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Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

emma.best

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Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#181

Post by fixermark »

elif wrote: post #163
fixermark wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deliberately infactual reports You may want to spot-check your data. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-new-report-puts-mi...

The first two words of your link are "If true," and the report it is using four anonymous sources... Keep in mind, the company contracted to produce this report, Fusion GPS, was also paid to produce "evidence" that north korea was responsible for hacking Sony in 2014... so you may want to spot-check your evidence.

It's international espionage. Four anonymous sources is all we're ever going to get.

And the consensus appears to generally be that NK did hack Sony in 2014, so I don't know what you're on about. There are suggestions of alternatives but nothing concrete or in accordance with the known evidence.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#182

Post by lkdjjdjjjdskjd »

dragonwriter wrote: post #57
davidwitt415 wrote: post #37

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…

> 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). So, you've reviewed all the security camera footage inside and outside the embassy? Or, are you mistaking “no security camera footage has been leaked to the public showing this” for “none of the security camera footage shot shows this”?

Presumably the logic is more "nobody has published any footage, so there probably isn't any".

I have footage of Trump and Hillary leaving a Motel together. Do you believe me? Why not - have you watched all the footage? Didn't think so...

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#183

Post by lawnchair_larry »

jayd16 wrote: post #53
marknutter wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly false.

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?

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#184

Post by lkdjjdjjjdskjd »

zozbot123 wrote: post #95
hannasanarion wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can tell that wikileaks is now a front precisely because they have stopped operating in the way you describe. They no longer publish everything they have been given (Assange once claimed to have documents embarassing to Russia but they are as yet unpublished). They no longer publish documents indiscriminately (Podesta emails trickled out over the course of October 2016 for maximum political effect on the election)…

That's all Assange's doing, though. He's doing the political equivalent of s--tposting, same as the foreign "trolls" you hear and read about, because he's independently pursuing very similar goals.

So if he is just "shitposting", why pursue him?

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#185

Post by nkurz »

throwaway6356 wrote: post #176
nkurz wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting theory, but I'm not sure if I believe it. Which gag order is this, and how does it apply to Wikileaks?

It is a gag order on Asssange: He is prohibited from "carrying out activities that could be considered political and interference in the internal affairs of other states, or that may cause harm to the good relations of Ecuador with any other state". https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/16/ecuadorian_embassy_... http://www.codigovidrio.com/code/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/... Going through his lawyers and explicitly s…

Thanks for the links. I don't think it's fair to call a voluntary agreement in exchange for asylum a "gag order", and I don't think that Wikileaks as an organization would be subject to the agreement, but you are right: it doesn't seem impossible that this approach is an end-run around the agreement.

On the other hand, I'm doubtful that there is sufficient incentive for Assange to try such a workaround. My Spanish is weak, but it looks like the last few lines of the agreement say that it can be unilaterally modified by the Embassy at any time. This would seem to negate any advantage of adhering to the word but not the spirit of the agreement.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#186

Post by ashelmire »

fixermark wrote: post #106
ashelmire wrote: post #88

Every time they say "It is false and defamatory", it sounds like "It is true". Also, has anyone ever seen a prominent organization go to such lengths to protect an executive from accusations?

All the time. Usually by doing things that Wikileaks would eventually out. ... which is one of the reasons it's so sad to see the org falling into the trap as well, instead of recognizing the mission exceeds the man and cutting ties with this albatross.

I've never heard of an org sending something like this to the media. Can you cite a few examples?

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#187

Post by deiznof »

hannasanarion wrote: post #60
smacktoward wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me that intelligence agencies would have ever needed to compromise WikiLeaks-the-organization. WikiLeaks' whole methodology was to publish, unedited and unredacted, any documents anyone handed them. Any intelligence agency that wanted a clean way to get some illicitly-obtained documents out into public view could therefore do so just by handing them to WikiLeaks, without needing to subvert the organ…

We can tell that wikileaks is now a front precisely because they have stopped operating in the way you describe. They no longer publish everything they have been given (Assange once claimed to have documents embarassing to Russia but they are as yet unpublished). They no longer publish documents indiscriminately (Podesta emails trickled out over the course of October 2016 for maximum political effect on the election)…

This lie that Wikileaks never published that stuff needs to die.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cabl...

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#188

Post by cowpig »

phaus wrote: post #131
ng12 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly curious -- do you think there are outlets that meet that ideal? I used to think so but 2016 shook my faith in a lot of outlets I used to trust.

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.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#189

Post by cowpig »

thatoneuser wrote: post #167
phaus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If your criticism is about news entities cherry picking facts or making sensational headlines then you’re gonna have to target more than Wikileaks and alt-right journalism. Mainstream media, regardless of the political side, does this on the regular. I’d say it’s more this than “open objective news” by a large margin.

There is no such thing as "open objective news".

Not because there isn't enough honesty in journalism or whatever.

It's because even if you just published raw video footage, that would have to eventually be lossily disseminated by somebody in the form of a "story" before it reached 99.99+% of the world, and that lossy compression is going to be biased by worldview.

Re: Things You Can’t Say About Assange or WikiLeaks

#190

Post by dwd »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #112
hannasanarion wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why else would the podesta emails be trickled out over the course of the 30 days prior to the election, each time with a promise that the juciest ones are yet to come? Wikileaks has never done a trickle-release like that with any other document dump. Why were the podesta emails different if not to influence the election?

Well I mean another consistent explanation is that Assange and/or the decision makers in Wikileaks are just reactionaries and wanted Donald Trump to win the election for that reason (as opposed to because they have been owned by the KGB).

Even that may not be true as the DNC leaks primarily focussed on the campaign to favor Clinton over Sanders.

An anti-Clinton stance rather than pro-Trump would be more likely.

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