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Remember when it was a "conspiracy theory" that Assange being detained in the UK to be questioned in Sweden by reopening a case was absolutely to help him be ex

Remember when it was a "conspiracy theory" that Assange being detained in the UK to be questioned in Sweden by reopening a case was absolutely to help him be extradited to the US and punished for his heinous crimes: exposing corruption. That's why the conspiracy accusations and labels and downvotes for the current thing shouldn't faze anyone, it's par for the course and then people pretend it never happened and that "we were always at war with eastasia".

luma 3y ago
Exposing corruption, and also working directly with Russian intelligence to influence US elections. Assange is a complicated guy playing in a dangerous world, let's not pretend anyone involved here is a saint.
- cempaka 3y ago
  The dogged pursuit of Assange long predates the 2016 election.
- commonlisp94 3y ago
  > influence US elections I can't believe this narrative is still repeated. "influence" can mean almost anything. In the headliner 2016 story, it meant a few based Russian organizations bought several million dollars of targeted Facebook ads. That's what broke democracy I guess. In Assange's case it means he released existing emails which reflected negatively on a candidate. In that past most of his released material has negatively reflected on republicans. The US has an interest in, and is "influencing" foreign election 24/7 365.
  - luma 3y ago
    You've lost a lot of the nuance which is part of the complexity. Assange released emails stolen from the DNC and given to him by Russian intelligence. He also made the decision not to publish data from similar attacks on the RNC. By doing so, he either should have known or for sure did know that he was acting in the interest of Russia to interfere in American elections.
    - mariusor 3y ago
      > He also made the decision not to publish data from similar attacks on the RNC. I've been watching Assange's odissey quite closely and I don't remember seeing anything about withholding data "on the RNC". Do you have an example?
      - luma 3y ago
        https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican-emails-fbi-director-says/ https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican... Both things happened around the same time, both sourced to Russian hackers. It is unknown if Assange was offered the RNC emails for release. It is pretty clear this was done for political ends to aid Donald Trump, less clear if Assange was personally "in" on it.
        isaacremuant 3y ago
        If the New york times or new York post receive documents and they publish ones and not others with a partisan motive they're still not criminals. So this is a typical bullshit thing for democrat-party aligned people for whom the ends justifies the means and there's no bad tactics, only bad targets. The very same types that tell you "twitter files are partisan nothing burgers" and that people like Matt Taibbi are "right wingers". I don't care what the FBI tries to pull to muddy the waters. Or the government toppling CIA, for that matter. Assange has been pursued and illegally imprisoned for exposing corruption and doing journalism, nothing more.
        freshpots 3y ago
        You got one thing right: "twitter files are partisan nothing burgers"
        isaacremuant 3y ago
        You just exposed yourself as a partisan hack. Glenn greenwald and taibbi are not republican sycophants but true left but, just like criticizing Hillary made you "russian" or trumpist, seeing the truth about censorship makes you "right winger/republican". Edit: hypocrisy at its finest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927153 It's so hilarious. You can't even come up with an original dismissal. It's the same old tired labels. Try harder.
- isaacremuant 3y ago
  That's just Government propaganda. The same bullshit type of propaganda that was used against Daniel Ellsberg and everyone else who exposed corruption in power. Your comment is just muddying the waters with a strawman: "someone being a saint" to avoid the very true fact that Assange is persecuted and imprisoned for being adversarial to the government and exposing corruption. It's very simple. As for influencing US elections, you should look into the CIA/FBI and your own corrupt political parties that censor left and right when truths that are inconvenient appear. Oh, who would've thought, exactly like in Assange's case. The whole accusing someone of Russia is just so disingenuous and time and time again (russiagate, Hunter's laptop, etc) it's shown to be absolute bullshit, that is happily reproduced by the bought and paid for media, who has ex CIA people happily being panelists and commentators. It's so ridiculous and your comment extremely low effort.
  - luma 3y ago
    > your comment extremely low effort. and yours is extremely high in brain worms. Not sure why you're still beating this horse.
mc32 3y ago
Pretty much. Anything a gov or an ideology doesn’t like often gets labeled conspiracy theory, [foreign] disinformation/collusion, terrorism, fascism. Some times throw throw more than one accusation at the idea they despise. Obviously sometimes those accusations are true in order to work, but it’s getting ridiculous now.
- ailef 3y ago
  I'm really baffled by this. For example in the US, it's enough to just associate something with Russia for everyone to immediately drop any kind of critical thinking. You don't even have to provide compelling evidence for it. The association alone (real or made up) is already enough to completely corrupt the subject's image. This trick has been played dozens of times but somehow people still fall for it...
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Or China. >This trick has been played dozens of times but somehow people still fall for it... and will keep falling for it. They can keep doing it because it keeps working, and people won't bother thinking a little bit deeper about the issue. A whole lot of issues could be solved or on a good path to being solved if more people did that.
DANmode 3y ago
Conspiracy accusations are important. You're talking about accusations of conspiracy theories.

luma 3y ago

Exposing corruption, and also working directly with Russian intelligence to influence US elections. Assange is a complicated guy playing in a dangerous world, let's not pretend anyone involved here is a saint.

cempaka 3y ago
The dogged pursuit of Assange long predates the 2016 election.
commonlisp94 3y ago
> influence US elections I can't believe this narrative is still repeated. "influence" can mean almost anything. In the headliner 2016 story, it meant a few based Russian organizations bought several million dollars of targeted Facebook ads. That's what broke democracy I guess. In Assange's case it means he released existing emails which reflected negatively on a candidate. In that past most of his released material has negatively reflected on republicans. The US has an interest in, and is "influencing" foreign election 24/7 365.
- luma 3y ago
  You've lost a lot of the nuance which is part of the complexity. Assange released emails stolen from the DNC and given to him by Russian intelligence. He also made the decision not to publish data from similar attacks on the RNC. By doing so, he either should have known or for sure did know that he was acting in the interest of Russia to interfere in American elections.
  - mariusor 3y ago
    > He also made the decision not to publish data from similar attacks on the RNC. I've been watching Assange's odissey quite closely and I don't remember seeing anything about withholding data "on the RNC". Do you have an example?
    - luma 3y ago
      https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican-emails-fbi-director-says/ https://www.wired.com/2017/01/russia-hacked-older-republican... Both things happened around the same time, both sourced to Russian hackers. It is unknown if Assange was offered the RNC emails for release. It is pretty clear this was done for political ends to aid Donald Trump, less clear if Assange was personally "in" on it.
      - isaacremuant 3y ago
        If the New york times or new York post receive documents and they publish ones and not others with a partisan motive they're still not criminals. So this is a typical bullshit thing for democrat-party aligned people for whom the ends justifies the means and there's no bad tactics, only bad targets. The very same types that tell you "twitter files are partisan nothing burgers" and that people like Matt Taibbi are "right wingers". I don't care what the FBI tries to pull to muddy the waters. Or the government toppling CIA, for that matter. Assange has been pursued and illegally imprisoned for exposing corruption and doing journalism, nothing more.
        freshpots 3y ago
        You got one thing right: "twitter files are partisan nothing burgers"
        isaacremuant 3y ago
        You just exposed yourself as a partisan hack. Glenn greenwald and taibbi are not republican sycophants but true left but, just like criticizing Hillary made you "russian" or trumpist, seeing the truth about censorship makes you "right winger/republican". Edit: hypocrisy at its finest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36927153 It's so hilarious. You can't even come up with an original dismissal. It's the same old tired labels. Try harder.
isaacremuant 3y ago
That's just Government propaganda. The same bullshit type of propaganda that was used against Daniel Ellsberg and everyone else who exposed corruption in power. Your comment is just muddying the waters with a strawman: "someone being a saint" to avoid the very true fact that Assange is persecuted and imprisoned for being adversarial to the government and exposing corruption. It's very simple. As for influencing US elections, you should look into the CIA/FBI and your own corrupt political parties that censor left and right when truths that are inconvenient appear. Oh, who would've thought, exactly like in Assange's case. The whole accusing someone of Russia is just so disingenuous and time and time again (russiagate, Hunter's laptop, etc) it's shown to be absolute bullshit, that is happily reproduced by the bought and paid for media, who has ex CIA people happily being panelists and commentators. It's so ridiculous and your comment extremely low effort.
- luma 3y ago
  > your comment extremely low effort. and yours is extremely high in brain worms. Not sure why you're still beating this horse.

mc32 3y ago

Pretty much. Anything a gov or an ideology doesn’t like often gets labeled conspiracy theory, [foreign] disinformation/collusion, terrorism, fascism. Some times throw throw more than one accusation at the idea they despise. Obviously sometimes those accusations are true in order to work, but it’s getting ridiculous now.

ailef 3y ago
I'm really baffled by this. For example in the US, it's enough to just associate something with Russia for everyone to immediately drop any kind of critical thinking. You don't even have to provide compelling evidence for it. The association alone (real or made up) is already enough to completely corrupt the subject's image. This trick has been played dozens of times but somehow people still fall for it...
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Or China. >This trick has been played dozens of times but somehow people still fall for it... and will keep falling for it. They can keep doing it because it keeps working, and people won't bother thinking a little bit deeper about the issue. A whole lot of issues could be solved or on a good path to being solved if more people did that.

DANmode 3y ago

Conspiracy accusations are important. You're talking about accusations of conspiracy theories.