[thatlongthrow1]

Wikileaks used to be something, then Assange decided to filter leaks based on whatever biases he felt that day. He alienated a lot of his initial supporters doing this, focusing only on leaking content from "the west." Later fully engaging with state sponsored hackers to meddle in the US election[1] while again ignoring any leaks about Russia[2] and friends.

As far as I can tell there is nothing left of Wikileaks, its just Assange now.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dt6BBwBXcAEL-Fj?format=jpg&name=...

>"if you have anything hillary related we (Wikileaks) want it in the next tweo(sic) days prefable(sic) because the Democratic National Convention is approaching.."

[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...

>WikiLeaks declined to publish a wide-ranging trove of documents — at least 68 gigabytes of data — that came from inside the Russian Interior Ministry, according to partial chat logs reviewed by Foreign Policy.

>“As far as we recall these are already public,” WikiLeaks wrote at the time.

>By June 2016, Assange had threatened to dump files on Clinton that would be damaging to her campaign prospects. A month later, on July 22, WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails out of the Democratic National Committee — preceding the massive dumps in October of emails belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

>In late August 2016, when WikiLeaks’s Clinton disclosures were in full swing, Assange said he had information on Trump but that it wasn’t worth publishing. (In a message to FP, WikiLeaks now says the organization “received no original documents on the campaign that did not turn out to be already public.”)

Weird that data "already being public" didn't stop Wikileaks from forwarding the content before when it came from Russian backed fronts:

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/885395248612085760

>@wikileaks

>Pro-Russia hacker site (or front) "Cyber Berkut" publishes alleged links between Ukraine and Clinton

[tsimionescu]

So not only are Assange and the people who gave him information supposed to risk their lives to bring these things out to the public, they are also supposed to do it in an objective balanced manner?

Facts are facts. As long as they are printing true facts, they can only be doing good, even if they are only printing the truth about one particular country. Even if they were only printing leaks from a single policital party in one country (which is not the case), as long as all that they are printing is true, they are helping much more than they are hurting.

If you know that Russianoor Chinese or whatever else leaks exist, and if you have enough access to know that they are also true and that WikiLeaks refused to print them, why don't you print them yourself?

[smeeth]

> As long as they are printing true facts, they can only be doing good

This is obviously not true. Releasing a fact has a tangible effect on the world, usually a slight change of opinion in the minds of those who learn the fact. Sometimes the effect is more dramatic, for example a government changing policy or someone being killed.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this could go very wrong very quickly, which is why the entire journalistic profession, counted among whom are many moral and intelligent individuals, decided not to simply release facts as they received them.

I happen to believe Assange affected the world negatively by releasing the facts he did. I’m not asking you to agree with me, but to suggest that he not only did not but could not is perfectly ridiculous.

[macspoofing]

I don't think that's what OP meant. At one point, I also thought WikiLeaks was going to be a new type of internet-era news organization pushing for full transparency, regardless of the target. I was disappointed when it turned out they were aimed solely at discrediting America and would editorialize and time their drops for maximum damage. They decided to become that kind of an organization, and they lost credibility in my and many other people's eyes.

>Facts are facts.

No. Facts are never enough. "The Sun sets in the west" is a true fact ... that is compatible with both the heliocentric and geocentric models of our solar system. Facts always need to be contextualized in some narrative or ideology before they are useful (for a specific purpose). True facts can be used to lie about the greater context. That's why objectivity and fairness is so important for news organizations. WikiLeaks is a dishonest organization.

[34679]

Is it not possible that Wikileaks decided it was safer for them to report on the US, given our supposed press freedoms?

[macspoofing]

It's possible. Has Wikileaks ever stated as such?

[34679]

Has Wikileaks ever stated "they were aimed solely at discrediting America"?

[ClumsyPilot]

Any government discredits itself when it commits horrible acts, like torture. When these actions become public, their reputation suffers, that's right and proper.

> Facts always need to be contextualized in some narrative or ideology

Like we contextualized Covid19 in Republican ideology to refuse to wear masks? Facts stand for themselves, ideology is harfull.

[macspoofing]

>Facts stand for themselves, ideology is harfull.

When the George Floyd protests were ramping up 3 weeks ago, the media and many public health officials made statements in support of them and minimized (or outright dismissed) the risks of breaking bans on large public gatherings. Apparently the facts around COVID infection rates couldn't be taken at face-value but needed to be balanced with the righteous intent of the protests. So don't pretend one side is different from another. That one politicizes the pandemic, and the other doesn't.

You missed the salient point though. Facts do not imply policy. They can inform policy, but policy comes out of ideology. You can state a fact about poverty rates, but you will get radically different answers about how to solve it from a Marxist and a Libertarian.

[ClumsyPilot]

Your observation supports my point of view: when ideology trumps facts and proper understanding, it is harmful.

We have a moral obligation to have policy that makes best use of available facts. And for most areas of policy we have a lot of knowledge: we know that 'broken windows policing' delivers terrible results, we know that rehabilitation services deliver better ones. We know that advocating abstinence is worse that contraception at reducing teenage pregnancies, and we know "trickle down economics" is a joke, and a thousand other things.

Sure there are areas that are largely unknown, but even there the people of relevant expertise are not described as "a Marxist and a Libertarian"

[34679]

Reporting about western countries isn't expected to land you in a jail cell or early grave, as is the case with Russia and China.

[Traster]

Every account of Assange shows a deeply flawed man. Even the generous ones - and whilst he was painted as a freedom fighter for a short period, I'm not convinced that was ever due to anything more than his agenda accidentally aligning with pro government accountability campaigners for a very short time. Also, it seems unlikely there was ever anything to wikileaks beyond Assange - that's certainly what his colleagues from the early days say. Just a man with many different sock-puppet accounts.

[enriquto]

> Every account of Assange shows a deeply flawed man.

All humans are deeply flawed, but just some of them get to change the world for the better. That is certainly the case for Julian Assange.

[raxxorrax]

I find this fascinating. You excuse a state apparatus who you are responsible for as a democratic voter. That state apparatus had clear interests in a certain region and fabricated evidence to justify a war.

And you moan about character flaws of someone who helped get evidence of misbehavior to the public? Seriously? No other problems?

edit: You know that intelligence agencies try to discredit dissidents and make up fake evidence, do you?

[Traster]

Sorry what? At what point did i excuse anything the state has done? I didn't even mention the state, I talked about Assange. Also, I'm not moaning about him, I'm just talking candidly about who he is, and that's not based on some massive government conspiracy its based on the accounts of the people who have worked with him - people who also risked their livelihoods to publish the early leaks.

[simion314]

As a non US person is clear that his support in US fall because of Russia-Trump business (I have no idea if that was clarified by an investigation or it was suppressed) anyway the hypocrisy is clear: "We like lacks about corruption in Russia or China abuses but if you upset my favorite politicians then justice and laws are irrelevant, we can find some bullshit reason to suicide you or put you in prison". what is extremely disappointing is UK and Sweeden authorities abuses revealed by UN , I did not expect them to still be ass kissing US so deep.

[dragonwriter]

> As a non US person is clear that his support in US fall because of Russia-Trump busines

His support in the US was only ever on the fringes (because they liked anything damaging to the then-current war efforts regardless of methodology) and ,because of the partisan affiliation of the President, that was mostly on the left fringes, and the reason they supported it was partisan politics.

Naturally, even without the Russia connection, the “Trump business” destroyed that. But it's not “hypocrisy” the lost him support.