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Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

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Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#101

Post by sillysaurus3 »

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…

Saddam was mild? He threw people off roofs. I saw the videos. The roofs weren't even high enough to kill them outright.

I don't think it was a good idea to go launch a war at him, but it's good he's dead. That was one of the few silver linings in the Iraq debacle.

Unfortunately, the suffering greatly increased after Saddam's death, mostly because we tried to occupy the country. If we hadn't done that, things might've turned out differently.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#102

Post by imagination »

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…

Thank you for shining a light on this!

Americans don't even care that brown-skinned people are dying in their own communities. That's why Black Lives Matters was started.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#103

Post by valuearb »

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…

You can support Wikileaks and it's goals, and still know Assange is a scumbag.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#104

Post by valuearb »

reitanqild wrote: post #56
moomin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that a) the US weren't interested (ironically, they may be now) and b) he repeatedly refused to meet Swedish investigators at the embassy, where there was no chance of rendition whatsoever. People were dropping out of Wikileaks 10 years ago because of Assange's behaviour. Seems like Poitras is just the latest in a long line of people who are attracted to the principles of Wikileaks, but turned off by the reali…

he repeatedly refused to meet Swedish investigators at the embassy, where there was no chance of rendition whatsoever. Sources? Because this is the exact opposite of what I read: that Swedish investigators had repeatedly refused to interview him there. Edit: I googled and I'm still convinced I'm right: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+dont+swedish+police+inte... Edit2: unless someone can show sources moomins answe…

Actually, he did a show interview in the embassy, where the prosecutors weren't allowed to ask direct questions.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#105

Post by qb45 »

caycep wrote: post #94
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.

Macron documents weren't released by WikiLeaks, or are we talking some other leak from him?

https://www.wired.com/2017/05/macron-email-hack-french-elect...

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#106

Post by valuearb »

grandalf wrote: post #81
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…

Donald Trump is completely irrelevant to my support of Assange. Like many of his critics, you are making a lot of ad hominem attacks on Assange rather than focusing on his massive contributions to democracy and journalism.

And you are excusing his reprehensible personal behavior because of those contributions. Contributions that could be made by Wikileaks staffers without his presence.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#107

Post by valuearb »

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.

It's a documentary. Criticism of it should be based on facts, not some assertion that the director is an emotional slut.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#108

Post by qb45 »

openasocket wrote: post #95
belorn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If this case has no chance of going anywhere, then why run?

I think it's common knowledge that he cited concerns about extradition to the US as the reason for leaving Sweden.

For context, this was just a few years after The Pirate Bay bust. TPB operated for a while claiming that they are breaking no Swedish law and seemed resistant to takedown attempts until suddenly the police raided them and they were arrested and sentenced. It wasn't uncommon to see claims that Swedish government sold out to Uncle Sam at the time.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#109

Post by btown »

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.

It's important to remember that Assange is not simply operating a content-neutral distribution platform. He has the ability to time or suppress releases at whim to influence global politics. And so his whims are of great importance in judging the risk-vs-reward of Wikileaks.

Re: Wikileaks Documentary Makers Accuse Assange of Censorship

#110

Post by philovivero »

spiralx wrote: post #98
grandalf wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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.

Where is your proof of this? I'm not being flippant. You take an unsubstantiated claim and argue against it with an unsubstantiated claim.

Note however, that the unsubstantiated claim that Wikileaks releases all materials without editing or redaction is extremely well-vetted, and the belief that they do redact is, so far as I know, only held by you.

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