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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

#111

Post by kerkeslager »

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…

Okay, so the "evil" he did is having a preference you don't like?

I mean, I don't like that preference either, but the documents he leaked were real. It's true that the documents were one-sided, but do we know that Wikileaks had documents it could have published on Trump and didn't? Can we agree that maybe Clinton shares some of the blame for, you know, breaking the law? Or the Democrats for even choosing her as a candidate?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#112

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

starkd wrote: post #108
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

> Ukraine is right on the russia's border. Their economies and cultures are intertwined

So, according to your logic, a British invasion and occupation of USA would not be justified, but a British invasion and occupation of The Republic of Ireland would be?

> 2014 when the US formented a revolution there.

Propaganda nonsense. https://www.thebulwark.com/what-really-happened-in-ukraine-i...

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#113

Post by Spivak »

krunck wrote: post #101
nico wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Looks like you just divided humanity into two groups there you degenerate groupist.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#114

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

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…

> he did achieve his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign.

I read thru that interview and wasn't able to suss out where Assange asserted he had a goal of tanking the Clinton campaign. Could you repost those lines here for us?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#115

Post by jstanley »

sandworm101 wrote: post #102
wutbrodo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you suggesting Wikileaks should refuse to leak something just because they don't like the motivation of their source?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#116

Post by kerkeslager »

zzzeek wrote: post #27
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?

He preferred the election of Donald Trump and worked to make that happen. His preferences in specific political outcomes are well known: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks... So yes, that would be why $politicalside doesn't like him, because he aligned with a very specific, pro-fascist $politicalside (whether or not he is actually a fascist). downmod away folks but that's why $politicalside…

Having a preference you don't like is pretty different from "doing evil".

I mean, I don't like that preference either, but the documents leaked were real, and I haven't heard that Wikileaks/Assange had equivalent dirt on Trump they could have leaked and didn't.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#117

Post by mynameishere »

mhh__ wrote: post #30
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.

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.

Why would the Russian state want to help Trump? How did that ever make sense? "Bwahaha, let's connive to get a patriot into the White House rather than a bought-sold-and-enslaved traitor!" Unless they thought someone with an "America first" attitude would be less likely to start WWIII, it's a ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Those boring leaks probably came from the inside.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#118

Post by [deleted] »

sandworm101 wrote: post #102
wutbrodo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#119

Post by pydry »

masfuerte wrote: post #8

There is an important missing detail. The Swedes agreed to interview Assange about the rape allegations in London but the British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) put pressure on the Swedes not to. The CPS deleted the emails they sent to the Swedes and we only know of their existence because of a FOI request on the Swedish side. Why were the supposedly politically independent CPS so keen to get Assange extradited to S…

There was also the released GCHQ emails declaring it "an obvious fit up" because of the timing of the prosecution.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#120

Post by mopsi »

starkd wrote: post #108
cynicalsecurity wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

> And their have been hostilities between the two since 2014 when the US formented a revolution there.

This is just another conspiracy theory. In 2014, a pro-Russian president of Ukraine backed down from a very favourable trade deal with the EU at the last minute due to Russian pressure, people came to streets to protest, he ordered snipers to shoot unarmed protestors, after which the unrest only grew, he fled the country in panic and Russia used the unrest as a cover to invade Ukraine.

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