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"What is special about WikiLeaks is that it's not just another damn story, it's not just another damn journalist putting their damn byline, advertising themselves and their position on another damn story."
That's the assessment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who appeared in Sydney over the weekend (albeit via video link) for a wide-ranging discussion on the failings of modern media, the power of leaked information and why WikiLeaks is happy to court scandal.
WikiLeaks, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in October last year, has never been one to shrink from its stated goal of uncovering "government and corporate misconduct." However, the organisation has come under fire in recent months for the way it releases information, particularly around the timing of its leaks in the lead up to the 2016 election.
But speaking to the audience in Sydney -- including supporters who were willing to yell their support during the live cross -- Assange defended WikiLeaks as "a wonderful library you can trust" and a source of "original pristine information."
"You're not reading pre-weaponised knowledge," he said of the organisations' millions of documents. "When you read a newspaper article, you are reading weaponised text that is designed to affect a person just like you.
"I think that is the real beauty of WikiLeaks... it is that sea of information, that treasure, that intellectual treasure, that rebel library of Alexandria you can go into."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @04:27AM
> it's not just another damn journalist putting their damn byline, advertising themselves and their position on another damn story.
Being cooped up all that time in the embassy seems to have warped his self-image.
Seems like every release from wikileaks in recent memory has been carefully hyped to advertise themselves over the actual contents of the release.
Of course a narcissist could never see that they are what they accuse others of being.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @08:26AM
oh look, the obligatory "assange is just an attention whore" post. if you can't attack the message, attack the messenger.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 22 2017, @07:17PM
"You're not reading pre-weaponised knowledge,"
Also, if the NSA, CIA & FBI are correct most of the DNC leaks were the result of Russian cyberattacks with intent to affect the election. That's pretty much the definition of pre-weaponised knowledge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @01:24AM
The claim is not that the obtaining or release of the information has no political angle - clearly that's untrue - but rather that the information itself is released as-is, not an interpretation or summary but the raw text after ethical redactions. They have not been perfect on any portion of this, of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @10:07PM
I can't deny your point, but wikileaks does release leaked documents instead of a story about leaked documents. Undoubtedly they have an agenda, but I still appreciate their existence. Without wikileaks there is a lot of info we would still be speculating about.
Sounds like some people are just bent out of shape about what wikileaks does, no big surprise there, boot lickers take personal offense when their owners lose face.