6 ms·

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, h

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

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