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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

#191

Post by naasking »

mint2 wrote: post #177
kerkeslager wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

What did wikileaks reveal that showed Clinton broke the law? They revealed the DNC was trying to tip the scales towards her in their primary which was unsavory but I don’t recall wikileaks having anything to do with the classified emails… although the main purpose of their release timing was to bury, drown, and distract from a certain other piece of info that had come out - bye bye claim to like transparency lol. And…

> although the main purpose of their release timing was to bury, drown, and distract from a certain other piece of info that had come out - bye bye claim to like transparency lol.

This is a conspiracy theory intended to discredit Assange and link him to Trump. There is zero evidence that the leak was timed to distract from anything, or that he and anyone close to Trump were in contact. In fact, Assange had announced an imminent release of information before that "other piece of info" had come out, so if you want to make a causal claim, it would make more sense that that info was timed to distract from Assange's release.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#192

Post by dragonwriter »

mopsi wrote: post #69
starkd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And notice how these fatal errors are still occurring. The moment you question the proxy war in Ukraine, you are immediately labelled a Putin apologist. No calls for diplomacy. Meanwhile, 200,000 Ukrainians have been led to their deaths.

> The moment you question the proxy war in Ukraine, you are immediately labelled a Putin apologist. Because the insistence of calling it a proxy war to make the war appear larger than it is comes from Kremlin's PR canon. They can't bring themselves to admit that they are losing to Ukraine and hence emphasise how they are "acktshually fighting against the whole NATO". Allies have given a lot of support, but mainly in…

> Because the insistence of calling it a proxy war to make the war appear larger than it is comes from Kremlin's PR canon.

The point of calling it a proxy war by the Kremlin is not to make it seem larger than it, as the largest post-WW2 European war, is. It is to invert the responsibility for aggression. (Secondarily, it’s to deny Ukrainian agency and make its existence and sovereignty an irrelevancy in discussing a war where that is the entire issue.)

There is a sense in which calling it now a proxy war between NATO and some other affiliated states on one side and, say, Iran, China, and North Korea on the other, is not entirely inaccurate. (Russia prefers to look to external sponsors of the direct belligerents only on one side though.) But, even to the extent that’s accurate it doesn’t change that the war (which started in 2014) was initiated by Russian aggression, and the 2022 escalation was a major upswing in Russian aggression, and the outside assistance (whether or not it also has ulterior geopolitical motives) for the other side is in line with the right of collective self-defense enshrined in the UN Charter.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#193

Post by gWPVhyxPHqvk »

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.

It was easy to do all that because he actively put his thumb on the scale for the Republicans.

> “We believe it would be much better for GOP to win.”

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#194

Post by ip26 »

yucky wrote: post #168
mint2 wrote: post #28

Is it really a mystery why people turned on assange? In his later years his work became similar to that of breitbart, James okeef, and tucker Carlson. Regardless of what one thinks of those, There’s no question that their publications and intentions are extremely slanted. No surprise most of the country dislikes him

You mean Wikileaks released info that was incorrect, or just that they released info that makes people you support look bad?

Are those the only possible reasons you can imagine to dislike or mistrust a source of information?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#195

Post by ip26 »

calibas wrote: post #57

There's authoritarianism, where government knows what's best for everyone and keeps secrets to "protect" its citizens. Then there's democracy, where the government is open and honest so the people can make informed decisions on how best to run their government. In my opinion, one of the best ways of identifying an authoritarian is to ask them their opinions on Snowden or Assange.

Congratulations, you’ve managed to construct this into a classic “with us or against us” framework, a popular tool among authoritarians.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#196

Post by mock-possum »

starkd wrote: post #33
barrysteve wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was well before the Trump election. Colbert told him that the authorities would come after him in his 2007 appearance on the Colbert Report. The minute he published Collateral Murder, a video maximizing publicity on a fatal error in America's war effort, that was it for Assange and Wikileaks.

And notice how these fatal errors are still occurring. The moment you question the proxy war in Ukraine, you are immediately labelled a Putin apologist. No calls for diplomacy. Meanwhile, 200,000 Ukrainians have been led to their deaths.

Wait what do you mean - the first fatal error was American soldiers murdering people - the second equivalent fatal error in the Russian invasion of Ukraine is?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#197

Post by calibas »

wunderland wrote: post #151
calibas wrote: post #57

There's authoritarianism, where government knows what's best for everyone and keeps secrets to "protect" its citizens. Then there's democracy, where the government is open and honest so the people can make informed decisions on how best to run their government. In my opinion, one of the best ways of identifying an authoritarian is to ask them their opinions on Snowden or Assange.

Which governments would you consider “open and honest” democracies?

It's a spectrum, and certain countries embody the ideal more than others. I don't think a completely open and honest democracy exists yet though.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#198

Post by zopa »

the_third_wave wrote: post #184
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.

> III.B.3 of the Mueller report The 'Russian collusion case' has been thoroughly discredited so why do you bring it up here, other than to muddle the issue? If you want to have a clear case of meddling with presidential elections I'd point at the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funding of the Steele dossier. Should that be brought up here as well? The 'dossier' was also discredited but it w…

Some of people’s wilder imaginings about Trump and Russia didn’t check out, sure, but I certainly consider the Mueller Report itself accurate.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#199

Post by lyubalesya »

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…

[dead]

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#200

Post by gWPVhyxPHqvk »

yucky wrote: post #168
mint2 wrote: post #28

Is it really a mystery why people turned on assange? In his later years his work became similar to that of breitbart, James okeef, and tucker Carlson. Regardless of what one thinks of those, There’s no question that their publications and intentions are extremely slanted. No surprise most of the country dislikes him

You mean Wikileaks released info that was incorrect, or just that they released info that makes people you support look bad?

Remember this?

> “We do have some information about the Republican campaign,”

And then they never actually released it.

https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/2934...

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