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From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project masquerading as a righteous cause. Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral

From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project masquerading as a righteous cause. Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral Murder”) remember that wikileaks was always about building a narrative rather than exposing the truth. Suggesting that people started thinking negatively about wikileaks once it came for “their side” is painfully revisionist. Many people believe wikileaks is a net good but despise Assange. Assange failed wikileaks, the media did not fail Assange.

namdnay 3y ago
> Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral Murder”) That was very very far from being "their original releases". wikileaks used to be a real "wiki of leaks". it was quite glorious, a real goldmine for journalists to work through
ethbr0 3y ago
Imho, if WikiLeaks had focused on being the Craigslist of information, without attempting to market themselves, they would have gotten a lot more public support. You can't transparently publish information and have an opinion.
- psychlops 3y ago
  Why not? Why is public support necessary for transparently publishing information?
  - thunfischbrot 3y ago
    Wasn't that the whole idea behind Wikileaks? To not only be a platform to upload and publish random documents, and instead to provide context and work with writers to make it understandable for a wider audience? That's how I understood it at the time, that Assange was unhappy with the limited audience existing platforms were reaching. /e: I see my reply was less targeted towards your comment but the one above.
- jancsika 3y ago
  > Imho, if WikiLeaks had focused on being the Craigslist of information, without attempting to market themselves, they would have gotten a lot more public support. Turns out history has gifted you with a test case. :) What you are describing was literally the early version of Wikileaks[1]! The ostensible problem was that it generated little to no public awareness[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Submissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Submissions
mardifoufs 3y ago
What's the revisionism? The collateral murder video was actually especially popular and impactful to the demographic (democrat young white liberal) that is now almost comically against Assange. Also, there's literally no difference in the way they did "narrative building" with Collateral Murder than , say, the NYT does in covering war crimes in Ukraine. I mean to be honest it's a bit hard to understand why you would even highlight the narrative building by the exposing party, when the actual events involved a cover up of war crimes from the Pentagon and an insane amount of damage control and PR. It just doesn't register for me, it's like saying you lost confidence in the NYT for covering war crimes in a way that highlighted that war crimes are actually... bad.
- phphphphp 3y ago
  I disagree with your characterisation, there was a lot of criticism of Collateral Murder from young white liberals! Assange and wikileaks, at the time, were presented as apolitical truth-seekers, not as journalists. Journalism is very different from what Wikileaks claimed to be, and Collateral Murder was not presented as a piece of journalism, it was presented as a leak. You cannot conceivably compare what Wikileaks claimed to be at the time, to what the New York Times claimed to be at the time. Go back in time to when Assange was first accused of sexual misconduct and you’ll find that a lot of people disliked him: it’s revisionist to claim that he was perceived a noble hero by the left until he was accused of sexual misconduct or until he started his crusade against Hilary Clinton (as if any young white liberal liked Hilary Clinton…)
  - mardifoufs 3y ago
    To me, there is no real difference. Or at least not enough to warrant any criticism of wikileaks (w.r.t how they handled Collateral Murder, not in general of course). Whatever they did was much more effective than american journalists were doing at the time. It was less so to push a narrative than to expose an event that would've been swept under the rug, just like many many other "oopsies" the americans ignored at the time. As to liberals being pro-hillary, I don't disagree that it wasn't true in 2008. But those liberals almost certainly grew to avidly support her in 2016. I guess I'm biaised since I have been exposed to the "other side" of the iraq war and the war on terror, as a practicing muslim in a pretty political family. But to me it still amounts to complaining or criticizing from a position of pure privilege (I'm referring to the criticism at the time of the video's publication, not your comments!), as Americans basically found it "yucky" to be exposed to the results of their own imperialist policies. In that context, I think WL would've been criticized no matter what because the actual issue wasn't that they were pushing a narrative, but more so that they were making some Americans uncomfortable.
kerkeslager 3y ago
The truth is a narrative. Not all narratives are true, but calling something a narrative doesn't in any way disprove it. Would you like to actually call out anything in Collateral Murder that you think wasn't exposing the truth? I'm old enough to remember Collateral Murder. I'm old enough to remember it's video footage. Of members of the US military murdering people, and laughing about it. You can't dismiss that as "just a narrative", it's also the truth, and it's a fucked up truth that the public deserves to know about.
- vuln 3y ago
  That's the play, attack the person or how it was release but never acknowledge the contents of the release.
  - fmajid 3y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO
- phphphphp 3y ago
  I make no claim that collateral murder did not represent a war crime, I make no claim that the release of collateral murder was a bad thing, rather, I am claiming that Julian Assange was never a noble person releasing leaked footage to expose the truth, he was a political performer, creating the narrative that he wanted to create, using leaks as props. Julian Assange had no loyalty to the truth (as has been shown in the years since) and cares only for the “truth” when it’s favourable to whatever agenda he has at the point in time. You can be glad that collateral murder was released while also being deeply unhappy with Julian Assange’s motives and actions.
  - thefounder 3y ago
    Ok, let's open some new positions for totally noble poeple to expose the truth. Anything less than noble should be put in prison regardless of the truth exposed. Any takers? Meanwhile let's see what b.s mainstream media is pushing. They are not less than noble and deserve the whole attention.
this_user 3y ago
The failure of WL is that rather than focus on doing journalistic work, it became the Julian Assange show with Julian Assange about Julian Assange. And then it becomes much more questionable that WL was only publishing information that might harm the Clinton's campaign while he was simultaneously in talks with her opponent's campaign about obtaining a pardon from Trump. When you start operating like that, you lose any and all credibility and protection you might have some sort of journalistic organisation. At best, WL can be described as activists, at worst as useful idiots.
- 93po 3y ago
  > The failure of WL is that rather than focus on doing journalistic work, it became the Julian Assange show with Julian Assange about Julian Assange. This not a failure of WL, this is the American establishment and elites who were doing everything possible to smear Assange, even to the point of nothing-burger stories about how he was a bad house guest and didn't clean his cat's liter box enough. They were really grasping at straws.
yucky 3y ago
How could they be partisan when "both sides" have accused them repeatedly of being against them? Case in point, Collateral Murder was celebrated by Democrats and then when they leaked the Hillary emails now all of a sudden Democrats thought Wikileaks was evil. The information was true, the only thing that changed is they didn't like the what it showed. That's not Wikileaks fault, maybe we should hold those in power accountable regardless of how we feel about their stances on other issues.
kornhole 3y ago
His publications were inconvenient for one party, and then they were inconvenient for the other. He exposed all parties which helped us all become a little more independently minded, but the partisans were in power and exacted revenge.
93po 3y ago
The history of online-left public opinion on WL is proof that your argument is not true. > Suggesting that people started thinking negatively about wikileaks once it came for “their side” is painfully revisionist This is 100% true, though. Trying to say it isn't without any substance doesn't really help your case at all.
DANmode 3y ago
> From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project Which party were the Collateral Murder footages meant to benefit? (Is "partisan" the right word here?)

namdnay 3y ago

> Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral Murder”) That was very very far from being "their original releases". wikileaks used to be a real "wiki of leaks". it was quite glorious, a real goldmine for journalists to work through

ethbr0 3y ago

Imho, if WikiLeaks had focused on being the Craigslist of information, without attempting to market themselves, they would have gotten a lot more public support. You can't transparently publish information and have an opinion.

psychlops 3y ago
Why not? Why is public support necessary for transparently publishing information?
- thunfischbrot 3y ago
  Wasn't that the whole idea behind Wikileaks? To not only be a platform to upload and publish random documents, and instead to provide context and work with writers to make it understandable for a wider audience? That's how I understood it at the time, that Assange was unhappy with the limited audience existing platforms were reaching. /e: I see my reply was less targeted towards your comment but the one above.
jancsika 3y ago
> Imho, if WikiLeaks had focused on being the Craigslist of information, without attempting to market themselves, they would have gotten a lot more public support. Turns out history has gifted you with a test case. :) What you are describing was literally the early version of Wikileaks[1]! The ostensible problem was that it generated little to no public awareness[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Submissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Submissions

mardifoufs 3y ago

What's the revisionism? The collateral murder video was actually especially popular and impactful to the demographic (democrat young white liberal) that is now almost comically against Assange. Also, there's literally no difference in the way they did "narrative building" with Collateral Murder than , say, the NYT does in covering war crimes in Ukraine. I mean to be honest it's a bit hard to understand why you would even highlight the narrative building by the exposing party, when the actual events involved a cover up of war crimes from the Pentagon and an insane amount of damage control and PR. It just doesn't register for me, it's like saying you lost confidence in the NYT for covering war crimes in a way that highlighted that war crimes are actually... bad.

phphphphp 3y ago
I disagree with your characterisation, there was a lot of criticism of Collateral Murder from young white liberals! Assange and wikileaks, at the time, were presented as apolitical truth-seekers, not as journalists. Journalism is very different from what Wikileaks claimed to be, and Collateral Murder was not presented as a piece of journalism, it was presented as a leak. You cannot conceivably compare what Wikileaks claimed to be at the time, to what the New York Times claimed to be at the time. Go back in time to when Assange was first accused of sexual misconduct and you’ll find that a lot of people disliked him: it’s revisionist to claim that he was perceived a noble hero by the left until he was accused of sexual misconduct or until he started his crusade against Hilary Clinton (as if any young white liberal liked Hilary Clinton…)
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  To me, there is no real difference. Or at least not enough to warrant any criticism of wikileaks (w.r.t how they handled Collateral Murder, not in general of course). Whatever they did was much more effective than american journalists were doing at the time. It was less so to push a narrative than to expose an event that would've been swept under the rug, just like many many other "oopsies" the americans ignored at the time. As to liberals being pro-hillary, I don't disagree that it wasn't true in 2008. But those liberals almost certainly grew to avidly support her in 2016. I guess I'm biaised since I have been exposed to the "other side" of the iraq war and the war on terror, as a practicing muslim in a pretty political family. But to me it still amounts to complaining or criticizing from a position of pure privilege (I'm referring to the criticism at the time of the video's publication, not your comments!), as Americans basically found it "yucky" to be exposed to the results of their own imperialist policies. In that context, I think WL would've been criticized no matter what because the actual issue wasn't that they were pushing a narrative, but more so that they were making some Americans uncomfortable.

kerkeslager 3y ago

The truth is a narrative. Not all narratives are true, but calling something a narrative doesn't in any way disprove it. Would you like to actually call out anything in Collateral Murder that you think wasn't exposing the truth? I'm old enough to remember Collateral Murder. I'm old enough to remember it's video footage. Of members of the US military murdering people, and laughing about it. You can't dismiss that as "just a narrative", it's also the truth, and it's a fucked up truth that the public deserves to know about.

vuln 3y ago
That's the play, attack the person or how it was release but never acknowledge the contents of the release.
- fmajid 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO
phphphphp 3y ago
I make no claim that collateral murder did not represent a war crime, I make no claim that the release of collateral murder was a bad thing, rather, I am claiming that Julian Assange was never a noble person releasing leaked footage to expose the truth, he was a political performer, creating the narrative that he wanted to create, using leaks as props. Julian Assange had no loyalty to the truth (as has been shown in the years since) and cares only for the “truth” when it’s favourable to whatever agenda he has at the point in time. You can be glad that collateral murder was released while also being deeply unhappy with Julian Assange’s motives and actions.
- thefounder 3y ago
  Ok, let's open some new positions for totally noble poeple to expose the truth. Anything less than noble should be put in prison regardless of the truth exposed. Any takers? Meanwhile let's see what b.s mainstream media is pushing. They are not less than noble and deserve the whole attention.

this_user 3y ago

The failure of WL is that rather than focus on doing journalistic work, it became the Julian Assange show with Julian Assange about Julian Assange. And then it becomes much more questionable that WL was only publishing information that might harm the Clinton's campaign while he was simultaneously in talks with her opponent's campaign about obtaining a pardon from Trump. When you start operating like that, you lose any and all credibility and protection you might have some sort of journalistic organisation. At best, WL can be described as activists, at worst as useful idiots.

93po 3y ago
> The failure of WL is that rather than focus on doing journalistic work, it became the Julian Assange show with Julian Assange about Julian Assange. This not a failure of WL, this is the American establishment and elites who were doing everything possible to smear Assange, even to the point of nothing-burger stories about how he was a bad house guest and didn't clean his cat's liter box enough. They were really grasping at straws.

yucky 3y ago

How could they be partisan when "both sides" have accused them repeatedly of being against them? Case in point, Collateral Murder was celebrated by Democrats and then when they leaked the Hillary emails now all of a sudden Democrats thought Wikileaks was evil. The information was true, the only thing that changed is they didn't like the what it showed. That's not Wikileaks fault, maybe we should hold those in power accountable regardless of how we feel about their stances on other issues.

kornhole 3y ago

His publications were inconvenient for one party, and then they were inconvenient for the other. He exposed all parties which helped us all become a little more independently minded, but the partisans were in power and exacted revenge.

93po 3y ago

The history of online-left public opinion on WL is proof that your argument is not true. > Suggesting that people started thinking negatively about wikileaks once it came for “their side” is painfully revisionist This is 100% true, though. Trying to say it isn't without any substance doesn't really help your case at all.

DANmode 3y ago

> From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project Which party were the Collateral Murder footages meant to benefit? (Is "partisan" the right word here?)