[phphphphp]

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.

[kerkeslager]

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.

[phphphphp]

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.

[vuln]

That's the play, attack the person or how it was release but never acknowledge the contents of the release.

[kornhole]

Wikileaks never published anything untruthful TMK. That is a far better record than almost any other publishing outlet.

[mardifoufs]

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]

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…)

[ethbr0]

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.

[jancsika]

> 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

[psychlops]

Why not? Why is public support necessary for transparently publishing information?

[namdnay]

> 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

[kornhole]

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.

[yucky]

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.

[DANmode]

> From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project

Which party were the Collateral Murder footages meant to benefit? (Is "partisan" the right word here?)

[93po]

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.

[this_user]

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]

> 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.