WikiLeaks tells reporters 140 things not to say about Julian Assange

[webfact]

WikiLeaks tells reporters 140 things not to say about Julian Assange

 

FILE PHOTO: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Britain, May 19, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls

 

LONDON (Reuters) - WikiLeaks on Sunday advised journalists not to report 140 different "false and defamatory" statements about its founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since June 2012.

 

It was not immediately clear what prompted the advice to media organisations, but WikiLeaks singled out Britain's Guardian newspaper for publishing what it said was a false report about Assange. The Guardian did not immediately respond late on Sunday to a Reuters request for comment.

 

The Australian set up WikiLeaks as a channel for publishing confidential information from anonymous sources. He is a hero to some for exposing what supporters cast as government abuse of power and for championing free speech, but to others he is a rebel who has undermined the security of the United States.

 

WikiLeaks angered Washington by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables that laid bare often highly critical U.S. appraisals of world leaders from Russian President Vladimir Putin to members of the Saudi royal family.

 

"There is a pervasive climate of inaccurate claims about WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, including purposeful fabrications planted in large and otherwise 'reputable' media outlets," Wikileaks said an email sent to media organisations and marked "Confidential legal communication. Not for publication."

 

"Consequently journalists and publishers have a clear responsibility to carefully fact-check from primary sources and to consult the following list to ensure they are not spreading, and have not spread, defamatory falsehoods about WikiLeaks or Julian Assange."

 

WikiLeaks did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

 

The 5,000-word email included 140 statements that WikiLeaks said were false and defamatory, such as the assertion that Assange had ever been an "agent or officer of any intelligence service".

 

WikiLeaks also said it was false and defamatory to suggest that Assange, 47, had ever been employed by the Russian government or that he is, or has ever been, close to the Russian state, the Kremlin or Putin.

 

Other items listed as false and defamatory included more personal claims including that Assange bleaches his hair, that he is a hacker, that he has ever neglected an animal or that he has poor personal hygiene.

 

Assange made international headlines in early 2010 when WikiLeaks published a classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff.

 

Later that year, the group released over 90,000 secret documents detailing the U.S.-led military campaign inAfghanistan, followed by almost 400,000 internal U.S. military reports detailing operations in Iraq.

 

More than 250,000 classified cables from U.S. embassies followed, then almost 3 million dating back to 1973.

 

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-01-07

[Somtamnication]

Starting to dislike this guy. Wikileaks was and maybe still is a viable channel for strange information, but making this all about him is going to backfire. 

[Justgrazing]

Talk about pot calling the kettle black .. 

[JimmyJ]

"Starting to dislike this guy. Wikileaks was and maybe still is a viable channel for strange information, but making this all about him is going to backfire."

 

His virtual imprisonment is obviously all about him.

Did you think it should be about you? or me?

Of course it's about him when it comes to his situation.

 

Wikileaks bravely continues to publish enlightening information that has nothing to do with Assange, as they always have.

[JimmyJ]

5 minutes ago, Justgrazing said:

Talk about pot calling the kettle black .. 

 

Wikileaks' published information has never been shown to be incorrect or inaccurate.

 

Media reports about Assange are demonstrably frequently outright lies.

An internet search will show numerous examples.

 

The Guardian stating that Manafort met with Assange several times in the most heavily surveilled location in the world is a prime example.

No proof, they started walking back their claims within an hour or two, an Ecuadorian official who was at the Embassy stated that Manafort never visited, there is no proof of any kind presented, the article was written by  serial liar Luke Harding.

 

[Chomper Higgot]

2 minutes ago, JimmyJ said:

His virtual imprisonment is obviously all about him.

Did you think it should be about you? or me?

Of course it's about him when it comes to his situation.

 

Wikileaks bravely continues to publish enlightening information that has nothing to do with Assange, as they always have.

His ‘virtual imprisonment’ is not any sort of ‘imprisonment’, he in the Ecuadorean Embassy completely at his own choice and he is free to leave whenever he chooses.

 

But yes, I agree, ‘it is about him’.

 

He’s a toxic narcissist, it’s always about ‘him’.

[Chomper Higgot]

7 minutes ago, JimmyJ said:

 

Wikileaks' published information has never been shown to be incorrect or inaccurate.

 

Media reports about Assange are demonstrably frequently outright lies.

An internet search will show numerous examples.

 

Any statement made by Wikileaks that Assange is ‘in prison’ or ‘imprisoned’ is a lie.

 

An internet search will show numerous examples.

[JimmyJ]

4 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

His ‘virtual imprisonment’ is not any sort of ‘imprisonment’, he in the Ecuadorean Embassy completely at his own choice and he is free to leave whenever he chooses.

 

But yes, I agree, ‘it is about him’.

 

He’s a toxic narcissist, it’s always about ‘him’.

Internet armchair psychologists fail to impress.

 

You are making it about him. The information and its value is what is important.

Since the documents Wikileaks publishes cannot be denied, people turn to irrelevant personal attacks.

 

 

[manarak]

they should send the list to the Institute for Statecraft.

[Chomper Higgot]

2 minutes ago, JimmyJ said:

Internet armchair psychologists fail to impress.

 

You are making it about him. The information and its value is what is important.

Since the documents Wikileaks publishes cannot be denied, people turn to irrelevant personal attacks.

 

 

Deal with the bit that he is in the Ecuadorean Embassy completely of his own free will and can leave whenever he chooses.

 

He is not a prisoner.

 

Well, not yet anyway.

[klauskunkel]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

WikiLeaks tells reporters 140 things not to say about Julian Assange

WikiLeaks, a channel for publishing confidential information from anonymous sources, tells reporters not to publish information about its founder...

You can dish it out, but when you are at the receiving end you cry for mommy?

[JimmyJ]

22 minutes ago, klauskunkel said:

WikiLeaks, a channel for publishing confidential information from anonymous sources, tells reporters not to publish information about its founder...

You can dish it out, but when you are at the receiving end you cry for mommy?

Hardly.

 

They are asking that articles about Assange be as truthful as the information that they publish, which has never been shown to be inaccurate.

 

They are asking for an end to "fake news" about Assange.

 

See post #5 for an example of the sort of outright lies corporate media prints about Assange.

 

Are you in favor of fake news?

[geriatrickid]

Had Mr. Assange angered non western governments and betrayed  someone like Xi or Putin, he would be dead and forgotten now.

One should keep that in mind when criticizing western governments who have sought to uphold the legal principles of privacy and confidentiality. 

 

it is rather odd that those who support Assange have a double standard: They support wikileaks activities but are  upset when someone obtains confidential information about them and shares it on the dark web.

[Silurian]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

WikiLeaks also said it was false and defamatory to suggest that Assange, 47, had ever been employed by the Russian government or that he is, or has ever been, close to the Russian state, the Kremlin or Putin.

 

Wikileaks is an arm of Russian propaganda. Pure and simple as that.

 

Interesting how they never find any dirt on Russia or Putin.

 

The WikiLeaks-Russia connection started way before the 2016 election

 

Mike Pompeo himself called WikiLeaks a “a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia.”

 

[ezzra]

2 hours ago, JimmyJ said:

Internet armchair psychologists fail to impress.

 

You are making it about him. The information and its value is what is important.

Since the documents Wikileaks publishes cannot be denied, people turn to irrelevant personal attacks.

 

 

Someone is a big fan of this guy eh? call it what you like, nobody likes people telling others government/military classified information true or not, it's only confuses people and cause panic and uncertainties...

[JimmyJ]

38 minutes ago, ezzra said:

Someone is a big fan of this guy eh? call it what you like, nobody likes people telling others government/military classified information true or not, it's only confuses people and cause panic and uncertainties...

"nobody likes people telling others government/military classified information true or not, it's only confuses people and cause panic and uncertainties..."

 

Yes, learning the truth about our public servants and the (often illegal and unconstitutional) things they do in the dark is a terrible thing.

Nose to the grindstone, believe what all the corporate media news outlets tell us, it hurts to think and analyze too much, OUCH!!! My head aches...

Sheeple.

 

Incidentally - nothing Wikileaks has released has yet been shown to have caused any harm to individuals. But it has caused great embarrassment to governments in exposing their lies.

 

What if Wikileaks had obtained proof that there were no WMDs in Iraq?

Should they have published? Prevented an invasion, saved a million lives...

No, it's better not to cause "confusion, panic, and uncertainty".

 

[bendejo]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

WikiLeaks on Sunday advised journalists not to report 140 different "false and defamatory" statements about its founder Julian Assange

 

"Here's a list of things you can't say about me."

Takes big, brass ones to come out with something like that.

 

"You cannot say I ran out on paying a taxi fare in Canberra."

"Oh, ok, good to know.  And when was that?"

 

It's like DT telling Mueller "my tax returns are off limits."

Yeah sure, chief.  Anything else?

 

 

[cleopatra2]

4 minutes ago, JimmyJ said:

"nobody likes people telling others government/military classified information true or not, it's only confuses people and cause panic and uncertainties..."

 

Yes, learning the truth about our public servants and the (often illegal and unconstitutional) things they do in the dark is a terrible thing.

Nose to the grindstone, believe what all the corporate media news outlets tell us, it hurts to think and analyze too much, OUCH!!! My head aches...

Sheeple.

 

Incidentally - nothing Wikileaks has released has yet been shown to have caused any harm to individuals. But it has caused great embarrassment to governments in exposing their lies.

 

What if Wikileaks had obtained proof that there were no WMDs in Iraq?

Prevented an invasion, saved a million lives...

No, it's better not to cause "confusion, panic, and uncertainty".

 

How about the information J Assange gave to Israel Shamir , who duly passed onto the dictator of Belarus. 

[JimmyJ]

This is the sort of thing Wikileaks is referring to - outright smear campaigns absolutely devoid of evidence:

 

"Five Weeks After The Guardian’s Viral Blockbuster Assange-Manafort Scoop, No Evidence Has Emerged — Just Stonewalling"

 

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-guardians-viral-blockbuster-assangemanafort-scoop-no-evidence-has-emerged-just-stonewalling/

 

 

[KittenKong]

2 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

His ‘virtual imprisonment’ is not any sort of ‘imprisonment’, he in the Ecuadorean Embassy completely at his own choice and he is free to leave whenever he chooses.

Except in that if he did leave the Embassy he would be arrested (or worse) by agencies of several governments, mostly on trumped-up and invalid charges.

 

Wikileaks exposed many governments and individuals for the complete sh*ts that they really are, and everyone should be grateful for that. Anyone who wants to silence Wikileaks can only have something to hide.

[meinphuket]

Creepy boy and creepy organisation. They mark their email about what not to say about Assange as confidential, yet publish confidential info from others themselves. Sling his a** in gaol in the UK for violating bail conditions when they eventually expel him, followed by.a holiday on the tropical island base of Guantanamo might restore his senses.

[Chomper Higgot]

6 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

Except in that if he did leave the Embassy he would be arrested (or worse) by agencies of several governments, mostly on trumped-up and invalid charges.

 

Wikileaks exposed many governments and individuals for the complete sh*ts that they really are, and everyone should be grateful for that. Anyone who wants to silence Wikileaks can only have something to hide.

Utter hogwash.

 

If he leaves the embassy he’ll be arrested and face due legal process in open courts of law.

 

Every working day, people who have broken the law ‘man-up’ and face the consequences of their actions by turning up at court for their trial/judgement.

 

Time for Assange to do likewise.

 

Jumping bail is about as serious a contempt of court as there is.

 

 

[KittenKong]

4 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Utter hogwash.

 

If he leaves the embassy he’ll be arrested and face due legal process in open courts of law.

Ho ho ho.

The intelligence agencies of several countries would be delighted to silence him (or just punish him) by whatever means necessary. They are not nice people, nor do they obey laws.

[cleopatra2]

25 minutes ago, JimmyJ said:

This is the sort of thing Wikileaks is referring to - outright smear campaigns absolutely devoid of evidence:

 

"Five Weeks After The Guardian’s Viral Blockbuster Assange-Manafort Scoop, No Evidence Has Emerged — Just Stonewalling"

 

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after-the-guardians-viral-blockbuster-assangemanafort-scoop-no-evidence-has-emerged-just-stonewalling/

 

 

How about the fake Wikileak cables that Pakistani Media fabricated against India

[cleopatra2]

2 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

Ho ho ho.

The intelligence agencies of several countries would be delighted to silence him (or just punish him) by whatever means necessary. They are not nice people, nor do they obey laws.

Then that leaves the question why does the Russian state allow Wikileaks to continue

[KittenKong]

1 minute ago, cleopatra2 said:

Then that leaves the question why does the Russian state allow Wikileaks to continue

Presumably because they feel that they are benefiting from other governments' dirty deeds being exposed. I dont see that it would be up to them to stop it anyway.

 

As a general rule I am in favour of secrets being exposed, and I applaud anyone who does so, even if they dont expose all of them. Far too much is hidden from public view these days.

[farcanell]

Apparently the standard seems to be devolving into something closer to saying whatever you want, unless under oath.... a handshake is a thing of the past.

 

if you want to start a website that trash’s others, wether it’s true or not, I’m amazed that counter trashing, wether true or not, surprises.... especially in this new age of cyber bullying as championed by US citizen number one.

[Chomper Higgot]

52 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

Presumably because they feel that they are benefiting from other governments' dirty deeds being exposed. I dont see that it would be up to them to stop it anyway.

 

As a general rule I am in favour of secrets being exposed, and I applaud anyone who does so, even if they dont expose all of them. Far too much is hidden from public view these days.

Lead by example and publish all your own secrets.

[Chomper Higgot]

1 hour ago, KittenKong said:

Ho ho ho.

The intelligence agencies of several countries would be delighted to silence him (or just punish him) by whatever means necessary. They are not nice people, nor do they obey laws.

You’ve gone from run off the mill hogwash to full blown tinfoiled hat conspiracy hogwash.

 

[evadgib]

"Captain Blackadder didn't shoot that lovely plump-breasted pigeon!" ????