[jonathanstrange]

The efforts to discredit Assange are a primary example of a successful smear campaign. It's not surprising that people are gullible to make such campaigns easy, character assassination always works when large government agencies are behind it for many years. I was actually surprised how long it took.

[206lol]

Here's the thing, though, Assange and WikiLeaks are complicated figures who have done good and evil things. They are fair targets for criticism, and it's genuinely ok for someone to draw the conclusion that, "given the criticism, I cannot support them".

Yes, a deliberate smear campaign exists, but also these are institutions with complex histories. You cannot simply call anyone critical of them "gullible".

[headsoup]

I think that's why people need to look past the character and heresays and look at the facts and processes.

Ignore Assange's character, make him an anonymous person instead and think "is the process X person has gone through for Y actions reasonable/legal/supportable?"

Should whistleblowers be supported or vilified?

[kspacewalk2]

Ignore Assange's character, focus on leaks of dubious, probably state actor origin, precisely timed in their release. Focus on which state propaganda network hosted his show, whom he met with in the embassy, etc.

[headsoup]

Got non-circumstantial evidence for that? I mean there certainly should be some for the seriousness of his pursuit.

I don't like the guy, but I also don't like arguments based on political narratives.

Is the evidence Assange released factual?

[vntok]

If (1) you have acquired documents on both the DNC and the RNC, (2) they are both damaging and (3) you choose to only leak the ones about the DNC... well then it's not as clear cut and ethical as leaking both troves. Even if what you do leak is factually true.

[headsoup]

Sure, that's a moral judgement. What's that got to do with the government's reaction and pursuit since, based on what was released?

I mean, if Wikileaks did (I wish they did, political bias ruins everything) release both troves, would your thoughts on the current situation change?

[mhh__]

The Nazis spent a lot of time acquiring factual information about the Katyn massacre, it's worth knowing the motives.

Assange has certainly played with outright lies e.g. Seth Rich.

Most of WikiLeaks output as far as I'm aware is mostly truthful to what was given to them, with the caveat that they are telling a story (e.g. bellingcat have no issues finding dirt on Russians, WikiLeaks don't).

They are also very happy to cause collateral damage of their own, IIRC they're very happy to leak personal details & CC numbers of people associated with those they dislike (iirc it was democratic donors in some US state, the data was leaked unredacted).

[pydry]

If the USA were the source of a leaked Russian war crime would that discredit them?

[kerkeslager]

> 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.

[EngManagerIsMe]

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, putting their lives in danger

e) Timing the release of DNC hack is arguable, but I could see how someone might consider the timing of that release to be evil

f) There's some antisemitic stuff happening with Assange/Wikileaks. There's nothing like, glaringly out of line, but there's a whooole lot of stuff that's just over the line. (e.g. use of (((name))), calling his opponents "Jewish" media, employing holocaust denier and denying it, etc)

g) Assange himself is quoted as saying, "[We might] have blood on our hands" due to their editorial policy of publishing everything, unredacted, about potentially vulnerable people

[varjag]

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

Rot in prison, Julian.

[naasking]

> Here's the thing, though, Assange and WikiLeaks are complicated figures who have done good and evil things

What evil things, specifically?

[monetus]

“Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told Assange “on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr. Assange ... said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks,” The Daily Beast reported.

He got stiffed in that respect, but he did achieve his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign.

Old interview of him talking about it: https://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/25/exclusive_wikileaks_j...

[naasking]

I'm aware, I'm just curious what the OP specifically finds "evil" in these or other actions. Most journalists preferred Hillary, Assange likely did not, and his journalism hindered her campaign. OK, where is the "evil" specifically?

[monetus]

I can't speak for op and evil is subjective - If I have to take a stab at their thoughts, it would be along the lines that he was being a useful idiot for an entity whose goal was to harm a society. You can debate those points; what questions he should have asked, if what the Mueller report says about his sources is true, if he had any actual malice - evil is too strong a word for my taste, as I use it for sadism. He certainly went for retribution however. I don't think we'll know his motivations for sure while he still has legal exposure.

[naasking]

Retribution for what? I'm just not sure what relevance any of this has anyway.

The only questions that are relevant for journalism are, "is the information correct?", and "is the information of interest to the public?".

Every source has their own motives, as does every journalist, and no story is so detailed as to paint the full picture. These questions are ultimately all irrelevant.

[kerkeslager]

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 candidate?

[mint2]

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 the email server in hindsight also seems quaint - a scandal from a time of innocence and naivety. At the time it seemed overblown too, but now it’s downright quaint. Non stop private email and encrypted messenger app use followed that, and then we all know how classified docs have gone lately.

[naasking]

> 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.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> he did achieve his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign.

I read thru that interview and wasn't able to suss out where Assange asserted he had a goal of tanking the Clinton campaign. Could you repost those lines here for us?

[monetus]

There is no confession if that is what you are asking for. His credibility relies on that not being his goal. Thanks for the polity - the undertone of your question implies he has to confess that word for word for that to be his intent.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> There is no confession if that is what you are asking for.

Your parent said:

but he did achieve his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign [here is an] Old interview of him talking about it: (link)

That seems to clearly imply that Assange would talk about his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign.

>Thanks for the polity - the undertone of your question implies he has to confess that word for word for that to be his intent.

The article fairly well debunks the source for those narratives (that Assange tanked the DNC on behalf of Russia). Here is the relevant quote.

Outraged the Clinton campaign swiftly ascribed the leaks to Vladimir Putin's intelligence apparatus as part of an operation to secure Trump's victory. The accusation was fueled by forensic analysis from the DNC's cybersecurity consultants, from CrowdStrike, detailing the potential links between the leaks and the Russian government.

Testifying under oath in a closed-door session before the committee in 2017, CrowdStrike’s chief security officer Shawn Henry admitted that he had no “concrete evidence” that the Russians had stolen the emails, or indeed that anyone had hacked the DNC’s system.

This crucial interview remained locked away until 2020. The press did little to acknowledge it; the testimony failed to attract even a passing mention in the New York Times, the Guardian, or any other mainstream outlet that had previously charted the Russian hacking story.

Do I think Assange targeted the DNC? Perhaps in the larger context of targeting powerful entities who hide details that directly affect the non-powerful. As to claims that Assange was directly working for the Russians, I strongly recommend reading the article all the way through.

sidebar: I like the work polity, btw. I can't recall coming across it before.

[zzzeek]

He preferred the election of Donald Trump and worked to make that happen.

His preferences in specific political outcomes are well known:

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

So yes, that would be why $politicalside doesn't like him, because he aligned with a very specific, pro-fascist $politicalside (whether or not he is actually a fascist).

downmod away folks but that's why $politicalside doesnt like Assange. He is extremely biased which makes the "journalist" angle look pretty weak. there's your answer

[kerkeslager]

Having a preference you don't like is pretty different from "doing evil".

I mean, I don't like that preference either, but the documents leaked were real, and I haven't heard that Wikileaks/Assange had equivalent dirt on Trump they could have leaked and didn't.

[zzzeek]

well a lot of us think Trump was pretty much the definition of evil, i mean, extorted an entire country with the threat of illegally withholding US military aid unless they made up political campaign propaganda for him, sometimes you have to just draw a line, like when it's blindingly obvious Assange preferred helping to install a corrupt grifter to run the US government into the dirt. He hates the US government. A lot of us USians think "try to wreck the US government by installing a mobster as president" is evil.

[naasking]

Responses like this are just so bizarre to me. Do you think other Presidents didn't extort other countries for various concessions, even selfish ones that help their political ambitions? Do you think other Presidents were not grifters? Perhaps you should look into Obama's and the Clinton's net worth before and after their presidency.

What really broke people's brains about Trump is that he was openly rude and obnoxious and unapologetic about it, and so didn't hide the self-serving behind a polite facade that preserved the collective fiction that politicians were looking out for the people and not themselves. That's what people both love and hate about him.

[naasking]

Even if he did have dirt on Trump and didn't publish it, I'm not sure why that's evil. Discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop was held back before the last election and most journalists still think that was perfectly justified. Either both are evil, or neither are, we should not apply double standards.

[pydry]

Clinton expressed a thinly disguised desire to see him assassinated. Of course he preferred $not Clinton. Any journalist in the same position would.

[snehk]

They did thing an and thing a was considered to be okay when one political party benefitted from a. The exact same thing a was then considered to be bad when it didn't benefit that party anymore. It's quite simple. If you didn't criticize me when he first started doing a and even cheered him on and then turn around when the exact same things don't benefit you anymore, don't claim that you were ever cheering him on for the action itself.