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Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

This isn't a trial, it's an extradition hearing. It's not newsworthy primarily because nothing particularly surprising or interesting has happened or is likely to happen. We know what Assange is charged with and, to some extent, the nature of the evidence against him. All that remains is to wait for the decision. The trial, if there is one, is likely to get more coverage.

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I guess the International Bar Association calling the hearing a "serious undermining of due process and the rule of law" and having Amnesty International denied access to monitor it isn't all that surprising or newsworthy.

Indeed it isn't, as there is a long history of such absurd hystronics in commentary on the Assange case. The thing about "monitoring" is particularly stupid. It's a public hearing and any organization can "monitor" it all they like. What AI can't do is appoint itself to a position above the British justice system.

I agree with you that a lot of the commmentary around Assange is stupid, but I wanted to point out that...

> It's a public hearing and any organization can "monitor" it all they like.

...because of covid the normally public courts are allowing far fewer people in to view the hearings, and the online substitute is difficult to access. As I understand it AI applied to be allowed to view the court session remotely, and were denied permission, and the reasons for that denial are unclear.

The Transparency Project talks about difficulties reporters and bloggers face accessing the English family courts, and some of these are similar problems.

www.transparencyproject.org.uk/

That's a fair point, but I'd say two things in response. First, what you're saying just goes to show that any issues there have been are unlikely to be the result of anti-Assange conspiracies. Second, journalists from a variety of news sources - some of them sympathetic to Assange - have been able to view the hearing. It's not as if some major shenanigans could be pulled without anyone knowing. Nor do I think that the British justice system is so corrupt that it needs to be "monitored", like elections in a banana republic.

By the way, AI's website claims that they will be remotely monitoring the hearings (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/uk-assange-ex...). Are you sure they can't see them?

Edit: I found the following on Twitter. The explanation given makes sense to me. https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/130328878171446886... (Twitter sucks. Scroll down in that thread to see the screenshot of the explanation.) See also this HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24491776

Before people engage with this gent I would point them to his recent conversations here. Many people, at length, have tried to engage and explain to him the import of these proceedings in good faith.

He was provided reputable links many times, which he deemed "conspiracy theories", refusing to engage in the facts within.

A significant portion of his recent history, in fact, is people begging him to read the facts; his replies come in the form "you Assange conspiracists ..."

I don't want to break HN rules on calling people out, but the above are straight facts that people really ought to be aware of before trying with this guy again.

It astounds me that people are putting Chomsky, Hersh, Pilger, Ellsberg, etc, who have all made dire warnings about this extraordinary case, in the box of "Assange conspiracists" - and getting away with it.

You're mischaracterizing my recent post history and attacking me personally rather than what I'm saying. I'm not a mod, but yes, I'd say that is against the guidelines.

I've given the users attacking you a thorough scolding for breaking the site guidelines, but you've also been breaking the site guidelines by using this site for flamewar, by posting excessively on this issue and dropping swipes like "you Assange conspiracists" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24408007). It's not surprising that you provoked this sort of reaction from others on the opposite side of the issue from you. That's not cool, and if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to using this site as intended, we'd appreciate it.

To use HN as intended means primarily posting thoughtful, substantive comments on topics of intellectual curiosity. Internet polemics are tedious and nasty, and that gets truer as the topic gets hotter and more sensational. Assange threads, for example, already years ago became repetitive to the point of utter pointlessness. Nobody's convincing anybody—people are just beating each other with the same talking points over and over. If that's the game you want to play on the internet, please do it somewhere else.

There's some justice in what you say, and I'll do as you request. But you engage in victim blaming when you suggest that anything I've posted could reasonably have generated the 'reaction' of being accused of being a paid shill of some kind. Especially when, as you point out, this allegation is obviously false. A swipe, ill-judged as it may be, is not in the same league as a near-libellous and utterly false accusation. In this case, the person who 'reacted' isn't even the person at whom the swipe was directed, but someone who decided to trawl through my post history to dig up dirt (as they saw it).

I didn't suggest that. On the contrary—that's why I scolded the others for doing it.

That's how I interpreted "It's not surprising that you provoked...That's not cool". Thanks for clarifying.

Almost leans some credence to the theory that disinformation agents lurk and astroturf here actively.

Absolutely. The way the same comments are rapid-fire added to these threads every time is deeply suspicious and a great cause for concern.

This should be one of the top comments, it’s not reasonable to disagree with this worry given the commenter behavior on this thread and all the previous iterations.

Same offer to you. Call me and lets talk about it, if you really think I am an agent of some kind. I find it worrying that trust is breaking down to this extent. Even if we disagree strongly, perhaps I can at least persuade you that my opinions are my own.

You also can't break the site guidelines like this, so please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop.

All you need to do is look at the public 11-year history of the account you're complaining about to get an idea of how ridiculous this is. The bar for serious comments here is incredibly low—but it needs to be higher than that. I'm sure you can do much better if you want to, and if you don't want to, please find another forum that's better aligned with what you do want.

All of this holds even if foldr is completely wrong. I'm not making any claim about their views—I don't even know what their views are, nor care. The moderation issue here is that on this site, people can't issue the garden-variety internet insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, spying, etc., that the internet loves to generate ad nauseum. As the guidelines say, if you have evidence you should send it to hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. In this case you could simply have done the "investigation" yourself.

There's reams of previous explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme..., for anyone who wants to understand why we have this rule. The short version: because insinuations of astroturfing are poison to community, and because they nearly always collapse under inspection, usually trivially, as in this case.

I very sincerely and respectfully disagree. foldr’s comments here are very out of line. They are seeded comments copy/pasting the same smearing of Craig Murray’s alleged bias on every post about the Assange hearing.

It’s unconscionable to me that you would think the guidelines rule out my comment but wouldn’t find deep, inarguable cause for more concern over foldr’s comments.

I cannot see any way the account age or comment history bears relevance. Being a commonly-seen community member for years, then suddenly deciding to spam smear comments about Craig Murray’s alleged bias on posts about the Assange hearing still is quite flagrant.

There are two separate issues:

1. Posting repetitively on flamewar topics is against the site guidelines.

2, Accusing other users of astroturfing is against the site guidelines.

foldr did #1. You did #2. You both broke the site guidelines so I replied to both of you.

Brief factual note: none of my recent comments mentions Craig Murray or says that he has a bias. Some other posters did this. I've been posting about Assange for many years, but this will be my last word on him as I am no longer allowed to go there.

I wish you'd just talk to me if you really think there is something sinister behind my posts, as you seem like a sincere person. It's actually quite hurtful to be accused of such things, regardless of how annoying or wrong I might be. Contact details temporarily on my profile.

I was wondering how long it would be before someone would accuse me of being a disinformation agent.

You seem to have a real HN account. I tell you what, why don't you phone me and we can talk about this like adults? I'm actually fascinated to talk to someone who thinks that I'm not just some random guy on the internet posting my opinion.

And if we're still on the subject of the guidelines, making baseless accusations of this nature is certainly in violation of them.

To downvoters: if you're really concerned about shills or astroturfing, why don't you take me up on my offer? I mean, what are you actually objecting to here? Is it not ok for me to refute allegations that I'm a shill?

You can't attack another user like this on HN, regardless of how wrong they are or how strongly you disagree with their views. It's pure poison to community, we ban accounts that do this, and the site guidelines make it clear that it's not ok. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.

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