191–200 of 227 posts
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WikiLeaks has almost certainly been compromised by global intelligence agencies and is operating as a front.
Irony from the memo: It is false and defamatory to suggest that Julian Assange is, or has ever been, an agent or officer of any intelligence service
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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.
That charge makes no sense. By that logic, were Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey also tools of the Russian government?
That said, I have no problem saying Facebook was a tool of Russian propaganda.
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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.
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). https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-gua... Clearly, we are being…
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, bu…
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.
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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 m…
This "almost all journalism is trash" is just naively cynical. I bet what you call "deliberate manipulation" I would describe as "telling a story." There is often no such thing as "the truth"; two people who saw the same thing happen will often interpret and describe it very differently. It's unavoidable, and if you see the world in black and white you're blind to most of the details.
if you ever needed any more evidence that hn comments are probably full of people paid to say things...
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? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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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 weste…
> 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…
"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…
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-12005930
And here's how the people who posted the bail were ordered to pay the remainder when he breached the terms:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/oct/08/julian-assange...
Absconded: To leave quickly and secretly and hide oneself, often to avoid arrest or prosecution.
He left his house arrest location quickly and secretly to avoid arrest and prosecution.
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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? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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
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?
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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 attenti…
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 hav…