‘You can expect everything’: what next for Julian Assange and WikiLeaks? (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 days ago by girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to c/world@lemmy.world

64 comments fedilink hide all child comments

As Julian Assange enjoys his first weekend of freedom in years, there appeared to be no question in the mind of his wife, Stella, about what the family’s priorities were.

The WikiLeaks co-founder would need time to recover, she told reporters after they were reunited in his native Australia, after a deal with US authorities that allowed him to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified defence documents.

What comes after that is one of the most intriguing questions for anyone familiar with how the site he founded in 2006 utterly changed the nature of whistleblowing. Will it return to its original mission?

James Harkin, the director of the London-based Centre for Investigative Journalism, (said) “In retrospect, it’s striking that everything WikiLeaks published was true – no small feat in the era of “disinformation” – but the tragedy is that much of its energy and ethos has now passed to blowhards and conspiracy theorists. Perhaps, in the light of our tepid new involvements in the Middle East and Ukraine, we need a new WikiLeaks.”

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] ealoe@ani.social 7 points 1 day ago

The Russian SVR hacked both the DNC and RNC. Russia chose to release only the DNC files, to damage Hillary and support Trump. This is established fact per detailed indictments based on a mountain of technical evidence.

So just because what they released was authentic documents does NOT mean they're some sort of impartial source as they claim here. Julian Assange is and was a Russian asset, he contributed greatly to the damage of American democracy brought on by Trump, and I hope he rots in prison right next to Trump himself and every other traitor and foreign intelligence asset who supports him.

[-] Omgboom@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

So he's still going to be a Russian asset then

Edit: Downvote me all you want, it's not going to change the fact that he was a Russian asset whose statements and actions benefited Russia. You can dislike what was done to him without overlooking the facts of the matter.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago

I am not in any way going to defend what was done to Julian Assange, because it was abhorrent.

But, based on what he's done in the past, I'm guessing 'everything' will be far more Biden-focused than Trump-focused.

[-] realitista@lemm.ee 27 points 2 days ago

It is fair to remember, however, that his biggest bombshells were from the Iraq war, which was a decidedly Republican endeavor. But I do agree that he looked more and more like a Russian asset as time went on.

[-] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 25 points 2 days ago

Those bombshells didn't end the war.

His leak during the 2016 election changed the course of American history, and was directly coordinated with Russia. That was far more impactful.

[-] discount_door_garlic@lemmy.world 0 points 14 hours ago

To be clear, I think Assange definitely behaves as a russian asset - but democrats will do anything except admit that their candidates are awful. Leaks as mundane as the 2016 ones were capitalised on by Trump, of course - but it still shouldn't have made a difference, and the race wasn't as close as it was due to wikileaks.

Trying to motivate an increasingly disengaged and disappointed electorate by being the lesser of two evils simply isn't good enough - and 'useful idiots' like Assange (although acting recklessly and causing damage) aren't the reason Hillary lost, or that Trump has support.

[-] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That's more a comment on how die-hard committed the political class is to perpetual war than anything else.

Also, while I don't appreciate Trump being elected... the DNC seems committed to running some of the worst candidates they can find - the fact that there was information that damaging to Clinton that didn't come out in the primaries is the part we should be mad at.

[-] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I think we should still be mad at foreign adversary nations colluding with one of our politcal parties and a not at all impartial "whistleblower" to turn the tide of a presidential election.

The emails themselves were barely relevant at all politically. Out of some 30k of them, 3 were found to be inappropriately controlled. Thats hardly an earth shattering discovery.

The spectacle that Assange, the GOP and Russia manufactured was the issue. It was a coordinated and targeted attack on our democracy, and he deserves to be derided for his outsized part in it.

load more comments (19 replies)

[-] sandbox@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

I don’t understand why Julian Assange gets any credit for Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, because that should clearly go towards the mainstream media.

So much ink was wasted by the press over Hillary’s nothingburger email scandal. I think it’s something like 50 headlines in the New York Times over a single month?

Not to mention James Coney’s part to play, basically he hates Hillary Clinton so just took any opportunity to sink her election chances. He holds much more blame for Trump’s election than Julian Assange.

I wonder why, out of all the journalists who could be blamed for Trump, Assange gets so much more hate? I suspect a lot of it is because there’s already so much anti Assange propaganda because he damaged the hegemonic interests of the US.

[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Liberals are unable to cope with their awfulness so their only retort is to blame anyone to the left of them.

[-] kerrypacker@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

He's an Australian hero and all of you salty yanks can get fucked, you persecuted him for exposing your government and he's finally free.

[-] hark@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

It takes surprisingly little for people who claim to support journalists to turn around and hate on a journalist for exposing corruption. The "national security" angle never seems to fail.

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world -3 points 1 day ago

Might have to do with him interfering with an election because Russia told him to.

[-] hark@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

"Domestic" billionaires interfere with our elections far more to the point where it makes what Russia does look like nothing, but you decide to focus on a journalist who exposed information, a fraction of which is information that you think might have helped Russia. I wonder if it's because of the billionaire-backed media machine telling you to care about this particular instance.

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago

Whataboutism + claim of motivated reasoning.

You buddy need a basic class on logic. It will prevent sad displays such as your last post. Maybe it will make you less likely to support a Russian spy in the future.

[-] hark@lemmy.world -2 points 19 hours ago

Logically we should care more about the ones who have more influence on our elections. If you actually cared about election interference, you'd want to address the primary source of it, i.e. billionaires. Just because Assange revealed information which might have damaged Hillary's already garbage campaign, doesn't mean he's a Russian spy.

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 1 points 15 hours ago

That's nice. Now did he tease more data dumps against Clinton a month before the election yes or no?

Little honesty test. Can you tell the truth?

[-] hark@lemmy.world -1 points 8 hours ago

Assange's hatred of Hillary existed long before the election. He's not a Russian spy. Just because goals overlap, doesn't mean they're allies. It also doesn't invalidate all the other insightful leaks he helped publish. You speak of honesty yet ironically frame a question in a dishonest manner.

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 0 points 7 hours ago

Can you tell the truth?

[-] hark@lemmy.world -1 points 6 hours ago

I just did. Can you ask a non-loaded question?

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 0 points 4 hours ago

You did not.

[-] hark@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago

Simple yes or no question: Have you stopped eating poop off the sidewalk?

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world 0 points 1 hour ago

False analogy is false

[-] hark@lemmy.world 1 points 29 minutes ago

You couldn't even answer a simple question? Wow, I guess you're dishonest!

[-] afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world -1 points 1 day ago

Enjoy your shitstain. He is your problem now.

[-] njm1314@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

I just expect he'll do whatever Papa Putin tells him to do. That or rape someone again.

[-] muse@fedia.io 8 points 2 days ago

Careful, some tankies are going to wail about torturous prison experience he went through while having to simultaneously ignore the emaciated Ukrainian POWs

[-] PugJesus@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

They've already started up the rape apologetics.

load more comments

this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024

74 points (87.0% liked)

World News

37301 readers

1886 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect!
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.