It's not clear to me that intelligence agencies would have ever needed to compromise WikiLeaks-the-organization. WikiLeaks' whole methodology was to publish, unedited and unredacted, any documents anyone handed them. Any intelligence agency that wanted a clean way to get some illicitly-obtained documents out into public view could therefore do so just by handing them to WikiLeaks, without needing to subvert the organization in any way. WikiLeaks made a perfect front just by working the way it was designed to work.
We can tell that wikileaks is now a front precisely because they have stopped operating in the way you describe.
They no longer publish everything they have been given (Assange once claimed to have documents embarassing to Russia but they are as yet unpublished).
They no longer publish documents indiscriminately (Podesta emails trickled out over the course of October 2016 for maximum political effect on the election)
If that wasn't enough, everyone should've been convinced that wikileaks is compromised when Assange refused to demonstrate that he held the wikileaks signing private key during his reddit AMA
I did not interpret the parent comment to be arguing against you, rather, I thought it was supporting your case -- Wikileaks is fully aware of their hypocrisy and is trying to stifle internal (and external) discussion about it.
That's all Assange's doing, though. He's doing the political equivalent of s--tposting, same as the foreign "trolls" you hear and read about, because he's independently pursuing very similar goals.
If there were solid evidence of this fact, the statement wouldn't need a qualifier.
Their behavior is consistent with what you'd expect from an intelligence agency. Such as well-timed releases during the 2016 US Presidential Election which seemed to heavily favor a candidate with strong ties to a foreign government well known for their intelligence capabilities.
Why else would the podesta emails be trickled out over the course of the 30 days prior to the election, each time with a promise that the juciest ones are yet to come? Wikileaks has never done a trickle-release like that with any other document dump.
Why were the podesta emails different if not to influence the election?
You don't have to invent an answer to that question, they have provided their own explanation. Wikileaks believed the theft of the democratic party seat would be downplayed, refuted, or ignored by the 24-hour news-cycle.
Unfortunately, it seems to have happened anyway.
Also wikileaks has done multi-part staged releases on many occasions before and after, including the russia files and vault 7.
> Unfortunately, it seems to have happened anyway.
If by "theft" you mean "the person who got the most votes got the nom," sure. That's not really news though. I mean, it is, but not for the reason you think it should be.
The DNC does not function as a popular vote, but with a complex system of campaigning, finance, and ultimately delegate voting.
The DNC seat was stolen through illegal redirection of funds, manipulation of public debates, and a deliberate media smear campaign which led to the DNC chairwoman's forced resignation.
You could have stopped there. The major disconnect between public perception of the political parties and actual party function is the party ultimately nominates who it chooses. Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy, not because either party believes in the wisdom of the mob structurally. If anything, "wisdom of the mob" voting is more reflective of the Republican party's process (and with the nomination of Trump, it kind of showed).
You claim there was illegal redirection of funds. Was it actually illegal? Or merely in apparent violation of the party's charter (which could make the party less trustworthy but is not otherwise automatically illegal)? The best I can dig up is that there is a lawsuit alleging the DNC violated campaign finance law.
> Votes are cast because it's assumed Americans wouldn't support a party that simply nominated a candidate via authoritarianism or autocracy
No, the modern candidate selection process in each of the major parties isn't an abstract response to theoretical concerns about what Americans would respond to, but a concrete response to real issues identified through previous nomination processes.
> If anything, "wisdom of the mob" voting is more reflective of the Republican party's process
No, it's not; the Republican Party process is designed to artificially create an insurmountable perception of momentum for the early leader because of experience about how early lead usually favors the institutional candidate, and the set of early primaries and caucuses favor, more than the country generally, the establishment faction of the party, so that this provides both the right candidate and a short competitive part of the primary with an early shift to general election campaigning. The Democratic system through 2016 (changes are planned for 2020 in response to 2016) in general design (pushing committed superdelegate counts into horserace delegate coverage hasn't historically been the norm) favors a longer competitive period and broader geographic competition but provides a safeguard against a hung convention. Each of these has failure modes—if superdelegates commit early and the media included them in horserace coverage, the Democratic system gets the same kind of artificial inevitability as the Republican system. If a celebrity candidate sucks up early attention with a large but weak field where establishment support is divided, the Republican method work against the establishment and lock in the same kind of advantage for the celebrity it is designed to for an establishment candidate. And if a well-funded establishment decides to take that fight down to the wire with whoever it has standing after the early winnowing, it can drag out into a long primary fight if the type the system is designed to avoid.
Very few people would have considered Trump "the institutional candidate", although I guess the GOP conspiracy has maybe fooled us. Even fewer people would have considered all the DNC superdelegate crap to have been a broad geographic democratic competitive scenario.
It is my view of the law that if you collect money under a stated intention of nonbiased party-backing and subsequently redirect those funds to Hillary Victory Fund, fraud has been constituted. Washing transactions between 50 different organizations to subvert campaign finance laws, as you referenced, also seems like an illegal redirection of funds. (federal lawsuit) Using DNC party funds for activities such as paying ex-intelligence operatives to manufacture deliberately infactual reports seems like a multi-part illegal redirection of funds. (steele dossier)
The first two words of your link are "If true," and the report it is using four anonymous sources...
Keep in mind, the company contracted to produce this report, Fusion GPS, was also paid to produce "evidence" that north korea was responsible for hacking Sony in 2014... so you may want to spot-check your evidence.
It's international espionage. Four anonymous sources is all we're ever going to get.
And the consensus appears to generally be that NK did hack Sony in 2014, so I don't know what you're on about. There are suggestions of alternatives but nothing concrete or in accordance with the known evidence.
Hey man WL shouldn't get credit for predicting the actions of the media, just because the media happened to act exactly as they predicted! Anyone could have predicted those actions, just by assuming that MSNBCNNWaPoFox was all-in for a war in Syria. It didn't take a rocket surgeon...
Well I mean another consistent explanation is that Assange and/or the decision makers in Wikileaks are just reactionaries and wanted Donald Trump to win the election for that reason (as opposed to because they have been owned by the KGB).
I suppose you'll just have to wait for Mueller to wrap up his probe into the matter.
Several GRU officers have been brought up on charges related to the hacking of the DCCC and DNC, the subsequent dissemination of their findings to Wikileaks, and related payoffs. This suggests that there is concrete evidence that the GRU was collaborating with Wikileaks, it's just not yet publicly available.
The investigation has taken very little time as yet relative to other investigations of sitting presidents (chart is ~4 months old, but we still have only possibly reached the end of the next shortest investigation) [0]
>Their behavior is consistent with what you'd expect from an intelligence agency. Such as well-timed releases during the 2016 US Presidential Election which seemed to heavily favor a candidate with strong ties to a foreign government well known for their intelligence capabilities.
Alright... Help me understand how this does not reflect WaPo, CNN, NYT, and others in an identical way.
Did any of those sources make a big announcement that they have super-duper incriminating emails about a candidate and then slowly release them in a trickle over the course of 30 days leading up to the election?
Emails which, by the way, were so boring and mundane and contained so little evidence of misconduct that people determined to hate Clinton needed to treat "pizza" as secret code for "child sex slaves", to extract a scandal from them.
And that's surprising how, exactly? Guess what, 4chan /pol/ supported the exact same candidate, rare pepes and all, purely "for the lulz". Would you expect Assange to behave any differently?
Not to mention, that candidate had been on every channel of TV news 24 hours a day every day for 1.5 years leading up to the election. Holy crap the guy that was on TV got elected! Wow that's a conspiracy if I ever heard of one. /s
I don't think we have any document released yet that describes any full picture.
We do have this statement (and a little more detail inside) in a report by a joint report by the US Intelligence Community (regarding Russian interference with elections):
"We assess with high confidence that Russian military intelligence (General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate or GRU) used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks."
But that doesn't explain whether Assange is either a "compromised front" for the GRU or someone else, or more a "useful idiot" to Russian intelligence for their goals.
Nonetheless, I will say, at minimum, Wikileaks and Julian Assange can no longer be seen as a neutral player, at minimum. And not a reliable narrator, either. For example, some of their tweets on the Panama Papers, which in theory I would think would be something they would in theory support, were rather strange, and actually stooped into ridiculous conspiracy theory involving USAID and George Soros (eg https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7176700566505308... and https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7174580643249643...). I generally don't treat sources that delve into conspiracy theory with a whole lot of respect...
It's a joint report by the US Intelligence Community. There is no “US National Intelligence Agency”; the position of Director of National Intelligence was created to specifically split the role of overall head of the intelligence community (the DNI) from the head of a particular agency (the overall head of the IC used to be the Director of the CIA.)
George Soros is a billionaire and very prolific political activist. Just mentioning his name does not make a dog whistle, since he legitimately does have a lot of influence. Of course, I do think that people acting as though he controls the world is a dog whistle, but we shouldn't act like he never has a finger in the pie.
I don't see why you are downvoted. It's a very valid question. Wild claims made without evidence are essentially conspiracy theories. Surely HN has higher standards than that?
There are views which are verboten on HN: supporting AMP, supporting ad-based business models, telling people not to use free services if they don't like them, and criticizing certain public figures. You might voice them, but prepare for the downvotes.
Oh, the bubble is real. Anyone not annoyingly vegan, anti-car, urban yimby-yuppie who still rents and making at least 300k making socially regressive technology, badly, with the newest popular framework is going to have to make sure to not only be relevant, but tickle the egos of the great majority while making their soon to be buried point.
Julian Assange doesn't have to be an agent or officer of any intelligence service for Wikileaks to be used as a front. He could just be a useful idiot.
It's more likely that the organization realized just how much influence they had, and wanted to be a force in global politics rather than just a dumping ground for data.
they did change the outcome of a US election, and probably the course of world history, which is more than all of the anti-trump media combined, so that is a pretty big accomplishment ...
Maybe. They likely had an impact. The money spent by Russian intelligence to run propaganda via social media should likely be counted as at least as influential.
How much money did Russian intelligence spend on such ads on social media? I googled "how much money did russia spend on facebook ads" but the numbers I see in that result are surprisingly small, so I'm wondering if you have a better source.
All parties involved were microtargetting, no? The Trump side certainly was, what with all that Cambridge Analytical shit and whatnot.
How much did Trump and similar non-Russian PACs spend on microtargetted facebook ads, compared to Russian intelligence? Your article contains no hint of this. I think we're all aware that Russian intelligence was buying a lot of ads on social media, but I'm trying to understand the relative scope of this. To be frank, the scope of Russian propaganda seems dwarfed by domestic propaganda. The propagandists who deserve the most blame are probably Americans, or were paid by Americans.
I wouldn't say "insane," but it's comical to watch an organization ostensibly dedicated to shining the light of truth into the dark places of power crawling this far up its own nethers to attempt to damage-control their own leader's bad behavior.
He's continued to claim asylum to dodge a credible rape accusation rather than face justice. [EDIT: his claims of fear of extradition to the US are credible; there was a leaked charge against him in US courts. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/politics/julian-assang...]
At this point, he's dodging Sweden's justice system because he can and because Ecuador allows him to. And all of this distracts from Wikileaks' ostensible goal of shining light into the dark places of power; public trust in them weakens as they continue to refuse to cut ties with an accused rapist dodging charges.
At this point, sweden has no investigation or request to interview Assange.
He was never charged with a crime, but they were satisfied by their interview 2 years ago and dropped all investigations, as was requested by the alleged victim years prior.
Also the sealed indictment allowing for Assange to be extradicted has been leaked. It is very real.
Sweden has reserved the right to re-open the investigation; the investigation is no longer open because the only person of interest left for them to interact with is Assange, and since he's in asylum they can't. The closure of the investigation is procedural, not comment on his guilt or innocence.
I was unaware of the leaked US charges from November however; that's news for me. Thank you for bringing it to my attention (I've updated my original post). Given that, however, I don't believe it's credible to assume that even if he were extradited to the US, he wouldn't have a fair day in court. He's too famous to disappear. So my original contention that he's a stain on the organization due to the fact he's dodging justice because he can stands.
I mean he targeted powerful people and put a lot of information out that they didn’t want exposed. I think to say he’ll get a fair day in court is something that’s easier to say when you aren’t the one with cannons pointed at you.
I’ve been profiled by cops various times in my life, and the overwhelming feeling was that if I didn’t do what they wanted (things which I had no legal obligation to do) that they could have found a reason to take me in. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. So if you’re doing something that many people consider wrong, I think there’s plenty of injustice in our history to warrant preemptive protection if ones self.
Maybe Assange isn’t innocent. Maybe he deserves to be locked up. I have no idea. But if I were him and I were innocent, I still wouldn’t trust that I’d get fairness.
Have you been profiled by judges? Cops don't get to decide Assange's fate if he's tried in United States court of law. And that trial would have international eyes on it, not a lot of opportunity for shenanigans without lasting repurcussions.
One may look no further than the treatment of Assange's own source for the Afghanistan war logs for clear evidence that "international eyes" do not stop attempts at pre-trial punishment.
The lone member of Obama's State Department who spoke out against that treatment-- P.J. Crowley-- had to resign the next day for doing so.
If you didn't know about any of those events I'd suggest reading up on them before commenting further on the subject.
... and one may look no further than the fact that Chelsea Manning is free now to see that being in the public eye has a significant effect on the outcome, because were she not in the public eye, she'd very much still be in jail for espionage. On account of the espionage, which leaked documents adding fuel to the fire-piles that kindled into the political destabilization of several nations in the Middle East and North Africa and the deaths of thousands of people in civil wars, beginning with Libya.
She got off very easy for the deaths she (unintentionally) facilitated by deciding her conscience spoke more loudly than the expertise of thousands of State Department operatives trained to deal with delicate international political issues.
Not that I’m aware of, however as I said in my last post - I usually take the high road and do what it takes to get the heat off. I usually don’t sit there and start arguing with the cop and antagonize him. Even if I’m in the right. I don’t bend over and follow orders, I resist enough to make the experience unpleasant for them as it is for me, but I have other things in life to do than fight the injustice.
Assange did the opposite. He came out guns blazing. When you do that, the court system often will find a way to bone you. And that doesn’t usually result in repercussions because the system can say “well maybe we were a little wrong but he wasn’t helping his case!”. And tragically that’s often enough for the external watchers to let it go.
I am not fully sure, it is the UK parole violation that is causing Assange to stay in the Embassy. Being a relatively minor charge, I do think UK can waive it off, since the original charges in Sweden has been dropped, but UK seems to prefer status quo in this matter, strangely.
Without making a judgement on the seriousness of the charges, remember, the "rape" in this case is allegedly not stopping upon the tearing of his condom, not forced rape at knifepoint...
This is what I'm wondering as well. Is Assange just supposed to roll over and not defend himself? It seems like no matter what he does people just mock him. There have been lots of confirmed fake stories about Wikileaks over the years, what is the "proper" way for him to act when trying to debunk them?
You're being disingenuous now. The core focus of this document is in regards to things that any other individual could justifiably sue for libel and defamation, but because this is a low point in Assange's image, we just laugh at him, which is ironic, considering his image itself has been damaged by these false claims.
Oh, yeah. Compare him to most other public figures. When's the last time you saw Obama or some other public figure release a 100+ long list of items people should not say about you, including that you smell?
This is beyond ridiculous, it is sad and pathetic...
Obama has/has a lot of power. Obama may not have given a list like this, but he didn’t need to. He was able to say “this isn’t true” and he has enough followers that the message will have the effect of combating falsehood.
Assange doesn’t have that. This is an odd little release, but you’ve gotta consider more than “public figure” and look into what means the public figure has to get a message out.
I have always love wikileaks for what they do.
It is very sad to see that there is so much wrong information and it makes me believe that there is indeed a smear campaign against Julian Assange and wilileaks.
If anything, can't but help feel that WikiLeaks informed how the ICIJ handled the leaked 11.5 million leaked documents that comprised the 'Panama Papers.' The involvement of multiple journalists, across different organisations, really adds authenticity that the information was handled objectively and fairly. There's been very little criticism of that fact, at least when compared to WikiLeak's handling of other materials.
> Even WikiLeaks didn’t answer its tip line repeatedly. The media has failed.
Direct quote from the Panama Papers source[0], after which Wikileaks "slammed" the source for not releasing the full leak. That was such an obvious defamation attempt that Wikileaks disgusts me ever since.
That wasn't the only defamation attempt around Panama Papers that Wikileaks attempted. Check out this[1] investigative gem, in which they've used a secret technique called "scrolling to the bottom to see the donors". I worked at that organization at the time and specifically remember myself thinking "Fuck you Julian, we're supposed to be on the same side." Edited to add: Of course, Russian media picked up on that tweet immediately[2].
Looking at how the Sueddeutsche Zeitung handled the Panama Papers, this is how reputable, responsible and professional journalists should deal with a massive leak.
I don't have an opinion on the idea of a smear campaign one way or the other, but just because people have the right to say whatever they feel does not mean that there isn't some organized effort to coordinate those individuals' speech.
My opinion of Julian Assange has varied over the years, depending on who the victim of his latest exposure was. I think this means that on balance he's fairly neutral.
However this item is a statement of fact, no?
>> It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever "breached his bail", "jumped bail", absconded, fled an arrest warrant, or that he has ever been charged with such at any time.
You are quite right, there is an active arrest warrant for him (from the uk, Sweden never issued one) [1]. My understanding is that he fled the warrant as he beleves he would be extradited to the US if the UK arrest him.
Please try to suspend the snark-meter for a second and realize the truths being stated here by Wikileaks. For example, the supposed Manafort/Assange meeting was trumpeted by The Guardian to great fanfare, yet there is literally no evidence that it happened (ex. no security cameras inside or out showed Manafort entering the embassy).
Clearly, we are being played by the media and whoever is putting them up to it, with the understanding that most people hear a headline and think they now 'know' the story. Another great example is teh high-tech sonic attack on Guantanamo US personnel which is now being revealed as.. crickets!
Speaking of just reading the headline, The Intercept piece you linked has the facts wrong, apparently relying on readers like you not having read the original Guardian story.
1. There is photo evidence, but the Guardian cannot publish it for one reason or another. They described the clothes he was wearing that day in detail.
2. There is an entry in the guestbook for him, it doesn't come up when you ctrl-f because they misspelled his name, it appears as "Paul Manaford".
This isn't "lack of transparency", it's protecting your sources.
But, then again, I wouldn't expect The Intercept to know how to tell the difference, seeing how they've burned Reality Winner and Terry Albury.
Could you provide evidence for your "evidence"? That is, I realize that The Guardian claims that they saw a list showing "Paul Manaford" as a guest to the embassy, but I haven't seen outside evidence that this list exists and is accurate. And I've seen others claiming that Manafort's name (misspelled or not) was not on the previously released guest lists: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/11/assange-neve...
I currently trust The Intercept more than I trust most other news sources, and if your two points are true, then I clearly am trusting them too much. If you have have evidence that would move this beyond a "he said, she said" level (with the Guardian claiming one thing and The Intercept saying the claims are false), please point to it so I can update my beliefs. Currently it feels more like you are simply asserting that we should trust one source over another.
Yeah. And those are only the famous ones. They also blew the cover of John Kiriakou and Joseph Hickman, leading to their arrests and imprisonments, and there may be others.
The Intercept isn't safe any more, and it's increasingly becoming sidelined, with the biggest leak since Snowden, the Panama Papers, being given to Süddeutsche Zeitung and ICIJ, by a source that is still anonymous 4 years later.
Well, first I think there is a difference between having the facts wrong and not protecting a source enough. And secondly, what exactly did the Intercept do to harm John Kiriakou and Joseph Hickman?
And those are only the famous ones. They also blew the cover of John Kiriakou and Joseph Hickman, leading to their arrests and imprisonments, and there may be others.
I think you mean "a group of scientists have theorised that a recording obtained by the Associated Press, which the AP claimed to be 'generally consistent' with the sound heard by some US diplomats who reported being attacked, could be a recording of crickets", which is a very different thing than suggesting the attack has been "revealed" as crickets.
For someone so concerned with not being "played" by the media, you seem strangely happy to play exactly the same kinds of games with the facts.
I could see the point in clarifying something like that where an important event is in dispute. Unfortunately this covers things that no sane organization should feel a need to clarify as a fact. I can understand why a person may want to debate these facts, but I think a sensible organization would let many of these things go:
"
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange bleaches his hair.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange’s mother is, or ever was, a “hippie”.
It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is a “hacker”.
"
It just sounds a little kooky.
As I understand it, the recordings are just being shown as crickets. They are not disputing that the medical issues were not real, just that this piece of evidence was crickets. That doesn't mean they are saying that the attack was crickets.
Exactly. There are way too many people here jumping on the “evil Assange” angle while defending their pet media outlets, or only condemning the media they don’t agree with.
Like it or not, and whether this list is tacky or not, there are fundamental truths that should be the focus of this discussion. The media manipulated and lies and as a result we have a severely misinformed population. We probably would anyway, but that should be a choice not a manipulation.
But we've had media lying before, media lying about objectively important issues of life and death (far more important than allegations of Trump campaign colluding with Russians) such as headline NYT articles alleging justification for invading Iraq (the greatest crime of its century), and yet the discussants here and in corporate media want us to take this seriously.
One has always had to be careful reading the media. Only those who don't understand history take refuge in feeling sorry for themselves about lying media.
I’d say the power modern day media manipulation is at a point that is indescernable to a good chunk of our people. People aren’t capable of identifying the mistruths, it seems.
I often have friends try to convince me of something they read. After examining the article the source, I demonstrate how the words in the article don’t actually support the headline. It’s not that they didn’t read past the headline - it’s that the article is set up in a way that makes you think it’s convinced you, even tho it fails to do that. There’s somewhat of a pattern, like: claim, talking around the claim, declaring that the claim was proven. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but I’ve had doctors and researchers fail to pick up on this.
But why make it confidential? That is one thing I don't understand. Why didn't they just publish this list on their website and sent a link? Maybe it's just a stupid idea on someones part...
Taking public notice of this kind of activity (and certainly making a list of things that are defamatory) seems to be regarded as a PR mistake, usually. (Of course, leaking a private list is worse...)
> The Guardian to great fanfare, yet there is literally no evidence that it happened (ex. no security cameras inside or out showed Manafort entering the embassy).
So, you've reviewed all the security camera footage inside and outside the embassy? Or, are you mistaking “no security camera footage has been leaked to the public showing this” for “none of the security camera footage shot shows this”?
While that's true, there is also "antitrust". The Guardian certainly has squandered away most of the trust bonus it may have once had. (I think it was the Guardian making the claims?).
At least you haven't caught me lying before, doesn't that count for anything?
Even most o the journalism prices don't mean much anymore. Here in Germany there was just a scandal of a journalist faking many stories, who had also won lots of prices with them (Claas Relotius). In some articles about him it was also mentioned that by now there is also a kind of "inflation" of journalism prices. I think they also serve the purpose of creating a fake aura of trust.
okay. but if it did happen, how would you (or I) have seen this footage? governments don't open source all their intelligence gathering as it happens. Hardly seems like a relevant point that refutes the Guardian's description of it happening
There's a difference between objectively revealing all relevant, true facts at your disposal and selectively releasing true facts that support your agenda or actively harm your opponent, at very specific times when its most advantageous for you to do it. There's also a difference between having legitimate complaints about the United States government and actively working with Russian Intelligence to destabilize western civilization.
Journalism is supposed to inform, not manipulate.
You talk about democracy dying. If Wikileaks had their way I don't think you'd like the NWO that Putin and China would build for us.
Honestly curious -- do you think there are outlets that meet that ideal? I used to think so but 2016 shook my faith in a lot of outlets I used to trust.
No. Alt-right tabloids like Breitbart are obviously significantly worse than mainstream media, but almost all journalism is trash. Every major network can point to really great work that some of their journalists have done. However, every day ALL of them post intentionally misleading stories designed to manipulate people that don't fact-check.
Frequently, they leave things out or use deceptive wording to change the meaning/context of events. Even when they cite facts, they often do so in ways that make telling what actually happened difficult.
If your criticism is about news entities cherry picking facts or making sensational headlines then you’re gonna have to target more than Wikileaks and alt-right journalism. Mainstream media, regardless of the political side, does this on the regular. I’d say it’s more this than “open objective news” by a large margin.
Not because there isn't enough honesty in journalism or whatever.
It's because even if you just published raw video footage, that would have to eventually be lossily disseminated by somebody in the form of a "story" before it reached 99.99+% of the world, and that lossy compression is going to be biased by worldview.
Cognitive bias is something that everyone deals with. There are tons of techniques and processes that journalists are supposed to employ in an effort to minimize its effects. One example would be analysis of competing hypotheses. Another example would be an exercise where you attempt to find evidence that disproves your theory about a particular subject.
You can't achieve a perfect level of objectivity, but if you put an honest effort into attempting to be objective by employing techniques to minimize bias, you can do a hell of a lot better than most journalists are doing today.
When people say they want "open objective news" they are fully aware that perfect objectivity does not exist. So it should be pretty obvious to anyone reading a statement that news should be open and objective that the person making the statement doesn't intend to hold journalists to an impossible standard. They just want them to do the things that we and the journalists already know will work to minimize partisanship and bias. Instead they almost universally decide to manipulate the public and promote their respective ideologies.
> selectively releasing true facts that support your agenda or actively harm your opponent, at very specific times when its most advantageous for you to do it
anyone can claim this about any media report that is negative to them. bottom line is: don't do dirt if you don't want it brought to the light.
> actively working with Russian Intelligence to destabilize western civilization
if there was any actual evidence of this I am sure we would have seen it by now.
> If Wikileaks had their way I don't think you'd like the NWO that Putin and China would build for us
this is nothing but evidence free conspiracy theorizing.
The conspiracy theorizing consists entirely of you reading into what I said and turning it into an argument that it wasn't, but that you feel would be easy to dismiss.
>If Wikileaks had their way I don't think you'd like the NWO that Putin and China would build for us.
He told us factually about a progressive candidate being illegally silenced by the democratic establishment, and it has been transformed into a quasi-russo quasi-chino NWO conspiracy?
No one has argued that Wikileaks has never done anything right.
You're disingenuously oversimplifying the situation to imply that my position is ridiculous. When your ridiculous position is simply that "Wikileaks did a thing that I liked so that means they never did anything wrong and anyone that thinks its possible is just paranoid". Instead of being dismissive and condescending why not try to have a conversation?
You are arguing that it's part of an NWO conspiracy... I provided an objective view of the action you were discussing, because it seems you're drawing form inferences and assumptions, as there is clearly not sufficient evidence to support a NWO conspiracy belief.
It was an attempt to allow you to connect the dots for me, by starting from the (in my opinion) reasonable act which is implied to be the smoking gun.
I expect nation states to do what is in their best interest. Wikileaks helped Russia whether they wanted to or not. Russia's attempt to interfere with our democracy has led to one of the most toxic political climates in US history. The nation is divided and we keep shooting ourselves in the foot because we can't get along.
When I mention NWO I'm simply referring to the fact that as the US has ruined its own reputation, Russia and China have developed a stronger position with the rest of the world. If we ever got to a place where Putin-led Russia was considered more of a leader in the international community than the US it would be bad for almost everyone. Likewise, although China has made slow and steady progress towards being less terrible, if they were suddenly more influential to the rest of the world it too would be bad for almost everyone. No one says "Man I wish the rest of the world would wake up and start operating like China and Russia, that's really the model that freedom loving people everywhere should aspire to." Russian and Chinese people are just as good as anyone else, but in spite of our government being pretty shitty in many ways, their governments are still atrocious in comparison.
Its not about communism. Its about Russia's obviously hostile intent towards western civilization and Wikileaks selling out their integrity to support it simply because they don't like the US.
> No one says "Man I wish the rest of the world would wake up and start operating like China and Russia, that's really the model that freedom loving people everywhere should aspire to."
Yet you attribute that to WikiLeaks (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18848920): "If Wikileaks had their way I don't think you'd like the NWO that Putin and China would build for us."
If revealing the democratic party's misdeeds hurt the democratic party and helped russia, then we agree that there is an element of complicity for the messenger.
Can we also likewise agree that the democratic party's misdeeds themselves hurt the democratic party and helped russia?
If so, why is it reasonable to connect "wikileaks getting their way" to a Russia/China NWO, but not reasonable to connect "the DNC getting their way" to a Russia/China NWO?
>If revealing the democratic party's misdeeds hurt the democratic party and helped russia, then we agree that there is an element of complicity for the messenger.
You're still oversimplifying it. I'm saying that they were trying to manipulate people with selective, perfectly timed releases designed to achieve a specific political goal while at the same time receiving information from and potentially coordinating with foreign intelligence agents and lying about it. You're trying to refer to that scenario as "I don't know why anyone's mad, all they did was tell us about a bad thing that happened."
I agree the information should have become public. I disagree that it needed to be intentionally weaponized in an active attempt to interfere with a sovereign nation's election by hostile actors.
>Can we also likewise agree that the democratic party's misdeeds themselves hurt the democratic party and helped russia?
I can agree wholeheartedly that any time anyone attempts to game one of our election systems that they are undermining the security of the US and helping the US' enemies. I don't think the US is even close to being a perfect country, but if it were successfully destabilized to the point where it could not be fixed it would be one of the worst possible outcomes for not only us, but almost every single country on the planet.
>If so, why is it reasonable to connect "wikileaks getting their way" to a Russia/China NWO, but not reasonable to connect "the DNC getting their way" to a Russia/China NWO?
Well, for one thing, Hillary is notably more hostile towards Putin than Trump. She's also infinitely more capable of coming up with adult solutions for dealing with them. Trump doesn't even believe all of the shit that we know for a fact Russia is doing to intentionally hurt us. His ignorance might not be legal treason but ethically its absolutely treasonous. And I say this as a person that didn't vote for Hillary Clinton or Trump. I voted for a fairly liberal libertarian (as far as libertarians go which is not very progressive) that I thought was terrible, but less terrible than either of them. If we had a decent moderate conservative that wasn't a religious nut or a decent progressive I would have voted for one of them, but unfortunately that was not the case.
Aside from that, if the DNC was doing something unethical (which IMO they were), its more than fair to call them out for it.
>I'm saying that they were trying to manipulate people with selective, perfectly timed releases designed to achieve a specific political goal while at the same time receiving information from and potentially coordinating with foreign intelligence agents and lying about it.
There is no evidence of this. it is pure narrative based upon what you perceive as motives.
> There is no evidence of this. it is pure narrative based upon what you perceive as motives.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest it. What you're looking for is a smoking gun that definitively proves it beyond a reasonable doubt, such as a leaked, signed email from Assange outlining his entire strategy or a video of him at a coffee shop with Russian Agents wearing nametags that say "Guccifer 2.0". When it comes to international espionage, that's a pretty high standard.
> Who I voted for.
So many people take sides on the Russian election interference issue based on whether or not they identify as a Republican or a Democrat. Perhaps it shouldn't be necessary, but because that's the way most of these conversations go, I thought it would be relevant to mention that I don't support either of the people that ran in 2016.
I don't personally think WL is part of an NWO conspiracy, more that their actions have consequences and those consequences may result in a worse meta-stability.
Compare and contrast the release of the State Department cables. Because the bulk dump took the politics of delicate international negotiations out of the hands of the SD and laid them bare for everyone to see, the Libyan people saw how what they were told by their government about international perception of them was a lie, and they followed their anger about that lie into civil war... And the country has not recovered stability. It's still unclear whether a world where Libyans unseated their government is going to shake out to be better for Libyans or the rest of the international community than the world that came before.
International politics is a delicate process full of egos and carefully-chosen words. It does not lend itself well to open-government-style action. This is irrelevant to Wikileaks, and (lacking any counterweights) it's quite possible that the end result is a shift in the balance of power to the nations that are still capable of running their international policy with their cards held close to their chests.
How can you say this when the current understanding is that Guccifer 2.0 was a persona operated by the Russian military? Even if Assange was acting in good faith (a big assumption) , he was used to push Russian propaganda.
There's no question he was a tool of the Russian government.
Any organization dedicated to publishing leaks can be used by any state to push its political propaganda. But that's the price of free speech. In a society that eshrines the right to free speech, unless you're sworn to secrecy, you're allowed to publish leaks, no matter what your motives, and no matter who those leaks help.
Overall such statement leaves bad taste. But pressure to be first or negligence makes media publish press releases without looking at them. Maybe starting it this way would make someone think about its content and not just put on their website?
The ridiculous hypocrisy of the "official" wikileaks organization sending out a document labeled "CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL COMMUNICATION NOT FOR PUBLICATION."
Isn't this something that Assange should be releasing personally, anyway? Feels a little weird for him to have his org do his dirty work. An org that claims such objectivity.
Multiple news agencies have reported that the Ecuadorians cut off his Internet access in the spring of 2018, after unspecified or wildly speculated-upon "misbehavior" by Assange.
> Multiple news agencies have reported that the Ecuadorians cut off his Internet access in the spring of 2018, after unspecified or wildly speculated-upon "misbehavior" by Assange.
The misbehavior at issue was hosting members of the Catalan separatist movement and releasing messages endorsing it shortly after the declaration of independence, which prompted diplomatic protest from Spain to Ecuador.
"It is false and defamatory to suggest that Ecuador isolated and gagged Mr. Assange due to his comments on Sergei Skripal [in fact, he was isolated over his refusal to delete a factually accurate tweet about the arrest of the president of Catalonia by Spain in Germany, along with U.S. debt pressure on Ecuador. The president of Ecuador Lenin Moreno admitted that these two countries were the issue, see https://defend.wikileaks.org/about-julian/]."
That's exactly what I was thinking as well. Nobody would have published this super interesting and long list, if it was like "wikileaks complaining about stuff".
It is a gag order on Asssange: He is prohibited from "carrying out activities that could be considered political and interference in the internal affairs of other states, or that may cause harm to the good relations of Ecuador with any other state".
Going through his lawyers and explicitly saying that this is a confidential legal document is a way to get press for his case while not technically violating the conditions.
Thanks for the links. I don't think it's fair to call a voluntary agreement in exchange for asylum a "gag order", and I don't think that Wikileaks as an organization would be subject to the agreement, but you are right: it doesn't seem impossible that this approach is an end-run around the agreement.
On the other hand, I'm doubtful that there is sufficient incentive for Assange to try such a workaround. My Spanish is weak, but it looks like the last few lines of the agreement say that it can be unilaterally modified by the Embassy at any time. This would seem to negate any advantage of adhering to the word but not the spirit of the agreement.
I thought the American people didn't care about transparency, suddenly using the crutch they rejected to beat the people who gave it to them gives them a sense of satisfaction they may be left blissfully ignorant. Not just assange, but snowden, and manning.
"It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever “breached his bail”, “jumped bail”, absconded, fled an arrest warrant, or that he has ever been charged with such at any time."
I would love to hear their explanation for why they think this isn't true.
Since we're unlikely to get an official statement from Wikileaks here (although it's not impossible) perhaps we could go the other way. Maybe you could research whichever of these you think is most clearly false, and report the evidence you find? My guess is that they are all technically true (as in, he didn't "breach his bail" because he never paid a bail), but it's also possible that at least one is an outright lie. I and others would be interested to see the clear evidence of this if you can find it.
OK, that convinces me: it's a lie to say that Julian Assange has never breached his bail.
Version 1.3 of the document says: "It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange has ever "breached his bail", "jumped bail", absconded, fled an arrest warrant, or that he has ever been charged with such at any time."
So while I can see why Wikileaks might try to argue that seeking asylum instead of appearing did not "breach his bail", there is a clear UK legal judgment saying that he did. It's a lie for Wikileaks to claim otherwise.
Nice job. I'd suggest passing it on the author of the post (Emma Best) to see if she can publicize this clear example.
The bizarre call for secrecy and extremely long length are reminiscent of cult communications. I get the image of Assange ranting for hours while some faithful deputy uncritically types up every word.
It started out well but some of the things on there were a little petty. Surprised I didn't see a statement mentioning it was false and defamatory to claim that Assange has a small penis.
While HN does not have a great appetite for jokes, this sort of anti-chucknorris list could go far. That said, I also think much is lost between the journalistic climate between common / civil law jurisdictions, especially as it pertains to libel law. Wikileaks, as an organisation, and independent of any particular motivational bias has a clear and present interest in maintaining and pursuing a list such as this. I'm pretty sure pretty much any journalistic or advocational/lobbyist organanisation in any jurisdiction with a libel clause has a clear and present interest in maintaining this sort of stance, even if as an American you think it shouldn't be necessary.
That doesn't mean I agree with it, but if you operate in a commonwealth country and do anything controversial, I'd say it's pretty much mandatory.
for those who arent aware of some of the differences, a factual defense -- i.e. you're only speaking provable truth -- is not a defense against a libel suit in say the UK.
The defence of fair comment is effectively a factual defence in UK law.
If the statement(s) are shown to be views anyone could be expect to hold, ie including truth, the defendant can countersue for fraud. I don't know if the changes to the law during the coalition removed all the grounds for libel tourism, but that was the intent.
Some cyclist, I forget who, did against one of our newspapers about some doping scandal. He won significant damages. It sticks in the mind as he was later found guilty of doping and ended up admitting it and compensating the newspaper.
I don't get it - it seems to be just a list of common false claims about Assange (according to Wikileaks)? How is that "things you can't say"? Surely you can still say them? Or what - will Wikileaks send their hired guns to silence you?
Also I think Assange is not in control of Wikileaks anymore.
My instinct is to flag this for clearly violating the HN rule against accusing people of being shills[1], but I'm also interested in your perspective.
No, I don't see any evidence of this. Instead, I see people who disagree. What evidence do you see that anyone is being paid to post their opinion in this thread?
look at whats popular now vs what was when posted, and all the throwaways. im curious- do you think its rare that there are paid posters on hn? i think its fairly common for pr firms on behalf of tech companies, and less so but still very probable for political special interests
do you think it's rare that there are paid posters on hn?
It depends on definitions. There are certainly URL submissions done by PR firms, but I think most of these are low quality and flagged. There are all sorts of small businesses that do self-promotion through HN, with varying degrees of success. There are certainly others who tend to upvote the companies that pay them, but I think this is usually because they like their job rather than because upvoting is considered part of their job.
I don't think that any significant number of prominent upvoted comments are created for hire, though. I think most comments are written by people who believe what they are saying, and that there are just so many ways for people to disagree that the things that seem unbelievable are just evidence that people are different.
i think its fairly common for pr firms on behalf of tech companies
It's certainly possible, but I'd love to see stronger evidence for it. Specifically, I'd guess that it is rare for major companies to pay individuals specifically to write comments on HN they don't believe so as to put that company in a positive light. For example, although people are frequently accused of being shills for Apple and Google, I'm doubtful that these companies pay anyone on a per comment basis to make pro-Apple or pro-Google comments. But I'd very eagerly read proof to the contrary.
less so but still very probable for political special interests
This is actually the one that I'm more inclined to believe. I think at least some of the pro-China, pro-Russia, pro-Israel, and probably even pro-America comments are being written by people paid to represent the interests of these countries online. But I think in most cases, the writer is also a patriotic citizen of those countries, and thus is likely to believe the propaganda they are spreading. But I'd be interested to see proof of this too.
As a counter-question, do you know anyone who is being paid for their comments here? Or read articles written by anyone confessing to being paid to be a commenter here?
> It's certainly possible, but I'd love to see stronger evidence for it.
If you indeed want strong evidence for it, I think there is a way to get it.
1. Read up on the movement to free Tibet, the current geopolitical situation in the Ukraine, and... hm, perhaps Wikileaks or Assange? Not sure on the last one, there may be a better topic. Bonus points for researching the boycott of Israeli products.
2. Gather up the most well-researched articles from well-respected scholars on each topic. Make a note of the most novel points-- things that, say, a layperson would be unlikely to know. On the other hand, make sure your novel points are based purely in fact and not speculation or opinion of the author.
You'll want equal number of novel points from each category.
Once you have a decent collection of novel "conversation starters," then for each post you make on HN randomly choose of one of your novel points. If it can be used sensibly as an analogy or reference in your post, make it. If not, don't.
As your nation-state bait starts to make its way into your posts, read the responses and measure what you get against what you got before you started the process. Ignore responses that merely point out that you chose a hot-button analogy, but count any that attempt to refute your novel points.
If you encounter regular refutations on a single one of your categories, that's something to keep an eye on. If you notice regular refutations of two of the categories, that's stronger confirmation that something is going on. And if you get refutations on all three topics, then congratulations! You've probably baited three nation-state disinformation campaigns into spending time and effort on your HN posts.
There is of course a shortcut. If, upon reading this, you feel that the risks of doing this clearly outweigh any potential benefits, then congratulations! Our social media tools are probably so easily and cheaply manipulated by state actors that we may as well go ahead and assume there are paid state actors posting on HN.
I feel like there is an important distinction between "paid actors" and "true believers", but I don't think your model distinguishes these. Do you think the approach you propose can separate these, or do you think this distinction just doesn't matter?
Every time they say "It is false and defamatory", it sounds like "It is true". Also, has anyone ever seen a prominent organization go to such lengths to protect an executive from accusations?
All the time. Usually by doing things that Wikileaks would eventually out.
... which is one of the reasons it's so sad to see the org falling into the trap as well, instead of recognizing the mission exceeds the man and cutting ties with this albatross.
The funny thing about this is, Wikileaks very effectively got a media outlet to publish a long list of corrections to media lies about Wikileaks. Great self own, ars technica!
But at least some of the "false and defamatory" items are definitely true. For example, he jumped bail, and the contributors who put up his bail forfeited their money. But Assange thinks that I am being defamatory for stating this true fact.
It has reached comical levels of insanity, illusion of grandeur and narcissism.