Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

harpers.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 355 posts

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#241

Post by 93po »

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.

> 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).

Assange has a 100% truthful track record in matters of Wikileaks and was extremely explicit that the source of the Hillary leaks was not Russian in origin. This is more propaganda that people keep spreading and is exhausting. It's also exhausting that the narrative continues to be about Assange instead of Hillary for actually doing illegal and fucked up things.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#242

Post by 93po »

bandyaboot wrote: post #107
kerkeslager wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They released in batches, for maximum effect, right up until the election. They knew exactly what they were doing.

There is absolutely no way to know the intent here, and there are plenty of rational reasons to release things in batches.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#243

Post by 93po »

lamontcg wrote: post #228
the_third_wave wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> The 'Russian collusion case' has been thoroughly discredited No, "collusion" doesn't exist as a crime. It wasn't discredited it just doesn't exist as a criminal thing. And it turns out that "conspiracy" is something that requires the participants to understand that they're doing something wrong, and Mueller couldn't find any evidence of that. When you're rich and committing white collar crimes then the defense of "…

> There was plenty of evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign, Wikileaks and the Russians.

There is zero reputable evidence of this

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#244

Post by 93po »

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"

> Russian-state-hacked DNC emails, right?

They weren't Russian state hacked, this is propaganda.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#245

Post by 93po »

mynameishere wrote: post #117
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.

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.

> Why would the Russian state want to help Trump?

Especially because Trump was objectively pretty anti-Russia, and did a lot of things that pissed off Russia. But there is too much hysteria around "OMG RUSSIA AND TRUMP" and general FUD propaganda for anyone to see the forest for the trees of "orange man bad"

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#246

Post by kornhole »

gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote: post #193
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...

In context of limiting the amount of war upon the rest of world, it is hard for me to disagree. Although the foreign policy is not much different between the party sides, the Democratic party is historically and continues to be the more war party. Look at the votes for sending $117B to Ukraine. The Democrats voted unanimously for it.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#247

Post by 93po »

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…

The entire "had sex with a broken condom" saga is ridiculous and built up to be an Assange smear campaign. Neither women went to the police to report a rape, they only wanted him to get tested for STDs, neither wanted charges pressed against Assange, and they both later retracted their stories.

If Assange did what was alleged, then that's awful and horrible and abusive and those women are victims. However the entirety of the reporting around this is wildly biased and dishonest and clearly manufactured to get him extradited, which worked.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#248

Post by dragonwriter »

mynameishere wrote: post #117
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.

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.

> Why would the Russian state want to help Trump?

Their main objectives for the 2016 election was to prevent Clinton from being elected and to maximize internal division in the US; Trump was the main recipient of their support, but they also used their influence operations to support candidates to Clinton’s left (with varying responses from the candidates themselves) including Sanders (who publicly addressed it after being briefed on it, telling Russia to get out of US elections).

> How did that ever make sense?

Weakening NATO and Western unity alone was a pretty good benefit; its hardly the only place in the West where Russia, around the same time, backed nationalist political movements to disrupt internal or international unity in the West.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#249

Post by bandyaboot »

mardifoufs wrote: post #225
bandyaboot wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a breath. Who said anything about whether one thing “makes up” for another? Despite the harm that I believe they had a hand in doing to the US electoral process in 2016, I’d still accept that their contributions have been net positive over their history. It’s just a shame to expose war crimes then go out of your way to help elect a guy who gleefully pardons war criminals.

You didn't, you are right. Sorry for implying that. It's just a sentiment that I actually encounter very often online. I guess I'm also biaised, as a muslim, to care way more about the iraq war than the US electoral process. So for me it's just such a non-issue (especially since the documents weren't forged or fake) but I guess everyone cares more about their own backyard ;)

No worries. I do understand the point that the information wasn’t faked. Believe me, if we had a Wikileaks like organization going after the dirty little secrets of both parties, I’d be enthusiastically onboard.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#250

Post by caskstrength »

yesenadam wrote: post #234
caskstrength wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Ukrainian I find your comments in this thread insulting. You should educate yourself a little about history of Ukraine before you start spewing such nonsense. I would suggest you to start with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8&list=PLh9mgdi4rN... Now, I will assume you are just a misguided westerner who watches too much Fox news and indulge you: > Ukraine is right on the russia's border. So? How…

Thank you so much for this comment. Until I read it, I was regretting having submitted this story, after seeing it marred by starkd's sickening 27-comment barrage of Russian propaganda and insults. > How about US invading Mexico, occupying and annexing its lands Hmm I think they already did that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War TLDR: Map of Mexico in 1824 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:…

> Hmm I think they already did that

I know. It seems US and Mexico have been having hostilities and border disputes for some time now, so annexing some more of Mexico's lands would seem like reasonable and expected course of action.

Post reply on HN