have been, or are currently standing trial for war crimes committed during the Yugo wars. This list goes on and on, and similar things happen in most balkan and eastern european country. Nobody sane trusts a single thing these "people" do, and people definitely don't trust elections, so what ends up happening is that people just don't see the point in participating in an obvious scam. None of us actually believe we're living in a democracy, we're all aware it's a farcical facade that dictators put up.
Lammy 5y ago
Scary reds! Be afraid!! Russia needs America and China to be able to scare their own populace into giving up more and more of their own personal freedoms, just like America needs China and Russia to do the same. No one country could “rule the world” in a way that wouldn’t immediately galvanize worldwide opposition. Capital claims no nationality, so nationality is one of the ways the very rich divide and conquer the populace at large. It’s a fake idea in an age of global instant communication when people have literally bought citizenships.
the_optimist 5y ago
The link says they didn't want to republish already public information. That makes sense. Why would they publish public information?
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Public information in a language none of their staff speaks. People say Wikileaks is wrong that all the information offered to them was public, but none of the published chat logs show anyone explaining to Wikileaks that there are unpublished leaks in there.
yariik 5y ago
This blaming Russia thing is way beyond ridiculous now. WHAT "Russian corruption" are you talking about? Is it the same as the "Russian interference in the US elections," i.e. something that has never existed in reality and was just invented by the US mass media for their purposes?
- myko 5y ago
  The Mueller Report (https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download) details Russian interference in the 2016 election and led to 12 Russians being indicted as part of that. Is the report wrong?
  - pbak 5y ago
    Yes, mostly. The 12 Russians, and the 3 Russian companies all hired attorneys to represent them and counter sue for defamation. When their attorney went in front of the judge, all charges were dropped by the Justice Dept, refusing document discovery "on issues of national security". It's all political reality television, from both the right and the left. It's like a cable TV wrestling match. I've had trouble finding English language sources giving the full story with a 2 min search. They all just cite the dropping of charges against the companies. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-russia-companies-mueller_n_5e7013c2c5b6eab7793b0036 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-russia-com... Here's an RT link with a little more info, for whatever that's worth: https://www.rt.com/usa/483279-concord-russiagate-charges-dropped/ https://www.rt.com/usa/483279-concord-russiagate-charges-dro... . You might have better luck looking for a little longer.
    - myko 5y ago
      Those charges were dropped by Barr who did his best to quash the entire Mueller investigation and largely succeeded. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/concord-case-russian-interference.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/concord-case-... """ In January 2019, the federal government accused Concord of violating a protective court order designed to safeguard information shared among lawyers on the case. Prosecutors said a trove of nonclassified information they had turned over to Concord’s defense team had turned up on a website the previous October. A message on a newly created Twitter account read: “We’ve got access to the Special Counsel Mueller’s probe database as we hacked Russian server with info from the Russian troll case Concord LLC v. Mueller. You can view all the files Mueller had about the IRA and Russian collusion. Enjoy the reading!” """ RT's claim that these groups are not responsible for these troll farms is not credible. The claim that these organizations were attempting to use the court case to get detailed information on how they were investigated however, is.
oh_sigh 5y ago
You're upset that wikileaks didn't report on a leak that was known for 2 years by major western media organizations, and was later forwarded to them? Despite their longstanding policy to not report on leaks that have already been reported on elsewhere?
- justshowpost 5y ago
  This one is much more hot and... not at Wikileaks as well. https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/18/russia-sorm-nokia-surveillance/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/18/russia-sorm-nokia-surveill...
BLKNSLVR 5y ago
One niggle I have is that both Snowden and Assange get accused of being agents of Russia. It's a ridiculously and simplistically too convenient argument and therefore attractive to anyone with the slightest bias against 'information I don't like' (or a tendency towards being a 'shoot the messenger' type of person). That Assange / Wikileaks don't follow the same bias as the local US media, doesn't mean he's / they're an enemy agent. Thinking of the world in black and white like that is dangerously reductive.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > One niggle I have is that both Snowden and Assange get accused of being agents of Russia. I've never seen that about Snowden except in regard to activities after taking io residence in Russia, and even then its usually more “Snowden is subject to influence by Russia” more than “...an agent of Russia”. Assange is a different story, but the both the uncontroversial facts and the controversial detailed claims on which a conclusion about being a Russian agent might rest about Assange are different.
- iratewizard 5y ago
  Not to mention the chilling effect that comes with that sentiment. It reminds me of the Rick Rubin style of creating "fuck the system" propaganda. Only complain about the parts of the system that don't actively benefit me if you want to keep your record deal.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    I would actually be curious to hear more about that perspective on Rick Rubin. A very cursory Google doesn't come up with much, and I'll dig a bit harder soon, but if you want to elaborate or link to something about this, I'd very much appreciate it!
    - iratewizard 5y ago
      An article I read years ago blasted him for nepotism and using typical unethical manipulation tactics to get ahead. Unfortunately, ever since Amit Singha left Google, half of the things I look for are no longer accessible.
zaptheimpaler 5y ago
It's still a joke. Even if he is Russian (which is a very convenient boogieman), the fact is he DID expose corruption in US parties. He may be partisan, he may not be revealing damaging info about Russia. But if the information is true, so what? Shouldn't we be doing something about the corruption he revealed regardless of why he revealed it? I can't believe all you have to do is say the R-word and suddenly people are just willing to ignore everything he says, its ridiculous. Like uhh enemies of the US are more likely to expose damaging information about them as compared to allies, no shit?
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  What corruption? Some staffers saying mean things about Sanders? Invitations to attend avante garde art shows?
  - pacifist 5y ago
    4 or 5 people at the top of the DNC resigned because of saying mean things about Sanders and invitations to avante garde art shows? That's not how it works.
    - myko 5y ago
      It really is though. The appearance of impropriety is still important to some folks though, so when private emails (that didn't lead to rigging an election, something the DNC has no power to do anyway) that show that folks in the DNC favored one candidate over the other, they resigned. This isn't the same thing as admitting the impossible (that the DNC somehow got HRC ~4 million more votes)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
dordoka 5y ago
Open your eyes...
boomboomsubban 5y ago
>Maybe provide some feedback, so I can understand why you disagree with me? From your second link "These incidents don’t prove, as some have alleged, that Assange is some kind of paid Russian agent, or that WikiLeaks is a Russian front organization" Your first link was addressed elsewhere. I can't personally blame Assange for liking Russia more than the country that has spent a decade making his life a living hell. Even if Russia's motives are obviously impure, they are more helpful to furthering Assange's goal.
bardan 5y ago
A link between Wikileaks and the Russian government has never been substantiated. The "didn't publish Russian leaks" smear is one of many. The "Russian leaks" that Wikileaks declined were sent to them during the DNC/Podesta/Hillary email release when their resources were obviously stretched. The "leaks" were mostly public, were deemed unimportant and were declined. As we know that didn't stop whoever anonymously submitted these documents from immediately using this to orchestrate a smear campaign against Wikileaks with full compliance of the media (funny timing during the DNC email release, wonder who it could have been?) A little later the "leaks" were fully published elsewhere and nobody cared (but let's not kid ourselves that anybody who claimed to care actually cared at all).
- bsd44 5y ago
  I agree. It seems to me that even after the allegations against Assange were proven wrong, people still refuse to accept his innocence in this case and try to find something else to blame him for. As when you're proven wrong in an argument and then try to defend your ignorance with a fallacy; "yeah you're right about this problem, but you still smoke weed and voted for Trump".

ecshafer 5y ago

If what he says is true, why does it matter that its politically favorable to Russia? As a liberal democracy we should strive to be more moral and upstanding, hiding those things for politics is the opposite of that.

chronicsunshine 5y ago
Because he specifically refuses to leak information about Russia. He doesn't care about making society more moral or upstanding. He is a pawn of the Russian government to damage their opponents.
- lajamerr 5y ago
  Doesn't leaking information that exposes flaws of a country make it more resilient in the future against bigger attacks? So even if he is helping Russia spread their propaganda isn't it making us stronger to find this out and plan against it instead of an all out information war? How does Russia win here.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Doesn't leaking information that exposes flaws of a country make it more resilient in the future against bigger attacks? Not necessarily, obviously. For instance: if someone leaks information to an enemy about a fatal flaw in their nation's military equipment, and the enemy nation attacks and exploits that flaw to victory; all the leak did was make their country weaker and more vulnerable. I'm not aware of any improvements in the resiliency of the US in response to Assange's leaks, except that the Democratic party has better opsec now (e.g. uses 2FA and has anti-phishing drills). They may have locked down their secret-level networks in response to Manning's activities, but that could arguably make the US less resilient.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    Of course it does. In addition, it should true the course of the country to its ideals. Clearly there are some who wish to hide information from our own citizens, lest public opinion root them out of their sinecures.
- SXX 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I dont have much of an opinion on the topic of Assange himself since years after in his "embassy prison" he certainly went nuts in a way. It's not the same person you could talk with on IRC years ago. He was also pretty much okay back in 2011 durign his iterview with Eric Schmidt. Yet here is the idea for your mind: all around the world including Russia political leaders of authoritarian countries trying to sell bullshit like every single problem their regime has is caused by some US conspiracy. They'll of course tell you that all independent journalist and activists work for US and spread only lies. Does Snowden going for asylum in Russia make what he exposed unimportant? What if famous Iraq civilians killing video would be provided not by someone from US, but Russian FSB or Islaeli Mossad? Will it make people less dead? So obviously any whistleblower or journalist can be biased and some country will benefit more than other. There is absolutely no point of arguing who working for whom - only facts are important.
  - chronicsunshine 5y ago
    This is a fair take. I appreciate your input.
    - metalliqaz 5y ago
      Your first post should not have been removed, it did not violate any rules
  - jollybean 5y ago
    "There is absolutely no point of arguing who working for whom - only facts are important." I don't think so. There's generally no such thing as 'individual blocks of truth' as independent things. The truth is always contextual. New Orgs have biases that exhibit themselves in all sorts of ways, and they matter. I'm not fully sure if either of these things are fully true but if 1) Assange was actively trying to help people steal sensitive information form the US and 2) has some kind of implied relationship with an American adversary whereupon they support him politically or with information - and whereby he returns the favour by suppressing leaks on their behalf - then what does this look like? This person basically becomes a foreign agent, intent on discrediting one party over another. The 'facts' released are ultimately selective. It'd be 'journalism' in the same way that Putin could use his powers to 'uncover' information and then frame and leak the information selectively. Again: I don't know if 1 and 2 are true. I'm also not fully on board with the notion that information about Assange is suppressed in the conspiratorial sense it'd be interesting to see more behind the scenes mechanics of how that might work.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  He knows Russia will kill him for airing dirty laundry. He's biased in favor of preserving his life.
- yariik 5y ago
  Have you considered any other possible explanation for this besides that he "refuses" to publish stuff about Russia? And why do you just assume that there is anything at all to publish about Russia, anyway? Russia bad, right? You're a brainwashed russophobic bigot.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't break the site guidelines when posting here. It only makes things worse. I realize it's extremely frustrating when you're representing a minority viewpoint and it feels like the majority is not only wrong but ganging up on you. But there's not much that can constructively be done about it other than to patiently present your substantive points (or, failing that, ignore). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20minority%20view&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- fit2rule 5y ago
  So .. "what about Russia?"
BeKindAndLearn 5y ago
2 people run for office, both committed a crime. 1 of them supports Russia in their ongoing aggression. So Russia has WikiLeaks post only the information on the candidate they don't like, securing the election for a politically favorable but perhaps even more corrupt person. How and what information is being presented is an incredibly important part of "the truth" as a whole.
- TeeMassive 5y ago
  > 2 people run for office, both committed a crime. 1 of them supports Russia in their ongoing aggression. This is simply not supported by the policies enacted during by the Trump Administration: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/25/on-the-record-the-u-s-administrations-actions-on-russia/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/09/25/o... > So Russia has WikiLeaks post only the information on the candidate they don't like, securing the election for a politically favorable but perhaps even more corrupt person. There are three answers for that: If Wikileaks has a bias than it can easily explained by the fact that Assange's woes were caused by the Obama admistration. And even if they didn't have a bias, most of their staff at Wikileaks do not speak Russian and they try to verify every piece they publish; as opposed to making claims based on partisan funded opposition research. It's also far harder to leak from Russia and other authoritarian/mafious states and also because their intelligence agencies use mechanical typewriters.
- xgb84j 5y ago
  There are 4 things he could have done: 1. Don't reveal any secrets. 2A Reveal secrets that harm candidate A. 2B Reveal secrets that harm candidate B. 3. Reveal all secrets that harm candidate A and candidate B. I don't think anybody on HN argues that option 3 is preferable over all the other options. You seem to think option 1 is preferable to both options 2A and 2B. GP and I seem to think the opposite. I can understand your argument that half the truth can be worse than no truth at all. But as there are very few sources for information like WikiLeaks I think in cases like this, half the truth might be all the public can get and it at least gives you a basic idea of what is happening when nobody is looking.
  - 5y ago

tomp 5y ago

What’s the point of leaking “Russian corruption”? It’s not like anyone still holds the opinion that Russia is even a semi-democracy.

chronicsunshine 5y ago
The hope that the Russian people can free themselves of Putin's tyranny?
jonny_eh 5y ago
> It’s not like anyone still holds the opinion that Russia is even a semi-democracy. There's a reason they still conduct elections in Russia, to give the appearance of democracy. Yes, people still think it's a democracy… as long as their favourite leader is in power.
- atomashpolskiy 5y ago
  Man... Every Soviet schoolboy knows that the existence of an electoral system does not necessitate a democracy. It's not Russia that is your existential problem in US, it's education.
- sensanaty 5y ago
  There are precisely 0 slavs alive today who trust their government or politicians. We've been fucked over by our own governments for going on nearly a century at this point, and there's no reality in which anyone other than the old and senile believes elections are anything other than a scam. In Serbia's last elections, Vucic falsified COVID numbers on the days leading up to voting day so that his party could convince his voterbase, the elderly, to go out in droves to vote. After the election he stopped the reporting of false numbers and put the country into a lockdown because to no one's surprise, the numbers were sky high. There were massive protests because of the lockdown measures, where police brutality ran rampant, all on Vucic's orders. Expired tear gas was used on unarmed civilians protesting peacefully, cops in full riot gear were beating the crap out of unarmed protesters and chasing them down the streets. He goes around poorer regions of the country and bribes people with sandwiches and basic supplies like wheat and flower for a vote. His son is good friends with famous, high profile criminals, and Vucic himself was buddy-buddy with a bunch of the former guard, more than half of which either have been, or are currently standing trial for war crimes committed during the Yugo wars. This list goes on and on, and similar things happen in most balkan and eastern european country. Nobody sane trusts a single thing these "people" do, and people definitely don't trust elections, so what ends up happening is that people just don't see the point in participating in an obvious scam. None of us actually believe we're living in a democracy, we're all aware it's a farcical facade that dictators put up.

Lammy 5y ago

Scary reds! Be afraid!! Russia needs America and China to be able to scare their own populace into giving up more and more of their own personal freedoms, just like America needs China and Russia to do the same. No one country could “rule the world” in a way that wouldn’t immediately galvanize worldwide opposition. Capital claims no nationality, so nationality is one of the ways the very rich divide and conquer the populace at large. It’s a fake idea in an age of global instant communication when people have literally bought citizenships.

the_optimist 5y ago

The link says they didn't want to republish already public information. That makes sense. Why would they publish public information?

boomboomsubban 5y ago
Public information in a language none of their staff speaks. People say Wikileaks is wrong that all the information offered to them was public, but none of the published chat logs show anyone explaining to Wikileaks that there are unpublished leaks in there.

yariik 5y ago

This blaming Russia thing is way beyond ridiculous now. WHAT "Russian corruption" are you talking about? Is it the same as the "Russian interference in the US elections," i.e. something that has never existed in reality and was just invented by the US mass media for their purposes?

myko 5y ago
The Mueller Report (https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/download) details Russian interference in the 2016 election and led to 12 Russians being indicted as part of that. Is the report wrong?
- pbak 5y ago
  Yes, mostly. The 12 Russians, and the 3 Russian companies all hired attorneys to represent them and counter sue for defamation. When their attorney went in front of the judge, all charges were dropped by the Justice Dept, refusing document discovery "on issues of national security". It's all political reality television, from both the right and the left. It's like a cable TV wrestling match. I've had trouble finding English language sources giving the full story with a 2 min search. They all just cite the dropping of charges against the companies. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-russia-companies-mueller_n_5e7013c2c5b6eab7793b0036 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-russia-com... Here's an RT link with a little more info, for whatever that's worth: https://www.rt.com/usa/483279-concord-russiagate-charges-dropped/ https://www.rt.com/usa/483279-concord-russiagate-charges-dro... . You might have better luck looking for a little longer.
  - myko 5y ago
    Those charges were dropped by Barr who did his best to quash the entire Mueller investigation and largely succeeded. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/concord-case-russian-interference.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/us/politics/concord-case-... """ In January 2019, the federal government accused Concord of violating a protective court order designed to safeguard information shared among lawyers on the case. Prosecutors said a trove of nonclassified information they had turned over to Concord’s defense team had turned up on a website the previous October. A message on a newly created Twitter account read: “We’ve got access to the Special Counsel Mueller’s probe database as we hacked Russian server with info from the Russian troll case Concord LLC v. Mueller. You can view all the files Mueller had about the IRA and Russian collusion. Enjoy the reading!” """ RT's claim that these groups are not responsible for these troll farms is not credible. The claim that these organizations were attempting to use the court case to get detailed information on how they were investigated however, is.

oh_sigh 5y ago

You're upset that wikileaks didn't report on a leak that was known for 2 years by major western media organizations, and was later forwarded to them? Despite their longstanding policy to not report on leaks that have already been reported on elsewhere?

justshowpost 5y ago
This one is much more hot and... not at Wikileaks as well. https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/18/russia-sorm-nokia-surveillance/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/18/russia-sorm-nokia-surveill...

BLKNSLVR 5y ago

One niggle I have is that both Snowden and Assange get accused of being agents of Russia. It's a ridiculously and simplistically too convenient argument and therefore attractive to anyone with the slightest bias against 'information I don't like' (or a tendency towards being a 'shoot the messenger' type of person). That Assange / Wikileaks don't follow the same bias as the local US media, doesn't mean he's / they're an enemy agent. Thinking of the world in black and white like that is dangerously reductive.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> One niggle I have is that both Snowden and Assange get accused of being agents of Russia. I've never seen that about Snowden except in regard to activities after taking io residence in Russia, and even then its usually more “Snowden is subject to influence by Russia” more than “...an agent of Russia”. Assange is a different story, but the both the uncontroversial facts and the controversial detailed claims on which a conclusion about being a Russian agent might rest about Assange are different.
iratewizard 5y ago
Not to mention the chilling effect that comes with that sentiment. It reminds me of the Rick Rubin style of creating "fuck the system" propaganda. Only complain about the parts of the system that don't actively benefit me if you want to keep your record deal.
- jjulius 5y ago
  I would actually be curious to hear more about that perspective on Rick Rubin. A very cursory Google doesn't come up with much, and I'll dig a bit harder soon, but if you want to elaborate or link to something about this, I'd very much appreciate it!
  - iratewizard 5y ago
    An article I read years ago blasted him for nepotism and using typical unethical manipulation tactics to get ahead. Unfortunately, ever since Amit Singha left Google, half of the things I look for are no longer accessible.

zaptheimpaler 5y ago

It's still a joke. Even if he is Russian (which is a very convenient boogieman), the fact is he DID expose corruption in US parties. He may be partisan, he may not be revealing damaging info about Russia. But if the information is true, so what? Shouldn't we be doing something about the corruption he revealed regardless of why he revealed it? I can't believe all you have to do is say the R-word and suddenly people are just willing to ignore everything he says, its ridiculous. Like uhh enemies of the US are more likely to expose damaging information about them as compared to allies, no shit?

UncleMeat 5y ago
What corruption? Some staffers saying mean things about Sanders? Invitations to attend avante garde art shows?
- pacifist 5y ago
  4 or 5 people at the top of the DNC resigned because of saying mean things about Sanders and invitations to avante garde art shows? That's not how it works.
  - myko 5y ago
    It really is though. The appearance of impropriety is still important to some folks though, so when private emails (that didn't lead to rigging an election, something the DNC has no power to do anyway) that show that folks in the DNC favored one candidate over the other, they resigned. This isn't the same thing as admitting the impossible (that the DNC somehow got HRC ~4 million more votes)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

dordoka 5y ago

Open your eyes...

boomboomsubban 5y ago

>Maybe provide some feedback, so I can understand why you disagree with me? From your second link "These incidents don’t prove, as some have alleged, that Assange is some kind of paid Russian agent, or that WikiLeaks is a Russian front organization" Your first link was addressed elsewhere. I can't personally blame Assange for liking Russia more than the country that has spent a decade making his life a living hell. Even if Russia's motives are obviously impure, they are more helpful to furthering Assange's goal.

bardan 5y ago

A link between Wikileaks and the Russian government has never been substantiated. The "didn't publish Russian leaks" smear is one of many. The "Russian leaks" that Wikileaks declined were sent to them during the DNC/Podesta/Hillary email release when their resources were obviously stretched. The "leaks" were mostly public, were deemed unimportant and were declined. As we know that didn't stop whoever anonymously submitted these documents from immediately using this to orchestrate a smear campaign against Wikileaks with full compliance of the media (funny timing during the DNC email release, wonder who it could have been?) A little later the "leaks" were fully published elsewhere and nobody cared (but let's not kid ourselves that anybody who claimed to care actually cared at all).

bsd44 5y ago
I agree. It seems to me that even after the allegations against Assange were proven wrong, people still refuse to accept his innocence in this case and try to find something else to blame him for. As when you're proven wrong in an argument and then try to defend your ignorance with a fallacy; "yeah you're right about this problem, but you still smoke weed and voted for Trump".