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Comment by beggi | Hacker News Reader

The headline is a little misleading. DataCell, Wikileaks hosting provider, actually won a case against the local company Valitor, VISA's issuer and processor in Iceland. Also in case you're wondering as I was, Wikileaks was not awarded compensatory damages but Valitor must reopen their payment gateway within 2 weeks (although they can still appeal to a higher court).

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The source of the submitted article, rt.com, is not known for careful journalism. I'll check what other sources say about the full implications of the case.

After edit: Now I've had time to check some other news sources.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/lawyer-wikileaks-wins...

"The implications of the judgment, which Valitor plans to appeal, weren’t immediately clear.

"Even if Valitor is eventually forced to comply with the judgment, it isn’t clear whether Visa or MasterCard would allow their customers to make donations to DataCell or WikiLeaks. Both companies have refused to deal with WikiLeaks for the better part of two years, leading to allegations that they had bowed to U.S. pressure to starve the organization of funds."

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/wikileaks-visa-bloc...

"The Associated Press reports that Valitor can appeal the decision, but even if it chooses to comply with the judgment, it’s not clear that Visa or MasterCard will still allow customers to make donations to DataCell or WikiLeaks."

> The source of the submitted article, rt.com, is not known for careful journalism.

Understatement of the year.

Remember, that's "R" as in "Russia", which really isn't a region renowned for reliable reporting.

As opposed to the United States of Murdoch (?!)

Yes. Because Fox News exists, US journalism is totally no more reputable than Russian journalism.

Without even mentioning Fox News or any Murdoch/Newscorp-owned properties, one could still make a strong case for a sorry state of journalism in the United States.

I'm sure you're right, and that Washington reporters live in a constant state of fear that if they delve too deeply into Obama or Romney's affairs, someone will shoot them to death on a train platform.

land of the free (ish)

Death threats aren't the only thing a government can do to reduce the reliability of the press. Whistle blower prosecutions, contempt of court charges for journalists protecting sources, NYT shelving articles until after elections, the tiptoeing the white house press corps does as to not lose access, etc. All of these indicate reduced reputation of the press in the USA.

The US of Murdoch comment was a brash characterization, but how does rehashing the state of Russian press address the idea that US news sources lack reliability? All news sources should be treated with skepticism, Russian or not.

You've made a fine case for the US media being deeply imperfect, but I'm not sure I see which comment on this thread that point is responsive to.

My father once said "The difference between American and Russian propaganda is that Russians know that Pravda is propaganda."

The problem with American media is certainly not limited to Fox.

That and the Russian propaganda machine might at any moment decide to have you killed.

How convincing do you think these epigrams actually are? The reality is that the US media market provides a vastly more credible stream of current events information than Russia's ever has. Does that make the US media credible? It's hard to say. Russia is a very, very low bar to clear.

The best lies incorporate as much truth as possible. I believe you're suggesting the same thing I am -- that the US propaganda machine is much more subtle, and therefore more credible.

A false narrative is a false narrative, regardless of how skillfully it is intertwined with truth.

I think he's suggesting that terms like the "US propaganda machine" are, to use a technical term, "bullshit", in the sense that there are a great deal of competing interests and players in the news market in the US, as well as various competing interests in politics. Talking about a machine makes it sound like you're talking about one centrally controlled system that in reality does not exist.

That's not to say there aren't problems with the news industry in the US and elsewhere, but it's not some giant conspiracy either.

There's no need for a conspiracy or for central organization when incentives align. In this case, the incentives to manipulate are often financial or political. You have misunderstood my meaning of "machine" -- not all social systems involve a central authority.

I hope you can agree that American media can be influenced, for profit, by monied interests. If you agree, then you acknowledge the system I have described above.

You're implying a false equivalence.

But there are many different monied interests! Sometimes they conflict with one another. Sometimes they conflict with popular interests. For instance, Fox News certainly isn't on the same page as Obama, or the Clintons, and yet they are pretty powerful in their own ways. It hardly sounds like a machine, but a competitive environment. Certainly not a perfect one, but not nearly so sinister as a label like "the US propaganda machine".

Nowhere did I suggest the message was cohesive. It is very much an arena of competing propaganda. The mention of a unified conspiratorial message was a strawman introduced by tptacek, not I.

As for your complaint about the sinister tone, I think offering deference to those with money rather than those with truth is quite sinister. I think it's sad you disagree.

I'm curious, where and how do you watch the Russian media to say that?

Why does everything have to be a competition? Just because somebody calls out Russian journalism doesn't mean that they are implicitly praising American journalism.

Didn't the Court say that Visa stopped like $20 million worth of donations to Wikileaks? What would be the reason for not giving them any compensation?

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