4 ms·

> I am not going to donate to Julian Assange's defense, as i think he's destroyed Wikileaks' credibility and capability to continue operating. I completely mis

by palish 15y ago

> I am not going to donate to Julian Assange's defense, as i think he's destroyed Wikileaks' credibility and capability to continue operating. I completely missed any recent news regarding Assange... do you mind expanding on your reasons? I'm really interested.

__alexs 15y ago
Presumably the part where he is was at best a complete douchebag to several women, and at worst raped someone.
- knowtheory 15y ago
  Well, while he does seem a bit scummy, innocent until proven guilty and all that. The reasons that i have are not directly tied to the substance of the accusations against him there.
- marquis 15y ago
  It's widely accepted that this was a smear campaign to detract from the release of a massive amount of diplomatic cables. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/julian-assange-wikileaks-_1_n_691661.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/julian-assange-wiki...
  - __alexs 15y ago
    Oh it's almost certainly disinformation to some extent. He's not really discussed it at all (and definitely not under oath) so it's hard to draw any real conclusions about whether or not he's a rapist. However he's almost certainly a complete cock to people on a regular basis. There's a lot of evidence for that. Just because you are totally awesome at one level of social discourse doesn't mean you aren't also a complete bastard to people on a personal level.
    - marquis 15y ago
      Yes, agreed. I do see how it's valid that some might find Wikileaks a lost cause now. I'm hopeful the baton can be successfully been passed on to other groups, regardless of how Wikileaks fares.
  - mseebach 15y ago
    For very narrow values of "wide". FWIW, you're linking to Assanges own assertion that it's a smear campaign. If this was a smear campaign orchestrated by the top echelons of the US intelligence/military complex, they would have done it better. If they're out there twisting arms and making up charges, why not make it a proper rape, not this "well, strictly he should have known she didn't really approve even though she didn't say anything at the time"-business.
    - marquis 15y ago
      >linking to Assanges own assertion that it's a smear campaign. Good point. I read a lot about this when it was happening so my reflex was the point to the source, who I believe. Looking forward to an actual court case so some facts can become public.
- suhastech 15y ago
  Probably a government tactic to deface assange?
cube13 15y ago
The problem that I have with Assange is that he doesn't practice what he preaches. Wikileaks is an organization that promotes government transparency. Assange, on the other hand, does not seem interested in just providing sources. Wikileaks, under what I assume was his direction, has turned into more of an editorial service, cherry picking information that they present to make certain parties look even worse than the actual source does.
- todsul 15y ago
  > he doesn't practice what he preaches. He preaches government transparency. He's not a government. So how can he practice what he preaches? The same happens every day with journalists who fight for media transparency. Should they also be transparent with every aspect of their lives? Of course not. And you suggest he should be transparent with his sources. If you seriously believe that, you're clearly not in favour of this movement.
  - astine 15y ago
    "And you suggest he should be transparent with his sources. " Reread the grandparent's comment. He's not saying Wikileaks should reveal it's sources but that it should release its source material. As opposed to editorialize. As opposed to becoming yet another dishonest filter of information.
    - wnight 15y ago
      They do. They released Collateral Murder, for instance, in an edited for TV spot and they released the full-length clip so that anyone who cared could check their accuracy. I did. I'm satisfied. It might not be perfect but it's far better than anything I see on TV.
  - cube13 15y ago
    >And you suggest he should be transparent with his sources. If you seriously believe that, you're clearly not in favour of this movement. No, I don't believe that Wikileaks should be transparent with the whilstlebowers who give them information. I do believe that Wikileaks should provide the information that they give as close to the originals as possible(with limits on whether or not the leak could directly endanger people), and not attempt to editorialize at all. There is a huge need for a place to view these primary sources. There are way too many places that editorialize the sources for their own purposes. It doesn't help transparency if Wikileaks refuses to release information in order to get "more press". Just release it, and let the public decide.
knowtheory 15y ago
Yes, consider this an IOU. I have to run and give a brown bag, and I will enumerate my reasons when i get back.
- knowtheory 15y ago
  I didn't appreciate that the edit link expires. So the problem I have with Assange is, ultimately, that he's a terrible journalist. He's not even a good gonzo journalist. He made the epic mistake of letting the story become about him, and worse yet, making sure that Wikileaks's fortunes (both literally and figuratively) were directly tied to his. He did that in that Wikileaks is paying directly for his legal defenses, and also in that he quite literally ransomed the wikileaks diplomatic data dump, and said, more or less, if anything happens to me, all of this data will be released publicly. Worse yet, they've been so lax and incompetent with their data security policies that they let the password for the data dump leak out! So, not only is he so difficult to work with that he has been abandoned even by people who have defended him previously, and agree with the major thrust of his work, but he's proven himself unable to even credibly maintain a threat as supposed leverage. He's still in legal trouble, and the worst case data release scenario has come to pass. The problem we find ourselves in now, is that wikileaks is now proven to be incompetent, unable to manage their data, entirely occupied with Assange's legal defense, and clearly developed into a cult of martyred celebrity. What wikileaks is clearly not, is a clearing house for future whistleblower data. Wikileaks had a chance to act as a trusted broker and exist as a non-state actor. But the key component to that was putting trust ahead of personal gain, recognition or vendetta. Instead now we're going to see a host of successors to wikileaks which will all have questionable pedigrees and histories of trustworthiness, and leakers are going to have to navigate those tenuous waters alone, as they've always done. In short, Assange blew it. Sad times.
  - grandalf 15y ago
    Your point that Wikileaks is imperfect is certainly true. But do you know of any perfect institutions? Assange was intentionally the lightning rod. Within Wikileaks his role is similar to Rumsfeld's in the Bush administration. He takes lots of criticism, personal attacks, etc. The strategy of those wishing to shut down Wikileaks has been to attempt to vilify Assange. This is to be expected. Yes, Assange should have been more careful about who he slept with, but can you blame him at this point for trying to clear his name and stay out of prison? The release of the password and some of the other organizational challenges that Wikileaks has faced could be the result of a sloppily run organization, or they could be due to someone on the inside being bought off, etc. To accuse Assange of having the motive of self-aggrandizement (considering that he's the only one who has put himself at risk for assassination, prison, etc.) seems a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. One thing to consider is that Assange is a poor judge of character -- he misjudged his publishing company, the two female accusers, and probably at least one of the core Wikileaks team members. So yes, Assange has lost a few points... but are you really ready to write him off? This is a guy with exceptionally uncommon courage and will, and he's up against professional intelligence organizations. Wikileaks has been slowly learning how to do its own proactive PR, how to resist infiltration, etc. We're talking about a very small organization (a startup of sorts) that has had a few growing pains. I think the jury is still out on whether the organization will fizzle out or will continue to gain credibility, integrity, etc. So far, I think the trend has been that Wikileaks has learned from its mistakes. It has been rather astonishing to me to see the extent to which companies and governments have gone into attack mode against Wikileaks and Assange. For every attack, subterfuge, and machination that has been public there have likely been dozens of others attempted. While these may have succeeded in ways we do not yet know in dealing a death blow to Wikileaks, I think it's too soon to write the organization off. Assange has inspired a lot of people that even in today's world a small number of dedicated people can make large and corrupt organizations very uncomfortable.

by palish 15y ago

__alexs 15y ago

Presumably the part where he is was at best a complete douchebag to several women, and at worst raped someone.

knowtheory 15y ago
Well, while he does seem a bit scummy, innocent until proven guilty and all that. The reasons that i have are not directly tied to the substance of the accusations against him there.
marquis 15y ago
It's widely accepted that this was a smear campaign to detract from the release of a massive amount of diplomatic cables. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/julian-assange-wikileaks-_1_n_691661.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/23/julian-assange-wiki...
- __alexs 15y ago
  Oh it's almost certainly disinformation to some extent. He's not really discussed it at all (and definitely not under oath) so it's hard to draw any real conclusions about whether or not he's a rapist. However he's almost certainly a complete cock to people on a regular basis. There's a lot of evidence for that. Just because you are totally awesome at one level of social discourse doesn't mean you aren't also a complete bastard to people on a personal level.
  - marquis 15y ago
    Yes, agreed. I do see how it's valid that some might find Wikileaks a lost cause now. I'm hopeful the baton can be successfully been passed on to other groups, regardless of how Wikileaks fares.
- mseebach 15y ago
  For very narrow values of "wide". FWIW, you're linking to Assanges own assertion that it's a smear campaign. If this was a smear campaign orchestrated by the top echelons of the US intelligence/military complex, they would have done it better. If they're out there twisting arms and making up charges, why not make it a proper rape, not this "well, strictly he should have known she didn't really approve even though she didn't say anything at the time"-business.
  - marquis 15y ago
    >linking to Assanges own assertion that it's a smear campaign. Good point. I read a lot about this when it was happening so my reflex was the point to the source, who I believe. Looking forward to an actual court case so some facts can become public.
suhastech 15y ago
Probably a government tactic to deface assange?

cube13 15y ago

The problem that I have with Assange is that he doesn't practice what he preaches. Wikileaks is an organization that promotes government transparency. Assange, on the other hand, does not seem interested in just providing sources. Wikileaks, under what I assume was his direction, has turned into more of an editorial service, cherry picking information that they present to make certain parties look even worse than the actual source does.

todsul 15y ago
> he doesn't practice what he preaches. He preaches government transparency. He's not a government. So how can he practice what he preaches? The same happens every day with journalists who fight for media transparency. Should they also be transparent with every aspect of their lives? Of course not. And you suggest he should be transparent with his sources. If you seriously believe that, you're clearly not in favour of this movement.
- astine 15y ago
  "And you suggest he should be transparent with his sources. " Reread the grandparent's comment. He's not saying Wikileaks should reveal it's sources but that it should release its source material. As opposed to editorialize. As opposed to becoming yet another dishonest filter of information.
  - wnight 15y ago
    They do. They released Collateral Murder, for instance, in an edited for TV spot and they released the full-length clip so that anyone who cared could check their accuracy. I did. I'm satisfied. It might not be perfect but it's far better than anything I see on TV.
- cube13 15y ago
  >And you suggest he should be transparent with his sources. If you seriously believe that, you're clearly not in favour of this movement. No, I don't believe that Wikileaks should be transparent with the whilstlebowers who give them information. I do believe that Wikileaks should provide the information that they give as close to the originals as possible(with limits on whether or not the leak could directly endanger people), and not attempt to editorialize at all. There is a huge need for a place to view these primary sources. There are way too many places that editorialize the sources for their own purposes. It doesn't help transparency if Wikileaks refuses to release information in order to get "more press". Just release it, and let the public decide.

knowtheory 15y ago

Yes, consider this an IOU. I have to run and give a brown bag, and I will enumerate my reasons when i get back.

knowtheory 15y ago
I didn't appreciate that the edit link expires. So the problem I have with Assange is, ultimately, that he's a terrible journalist. He's not even a good gonzo journalist. He made the epic mistake of letting the story become about him, and worse yet, making sure that Wikileaks's fortunes (both literally and figuratively) were directly tied to his. He did that in that Wikileaks is paying directly for his legal defenses, and also in that he quite literally ransomed the wikileaks diplomatic data dump, and said, more or less, if anything happens to me, all of this data will be released publicly. Worse yet, they've been so lax and incompetent with their data security policies that they let the password for the data dump leak out! So, not only is he so difficult to work with that he has been abandoned even by people who have defended him previously, and agree with the major thrust of his work, but he's proven himself unable to even credibly maintain a threat as supposed leverage. He's still in legal trouble, and the worst case data release scenario has come to pass. The problem we find ourselves in now, is that wikileaks is now proven to be incompetent, unable to manage their data, entirely occupied with Assange's legal defense, and clearly developed into a cult of martyred celebrity. What wikileaks is clearly not, is a clearing house for future whistleblower data. Wikileaks had a chance to act as a trusted broker and exist as a non-state actor. But the key component to that was putting trust ahead of personal gain, recognition or vendetta. Instead now we're going to see a host of successors to wikileaks which will all have questionable pedigrees and histories of trustworthiness, and leakers are going to have to navigate those tenuous waters alone, as they've always done. In short, Assange blew it. Sad times.
- grandalf 15y ago
  Your point that Wikileaks is imperfect is certainly true. But do you know of any perfect institutions? Assange was intentionally the lightning rod. Within Wikileaks his role is similar to Rumsfeld's in the Bush administration. He takes lots of criticism, personal attacks, etc. The strategy of those wishing to shut down Wikileaks has been to attempt to vilify Assange. This is to be expected. Yes, Assange should have been more careful about who he slept with, but can you blame him at this point for trying to clear his name and stay out of prison? The release of the password and some of the other organizational challenges that Wikileaks has faced could be the result of a sloppily run organization, or they could be due to someone on the inside being bought off, etc. To accuse Assange of having the motive of self-aggrandizement (considering that he's the only one who has put himself at risk for assassination, prison, etc.) seems a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. One thing to consider is that Assange is a poor judge of character -- he misjudged his publishing company, the two female accusers, and probably at least one of the core Wikileaks team members. So yes, Assange has lost a few points... but are you really ready to write him off? This is a guy with exceptionally uncommon courage and will, and he's up against professional intelligence organizations. Wikileaks has been slowly learning how to do its own proactive PR, how to resist infiltration, etc. We're talking about a very small organization (a startup of sorts) that has had a few growing pains. I think the jury is still out on whether the organization will fizzle out or will continue to gain credibility, integrity, etc. So far, I think the trend has been that Wikileaks has learned from its mistakes. It has been rather astonishing to me to see the extent to which companies and governments have gone into attack mode against Wikileaks and Assange. For every attack, subterfuge, and machination that has been public there have likely been dozens of others attempted. While these may have succeeded in ways we do not yet know in dealing a death blow to Wikileaks, I think it's too soon to write the organization off. Assange has inspired a lot of people that even in today's world a small number of dedicated people can make large and corrupt organizations very uncomfortable.