Keep in mind that during the US Presidential Election of 2016 Assange had already spent 3~ years living in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. Add in how the United states wanted him extradited to serve potentially life in prison and was probably using all sorts of surveilance and information gathering methods against him and wikileaks to prevent and mitigate any future leaks.
Now when you’re facing and opponent known for its power to assasinate world leaders and powerful political figures, power to spy, hack and survey even their close allies for years, influence other goverments and politicians through blackmail, extortion and economic means you’re bound to get a bit stressed and go a bit paranoid. When it comes to Russia the oppinions towards them where a lot more favorable in 2010-2022 as most of Europe wanted to keep access to affordable oil and gas. Meanwhile Anti-imperialist sentiment against US was probably at it’s alltime high with the War in Afghanistan and Libya.
Wikileaks was never really a beacon of free speech its always been more of a platform where people can leak information about goverments and other powerful individuals or organizations doing bunch of shady or downright evil stuff behind our back. These often offer rare glimpse behind the scenes allowing us to be little less blind when voting during whather elections comes next.
groet@infosec.pub 4 months ago
While I agree on the facts I want to offer a slightly different (possible) conclusion: a organisation like wikileaks needs resources and supporters. If they are targeted by all the “good guy”-countries and the only one willing to support them is “evil guy” Russia, then they are not in a position to resist. They chose to compromise their integrity instead of just not existing.
If the western world wants a whistleblower/leaks organisation that follows journalistic integrity and ethics, they need to fund it even if it leaks their own internal documents.
stoy@lemmy.zip 4 months ago
Oh, absolutely!
I get why they accepted the money, but they doesn’t seem to have accepted the consequences yet.
And I don’t have an answer as to how to solve the issue.
We need an organization like Wikileaks, but no one will want to fund it, as they don’t want their skeletons out of the closet.
The only way I could see it working would be if someone inherits shitload of money, and funds the organization directly, else there are allways conflicts of interests.
Neato@ttrpg.network 4 months ago
If the only people willing to give you money are fascists, don’t take the fucking money.
gaylord_fartmaster@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I take money from possible fascists because I need it to survive. It’s called having a job.
Neato@ttrpg.network 4 months ago
Choosing to take money and work for Putin is quite a bit different than having a salary from a corporation. Equating the two is apologizing for dictators.