So why are the media ignoring it? I assume it’s because Wikileaks’ mission came under question because their leaks benefited the wrong side.
Assange was a hero up until right about then. Then he was a criminal.
Assange was a hero up until right about then. Then he was a criminal.
A better question is: why is the media telling you that the media is ignoring it?
In addition to this link, Google news is showing me[0] these headlines:
• “My ringside view in the case of Julian Assange” - Evening Standard, 1 day ago
• “George Christensen calls on Australia to lodge formal protest over treatment of Julian Assange” - The Guardian, 1 day ago
• “Julian Assange will spend Christmas in prison as judge will decide on January 4 whether to extradite WikiLeaks found to the US on espionage charges” - Daily Mail, 1 day ago
• “Assange ‘forced’ those behind war crimes ‘to look in the mirror,’ now faces revenge, John Pilger tells RT” - RT, today
• “Julian Assange 'acutely troubled' that unredacted documents made public, court hears” - Press Gazette, 3 days ago
• “Shooting of unarmed civilians in Iraq 'would have remained a secret but for Julian Assange'” - Evening Standard, 3 days ago
• “US intelligence sources discussed poisoning Julian Assange, court told” - The Guardian, 2 days ago
And that’s just the first page of results; subsequent pages show it being covered by The Intercept, The Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, BBC, Bloomberg, CNN, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, Sky News, Deutsche Welle, and a lot more I’ve never heard of.
[0] caveat: I’m in Berlin and explicitly chose UK results, because The Independent is a UK newspaper; choosing USA results gives me a differently list of recent results from a different set of publishers, but the point is the same
The modern day digital equivalent is harder to determine and I am not aware of any service attempting to do so. The news companies have solid analytics on how their websites are used. For each of those articles linked were they on the front page? Did the user have to scroll down to a section where stories are only clicked on by 2% of users? Did the story remain linked on the front page of the website for 1 hour or for 2 days? Is the contents of the link the same as the contents was when it was first published?
It’s entirely possible that the reach of all of those articles you linked above could be measured in the 10’s of people rather than the millions.
Most people don’t search for news on a topic. They visit Fox/CNN or whatever their preferred source is and consume what is presented to them.
They picked sides because the FSB threatened to kill them, so it was a good call for not dying, but it does entirely invalidate their mission.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/01/russias-fsb-to-wikileak...
They aren't, media industry organizations have been hyping this story. And media outlets have been full of hyperventilating editorial and opinion articles on it.
And, weirdly, also pushing the “the media is ignoring it” narrative, which as bizarre self-referential media metanarratives go, is a doozy.
> I assume it’s because Wikileaks’ mission came under question because their leaks benefited the wrong side.
Wikileaks had very little support outside of the far left fringe even before they became overtly part of the Russian influence operation in 2016 so, yeah, when they became a tool of the Russians supporting the American hard right they lost a lot of that; the mainstream media, of any leaning, never really supported them but is, nevertheless, hyping the media freedom angle in the Assange case.
They never had any tangible support among mainstream Democrats, even of the progressive faction, so they had nothing to lose there; the only thing they had to lose—and contrary to your claims they did lose some (but not all, the left fringe isn't a unitary hive mind) was on the left fringe. I suppose you are probably mistaking concern for the content of the early leaks with support for Wikileaks, but those aren't even approximately the same thing.
Assange pissed off the American left when he gave the appearance of supporting Trump. I would guess he pissed off a lot of people outside of America because most liberal leaning people seem to dislike Trump. Those same people are the ones that would normally be outraged by something like this but don't care anymore.
Fascism and totalitarian Communism are the two great utopian death cults of the 20th century. Anyone who supports either of these in any serious and substantial way should absolutely be “cancelled.”
I agree that there has been more attention toward cancelling the fascist side, but that is because they were ascendant. Those who actually believe in freedom generally find themselves opposing the totalitarian left or the totalitarian right depending on which side is presenting a threat at a given time. If the totalitarian left rises again, then the focus will have to change to destroying that.
I’ve heard it put this way: true libertarians sound like conservatives when the far left is rising and like liberals when the far right is rising. That is because we have to fight every utopian totalitarian grift that comes along.
Let me split hairs. I am not convinced that Assange deserves everything he is getting, but it is really hard for me to care. The parent post was about why nobody cares, and I answered it truthfully.
I definitely end up this way talking to friends. My politics are always othered for not parroting their party line, generally whatever nascent groupthink is setting the stage for some future corporate-totalitarian push.
But you've seriously got to apply this insight to your own lead off assertion:
> It was clear to me that he [Assange] was a supporter of the fascist movement that swept across the tech and hacker culture in the early to mid teens, and that he biased his leaks accordingly
Your claim that the right-totalitarian side was ascendant in the "early to mid teens" has more to do with your own perspective, seemingly ignoring the overarching societal tone of left authoritarianism (led by the White House). IMO the rise in red flavored thinking was driven by dissent, and I say this as someone with generally blue biases.
Good luck.
There are a variety of libertarians, and you misunderstand all of them if you think the above is true.