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Comment by chvid | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. What is the status of mr. Assange? Has he communicated with anyone in the past 24 hrs. If so what did he say?

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Seems like they're being purposely vague.

Seems like it. Just an hour or so after the "Assange's internet was cut" tweet, they tweeted for donations even though people were asking for updates: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787915227924992000

I think the consensus is that tweet is sent out on a regular schedule.. it just had really unfortunate timing given the events.

No it isn't - they don't automate their donation tweets. They deliberately dropped it after the vague tweet about Assange being cut off.

Yeah, exactly. The guy is in London and can receive visitors. All they need to do is walk into the embassy and hand him a phone to log into twitter with, and we could clear this all up with a straightforward firsthand report.

Instead, we're getting hints. That's called a "stunt", folks.

If this is just a matter of mr. Assange paying for his own 3G connection then indeed this is a stunt.

But why would WikiLeaks sacrifice their reputation like that?

They were literally selling anti-(Bill)-Clinton T-shirts with a penis joke last week. Their reputation is long since trash.

Fundamentally Assange is a partisan hack at this point who's using what stored credibility he has from his activist days to make a play at influencing a foreign election.

That assumes that (i) Wikileaks and Assange in particular has a strong reputation for telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and definitely not prioritising drawing as much attention as possible to possibly damaging material and commentary about Hillary Clinton in the run up to the election over the principle of being whistleblowers whose only agenda was the truth (ii) good evidence of it being a stunt could ever be produced if it was a stunt and (iii) people inclined to generally believe Assange's take on events are particularly likely to cry foul over even pretty good evidence this might be a stunt.

I mean, speaking of reputation damage, hadn't Assange finally managed to bargain an arrangement in which he could face potentially very damaging questioning, but under the auspices of a state actively hostile to the principle of prosecuting him, using their prosecutor, questions prepared in advance and without any prospect of Sweden actually arresting him afterwards? Wasn't that supposed to have been yesterday? Wasn't the announced reason that despite having scheduled the interview exactly the way his legal team and his protectors at the Ecuadorean embassy wanted it, well in advance, his legal team had unfortunately concluded they would be unavailable on that day? Have many people stopped believing that Assange is actually really, really willing to talk to Swedish prosecutors that just keep putting all these unfair obstructions in his way as a result?

Why would a denial or two from Ecuador or even a time-stamped email from Assange at 6pm on Saturday night talking about how much fun he was having on the internet at that moment change anyone's view of Wikileaks?

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