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Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

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Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#91

Post by asveikau »

mirimir wrote: post #27
mirimir wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is funny to see Wikileaks complaining about leaks. Not even leaks, but rather material provided voluntarily. They were obviously gobsmacked by Poitras turning on them. I must say, however, that Wikileaks overall censors leaks much less heavily than do Greenwald, Poitras and crew. I mean, does anyone know what percentage of Snowden's stuff that's been released? It's my impression that it's small. Edit: typo

Re Poitras turning on Assange: https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/23/risk-a-sad-comedown-... I had forgotten that she and Appelbaum had been lovers. Bringing him into the mix destroys the film's objectivity.

What is this supposed to convince me of? I am now more convinced that Assange is guilty if this is the way his defenders talk.

This reads like a guy trying to defend a rapist. Does he seriously not understand why people get touchy on the subject of sexual assault when he calls it political correctness? This is not simple unorthodoxy as alleged in your link but a serious crime.

It's​ also hilarious that he is compared to Gandhi at the end.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#92

Post by [deleted] »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #88
grandalf wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What difference does Assange's personality make? If someone revealed Donald Trump's taxes, would you care if that person was a disgruntled, mentally unstable former-employee who had served time in prison for a morally abhorrent offense? Probably not. But for some reason, when discussing Wikileaks, there is an elaborate and imaginative notion of Assange's personality, his strengths and weaknesses, etc. etc. I think we…

> Must we make the mistake of listening to our leaders as they tell us to vilify another Saddam, another Snowden, another Assange? Saddam was no saint. His atrocities happened years before we entered, and the intel that justified our entrance was bad, but he wasn't a good guy. That's not propaganda.

[deleted]

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#93

Post by dragonwriter »

int_19h wrote: post #80
huxley wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. It's a representative democracy and a republic. The terms aren't incompatible. Just because the dichotomy was James Madison's hobby horse and he scribbled it down in Federalist No. 10, doesn't mean that it is gospel. The US has been referred to as a representative democracy since its founding. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

I think what he's trying to say is that a representative democracy with single-member districts (rather than any sort of party lists) and first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all electoral system, is inherently biased against political compromises and towards partisan polarization.

> with single-member districts (rather than any sort of party lists)

Single-member, FPTP districts are the issue (or, rather, the lack of proportionality and meaningful choice that comes with that is the issue); the absence of party lists, OTOH, is irrelevant. There are solutions to the issues posed by single-member, FPTP districts that retain candidate-centered elections and do not use party lists. (STV in multimember—but not necessarily at-large—districts is one of them.)

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#94

Post by caycep »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #26

I didn't know why he was so hell-bent against the movie then noticed this side link in the article: http://www.newsweek.com/documentary-inside-julian-assange-wo... Assange comes off as a real machiavellian style asshole with vanity and manipulation seeming to him at least as important as his cause. Snowden and Assange often seem to get lumped together but there's a world of difference in personal character, and also…

the release of the Macron "documents" - complete w/ all the evidence of Russian manipulation and fakery, hanging MS Word edit tags in cyrillic, etc, in the official dump, says volumes. They didn't bother to even read through the stuff before dumping it on the public.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#95

Post by openasocket »

belorn wrote: post #52
19eightyfour wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why people still support Assange so clearly. It was interesting to me that people on /r/The_Donald love Assange so much. Before this documentary, I posted there criticising Wikileaks and it was totally hated on. I find that weird because the idea that Assange is unreliable and fake, was the kind of somewhat-counter-main-narrative idea that I thought people of T_D would appreciate. They seem to see him as…

It seem political when people criticize Assange political refuge to a embassy. There need to be some insight to show why it is not political. It also need to explain from a historical (ie scientifically) why the actions are not rational. I personally have collected enough reason to be very skeptical against such criticism. The first Swedish prosecutor dropped the case. When it was restarted by a second prosecutor, se…

If this case has no chance of going anywhere, then why run? A prosecutor acting based on political motives isn't uncommon, though unfortunate. But to actually convict Assange with so little evidence would require subverting the criminal justice system, tampering with witnesses, judges and the jury, which is far more egregious and unlikely. I don't have much faith in the ethics of prosecutors, but the judicial system I consider far less susceptible to political interference.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#96

Post by openasocket »

wyager wrote: post #6
Operyl wrote: post #3

Not terribly surprised, it's been well known that Assange leaks what he wants, and doesn't care much after the leak. A lot of information, like the email "dumps" didn't have valid DKIM headers for one. A lot of their stuff is questionable at best now.

Can you please provide sources? I verified a many of the DKIM headers myself and they were all fine. This was actually one of the strongest pieces of evidence in favor of the legitimacy of the emails. Also, I'm not sure why you say "it's well known"; it's not known to me, and I'm fairly interested in this area.

> strongest pieces of evidence in favor of the legitimacy of the emails

Well the DNC is pretty open about the fact that they were hacked, and there's implants on their servers, so clearly someone took control on the email server. The presence and accuracy of DKIM headers is solid evidence the emails are from the hackers, but not necessarily of their legitimacy. If they had complete control of the email server, then they would have access to the DKIM's private key, making it trivial to spoof emails.

So yeah, definitely from the email server, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's authentic. Though IMO it's likely authentic, the DNS as far as I know hasn't challenged the authenticity of any emails, and I were forging emails I'd make them a lot more damaging than what we've been given.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#97

Post by allenbrunson »

grandalf wrote: post #85
WhitneyLand wrote: post #26

I didn't know why he was so hell-bent against the movie then noticed this side link in the article: http://www.newsweek.com/documentary-inside-julian-assange-wo... Assange comes off as a real machiavellian style asshole with vanity and manipulation seeming to him at least as important as his cause. Snowden and Assange often seem to get lumped together but there's a world of difference in personal character, and also…

What difference does Assange's personality make? If someone revealed Donald Trump's taxes, would you care if that person was a disgruntled, mentally unstable former-employee who had served time in prison for a morally abhorrent offense? Probably not. But for some reason, when discussing Wikileaks, there is an elaborate and imaginative notion of Assange's personality, his strengths and weaknesses, etc. etc. I think we…

> What difference does Assange's personality make?

quite a lot of difference, actually. if you know someone to be driven by ego, greed, or other negative influences, then you must always question why he chooses to reveal this particular thing, at this particular time, and what other similarly important things he might be choosing not to reveal, because it doesn't suit his agenda.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#98

Post by spiralx »

grandalf wrote: post #83
belorn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Russian deal has a fairly good explanation. Clinton made some very direct threats and attacks towards Assange in media after the diplomatic leaks, resulting in a personal vendetta between the two. All that talk about treating him as an enemy combatant, drone attacks, assassinations and so on has made it personal. In that context, if Russia gave him political ammunition then I am not very surprised that he used it…

> He is no more a neutral party when talking about Clinton than Clinton would be talking about Assange. This may or may not be true, but it does not matter since the approach WL takes is to release materials in full without editorial discretion/bias.

> This may or may not be true, but it does not matter since the approach WL takes is to release materials in full without editorial discretion/bias.

Where's your proof of this? The DNC leaks certainly had a lot of missing emails that may have served to provide context for conversations that were used as "evidence" of misdoings.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#99

Post by nickpsecurity »

allenbrunson wrote: post #97
grandalf wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What difference does Assange's personality make? If someone revealed Donald Trump's taxes, would you care if that person was a disgruntled, mentally unstable former-employee who had served time in prison for a morally abhorrent offense? Probably not. But for some reason, when discussing Wikileaks, there is an elaborate and imaginative notion of Assange's personality, his strengths and weaknesses, etc. etc. I think we…

> What difference does Assange's personality make? quite a lot of difference, actually. if you know someone to be driven by ego, greed, or other negative influences, then you must always question why he chooses to reveal this particular thing, at this particular time, and what other similarly important things he might be choosing not to reveal, because it doesn't suit his agenda.

Exactly. Additionally, one might be forced to take a side in who they support with time or money. Assange and his ego has forced that decision before causing his co-founder to leave his ass with the data (destroyed it). Assange always loved the spotlight, being in control, money, and so on. His recent actions should be thought about with that in back of mind.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#100

Post by nickpsecurity »

grandalf wrote: post #89
unityByFreedom wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Must we make the mistake of listening to our leaders as they tell us to vilify another Saddam, another Snowden, another Assange? Saddam was no saint. His atrocities happened years before we entered, and the intel that justified our entrance was bad, but he wasn't a good guy. That's not propaganda.

Since when is spending trillions to attack a nation justified by its leader being an asshole? Saddam was mild compared to many other regimes at the time and was a US ally for years prior. We basically annexed Iraq to support US regional interests and the idea that Saddam's personality had anything to do with it is absurd. The ugly sectarian conflict we supported was effectively a cleansing of many of the nation's fig…

More ironic is how the declassified documents from when we backed him described him as a "presentable, young man" and other nice things. Later was called "in some ways worse than Hitler" as U.S. and Europe gave him money or "dual-use technology." All political BS.
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