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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

#261

Post by foldr »

pydry wrote: post #119
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.

This is fairly meaningless. It’s just some random people at GHCQ saying that they think it looks like a fit up, on the basis of the same publicly available information that everyone else had at the time.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#262

Post by namdnay »

kornhole wrote: post #246
gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the point of the Ukraine aid is to limit the amount of war being waged on the Ukrainians...

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#263

Post by dang »

starkd wrote: post #189
luckylion wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course Russia has vital interests all around it: everyone does. But it doesn't follow that "therefore Russia should be allowed to annex everything around it". Again, we know that playbook, it has played out before in Europe. Today it's Ukraine, tomorrow it's Poland, and your arguments will still be exactly the same: Russia has vital interests in Poland, Russia has occupied Poland before, Poland is outgunned, and w…

[flagged]

You've posted dozens of flamewar comments to this thread and broke the site guidelines egregiously. That's abusive, regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are or how right you are or you feel they are. We ban accounts that do this. I'm not going to ban you because everyone goes on tilt sometimes, but if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd appreciate it.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#264

Post by yucky »

gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote: post #200
yucky wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Hard to put out useful info on Trump when the Democrats already had the Steele Dossier, Russian pee tapes and other fake things out in the news cycle, to go along with the Access Hollywood tapes which were real and quite sensational as well. If you read about the info Wikileaks had on Trump it just wasn't sensational enough for anybody to care.

All the good stuff on Trump (along with some good dirt on down ballot Republicans and Democrats) was leaked through DC Leaks.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#265

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

starkd wrote: post #156
starkd wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bulwark is a neocon publication by Bill Kristol. He still refuses to apologize for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is part of the war machine that is perfectly happy to see perpetual war. He was a solid republican, but he was all too happy to ditch everything he said he believed in to embrace the cultural issues of the left. The only thing he kept the same was his hawkish views on foreign policy. That shows…

That's the point. The people behind The Bulwark don't believe "this coup nonsense" because they are pushing for war there. All the writers there are always pushing for military solutions to everything.

> The Bulwark don't believe "this coup nonsense" because they are pushing for war there.

It could be that. Or maybe, they don't believe it because the facts don't support it, and they believe in truth as a thing that is worthwhile regardless of if it personally benefits them or not.

You have a very transactional view of truth. And frankly that says more about you than anything else.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#266

Post by caskstrength »

yucky wrote: post #255
caskstrength wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When do you think the war started? When do _you_ think the war started? Annexation of Crimea was ordered by Putin.

Do you remember what happened right before he annexed Crimea?

No. What? Ukrainian nazis invaded Belgorod or something?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#268

Post by shp0ngle »

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.

Isn't Putin nowadays for Assange and definitely for Snowden? This is a stupid test.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#269

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

starkd wrote: post #185
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quite a few. name a top three then, or can we assume that this is "random forwards on FaceBook or twitter" ?

No idea what a random forwards is. Look at what David Sacks has been saying. There are many benefiting from this war. Neither Russia nor ukraine are on that list.

> Look at what David Sacks has been saying

Is that your top 3, your "listen to everyone" ? One guy. That does not even answer the "top 3" question meaningfully.

One guy: David Sacks; a Paypal and Thiel aligned guy, who unironically calls Russia's invasion "Woke War III" ? Not a geopolitics guy, just a a rich "culture war" guy? This has less than zero credibility to me.

While I am sorry that your information diet is so poor, both in quality and in variety; but I have no interest in you recommending the same to me. Sort yourself out first.

> No idea what a random forwards is.

Do you follow the youtube algorithm then? That would explain this amateur hour.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#270

Post by varjag »

EngManagerIsMe wrote: post #218
kerkeslager wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's the thing, though, Assange and WikiLeaks are complicated figures who have done good and evil things. Are they? What's the "evil" you're accusing them of? If you're going to accuse people of things, don't be vague.

I assume things like: a) Alleged sexual assault of staffers (which again, alleged, but could be considered evil) b) Leaking of personal information that is of no public interest, e.g. unredacted SSNs c) Leaking private medical records of otherwise ordinary individuals, including e.g. medical records of teenagers who were raped d) Leaking the names of people who are LGBTQ+ in dictatorial countries where that's illegal…

Handing over the advance file of leaked cables to Belarusian KGB.

Rot in prison, Julian.

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