Not sure if that was always astroturfing. I certainly feel ambivalent about Julian Assange and he arguably cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election, which obviously upset a lot of people.
And supporting the prosecution because of this is also quite an apt reason to not vote for her in the first place. And I think that was made clear before the election.
At first they said the most damning thing in there was recipes.
Then they said it cost them the election.
But they refused to say which leaks were responsible.
Then they claimed the swing voters they lost believed in pizzagate as if it were a mainstream conspiracy theory believed by many and that all the swing voters were therefore complete idiots.
Also if you're going to blame a conspiracy theory that was conjured out of thin air the leaks really didnt actually matter. An equally stupid pretext could have been invented, so why say they cost you the election?
So, according to them the leaks both cost them the election and didnt matter in the slightest.
If you think about all this for just a second it logically doesnt make any goddamn sense but people still parrot it. Those same people will instinctively hit that downvote button.
I read your message waiting, line after line, for the dumb statement that got you downvoted. How do people still claim that there's no politically motivated mass-flagging going on on HN?
Don't even have to go very deep. Just look at these tweets [0] for example. Why is some "non-profit" organization started by an Australian trying to influence an American election?
[0] https://www.vox.com/2016/9/15/12929262/wikileaks-hillary-cli...
I have not seen any evidence of Russian interference, but they probably tried. I don't think they got any talking points across to be honest.
This non profit had proof of war crimes and maybe that influenced their disposition? Understandable in my opinion.
In general I am suspect of anyone pointing fingers at others to build a profile. Trump could do that and some people understood that it was holding up a mirror. That is no Trump endorsement and the Russian story an excuse. I believe internal leaks are much more likely.
I'm assuming you mean wikileaks?
> contrast to many media outlets
American media outlets, they're not not foreign nation trying to influence another country's elections. Assange isn't American.
> I have not seen any evidence of Russian interference
So just because you haven't seen it, they don't exist? There's ample proof [0]. 13 people and 3 russian entities were charged.
In the end, Assange is just a scapegoat. Although, he wouldn't be the first or the last. When WikiLeaks was being used to disclose information about other countries, US citizens and even the Government saw them as a positive force in the world. But, once the info focused on US affairs, especially around a Presidential election, Assange was public enemy number one (tied with Snowden).
[Citation needed]
"How do we prevent Bush from bettering himself/how do we maximize Trump and others?" [1]
"We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously." [2]
[0] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clin...
[1] https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/10348
[2] (PDF) https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails//fileid/1120/251
Is it a crime to subvert democracy? Apparently not when it’s your side doing it.
There were claims that Assange sat on Trumps mails, but genuinely I don’t think that’s the case and if it was then people likely would still vote for him as he is openly horrible: the emails proved Hilary was calculated.
Honestly if your biggest gripe with Assange is that he caused your person to lose then you have to ask yourself: did you just not want to know that your candidate was trying to subvert democracy?
The Sanders stuff was enough to put me off the DNC (actively hampering his chances of being a presidential candidate by removing him from ballots for instance), but learning that Hillary was the one with media contacts and pushing Cruz and Trump to be president is the ultimate backfire.
Should this man go to prison, for life, because your person didn’t get 4 years in office? Because of things she herself said?
Both parties do this. Pointing it out isn't whataboutism. Pointing it out is showing that Assange is the one who made political moves. He targeted specific politicians to leak negative information at opportune times. He didn't do this out of a sense of bringing the truth to light, he did this to further a political agenda. Where are his leaks on the republican party?
Did you provide him with some leaks? As he can't publish what he doesn't have. Though there is some evidence that the same group that leaked the DNC emails had access to RNC data, there is no evidence that shows Assange had any knowledge of or access to RNC data.