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Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

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Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#101

Post by krunck »

nico wrote: post #43
psychphysic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely it. My pet theory is that the true effect of "cancel culture" isn't really on rich/popular people. But the public cancelling means on an individual level social groups eventually become homogeneous in their views. The result is you must eject any idea, person or news source which doesn't 100% align with the current group values. The outcome is that entities which don't take sides are the real victim…

> But the public cancelling means on an individual level social groups eventually become homogeneous in their views. > The result is you must eject any idea, person or news source which doesn't 100% align with the current group values. That’s essentially human society. We organize ourselves in races, countries, cultures, religions, sports teams, etc. We are constantly excluding others and trying to belong to certain…

> That’s essentially human society.

That doesn't make it OK. The degenerate groupists in human society are the ones responsible for oppression and mass slaughter(war) whereas individual free thinking people are not.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#102

Post by sandworm101 »

wutbrodo wrote: post #94
mhh__ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WikiLeaks arguably helped people to do that quite effectively. They've never really claimed to be neutral but especially around 2016 they were either getting played by or explicitly choosing to aid the trump campaign via the Russian state (at best as a messenger). III.B.3 of the Mueller report I don't know if they are evil but I find it very hard to view them as anything other than selectively truthful at best.

I may be missing context here, but you're referring to the fact that they leaked the Russian-state-hacked DNC emails, right? Could you elaborate on why you think it's "selective" to have leaked those? Otherwise, it seems like you're saying "they're bad [via an unsupported claim like 'selectively truthful'] because they hurt my $politicalside"

If you are smart, and Assange isn't an idiot, then you should not allow yourself to become a tool of a foreign government. Having an open pro-information stance is all well and good, but when it is obvious that the people sending you information are doing so according to their own timetable, you have to take a higher stance. This is where journalistic ethics come into play. You must ask your source, why today? If you had this why did you not give it to me months ago? A good journalist isn't a mouthpiece for one government as it attacks another.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#103

Post by naasking »

monetus wrote: post #32
naasking wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's the thing, though, Assange and WikiLeaks are complicated figures who have done good and evil things What evil things, specifically?

“Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told Assange “on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr. Assange ... said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks,” The Daily Beast reported. He got stiffed in that respect, but he did achieve his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign. Old interview of him talking about it: https://www.democracynow.org/201…

I'm aware, I'm just curious what the OP specifically finds "evil" in these or other actions. Most journalists preferred Hillary, Assange likely did not, and his journalism hindered her campaign. OK, where is the "evil" specifically?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#104

Post by sangnoir »

headsoup wrote: post #65
vntok wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If (1) you have acquired documents on both the DNC and the RNC, (2) they are both damaging and (3) you choose to only leak the ones about the DNC... well then it's not as clear cut and ethical as leaking both troves. Even if what you do leak is factually true.

Sure, that's a moral judgement. What's that got to do with the government's reaction and pursuit since, based on what was released? I mean, if Wikileaks did (I wish they did, political bias ruins everything) release both troves, would your thoughts on the current situation change?

> What's that got to do with the government's reaction and pursuit since, based on what was released?

Nothing - but that moral judgment has a lot to do with some people deciding the cause is not worth supporting after realizing what the cause truly is about.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#105

Post by bandyaboot »

The impact Assange and Wikileaks have had in exposing nefarious government secrets shouldn’t be forgotten. But, the damage that they’ve suffered to their reputation is entirely deserved. I don’t believe for a second that they didn’t know what they were doing when they partnered with Russia in 2016 to help draw as much attention as possible to the DNC emails—that is, engaging in an asymmetric political operation. That’s confirmed by the way they released the information—spaced out for maximum effect right up until the election. At that point, any claim they had on being simply a force for transparency was given up.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#106

Post by CamperBob2 »

starkd wrote: post #71
luckylion wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This could have been resolved through diplomacy. Yes, by giving Ukraine to Russia. We know how it works if you try to appease fascists, come on.

This is a more complex than that. I don't like the invasion, but its not like Russia has no vital interests in the area that is right on their border. And they have occupied Crimea in the past going back to 1776. I'm just saying they have as much national interest as the West does. Israel Prime Minister claims they had a deal that was agreed to but Biden administration turned it down. It's also the responsible thing…

Your casualty figures don't seem to line up with most other sources. Any citations?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#107

Post by bandyaboot »

kerkeslager wrote: post #86
mhh__ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WikiLeaks arguably helped people to do that quite effectively. They've never really claimed to be neutral but especially around 2016 they were either getting played by or explicitly choosing to aid the trump campaign via the Russian state (at best as a messenger). III.B.3 of the Mueller report I don't know if they are evil but I find it very hard to view them as anything other than selectively truthful at best.

Put yourself in Wikileaks' shoes for a second: you have information, you might even know that the source is malicious, but you also know the information is true . Your mandate as an organization is to release truths. Are they really supposed to not release the truth because it hurts the Democrats? I'm not a Trump supporter by any means, but the truth is the truth. If we only care about the truth when it favors us, I…

Release the information when you get it and say, “do with this what you will.” Not at all what they did. They released in batches, for maximum effect, right up until the election. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#108

Post by starkd »

cynicalsecurity wrote: post #88
starkd wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many us legislators are openly admitting it is a proxy war. See Rep. Dan Crenshaw-TX comments on Ukrain support. He calls it a good deal that we get to fight a major geo-political adversary without any American deaths by just supplying Ukraine with weapons. He is not the only one. That is by definition a proxy war. Fighting a war on the cheap that isn't designed to ultimately win anything, meanwhile sending 200,000 o…

Britain has historical roots to the US territory, going back to centuries ago. According to your logic, a British invasion and occupation of US would be justified.

[flagged]

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#109

Post by Spivak »

nico wrote: post #43
psychphysic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely it. My pet theory is that the true effect of "cancel culture" isn't really on rich/popular people. But the public cancelling means on an individual level social groups eventually become homogeneous in their views. The result is you must eject any idea, person or news source which doesn't 100% align with the current group values. The outcome is that entities which don't take sides are the real victim…

> But the public cancelling means on an individual level social groups eventually become homogeneous in their views. > The result is you must eject any idea, person or news source which doesn't 100% align with the current group values. That’s essentially human society. We organize ourselves in races, countries, cultures, religions, sports teams, etc. We are constantly excluding others and trying to belong to certain…

And even stronger we institutionalize it and enforce it with violence. Enforcing cultural norms is the whole basis of our legal system.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#110

Post by this_user »

phphphphp wrote: post #56
superkuh wrote: post #2

It's pretty clear what happened. People started to view the reporting of Wikileaks as evil or fake as soon as it negatively impacted $theirpoliticalside. Once these perceptions fell into place it was easy to disregard all the good, villify him personally, and ignore the authoritarian and illegal actions taken against him.

From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project masquerading as a righteous cause. Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral Murder”) remember that wikileaks was always about building a narrative rather than exposing the truth. Suggesting that people started thinking negatively about wikileaks once it came for “their side” is painfully revisionist. Many people believe wikileaks is…

The failure of WL is that rather than focus on doing journalistic work, it became the Julian Assange show with Julian Assange about Julian Assange. And then it becomes much more questionable that WL was only publishing information that might harm the Clinton's campaign while he was simultaneously in talks with her opponent's campaign about obtaining a pardon from Trump.

When you start operating like that, you lose any and all credibility and protection you might have some sort of journalistic organisation. At best, WL can be described as activists, at worst as useful idiots.

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