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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Assange is a flawed personality. That said, over the years there was a transformation. People defended him despite his issues when his whistleblower endeavors aligned. Once they no longer aligned, many many of his supporters turned around and called out his peccadilloes and transgressions.

People still defend Snowden but if he ever releases information seen as politically damaging to one side, all that adulation is out the window.

That’s to say all this support isn’t actually principled support but rather political.

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On the flip side over the years Assange has very much moved from a proponent of openness and protection for leakers to being a political campaigner. His choice to deliberately release material during the US election campaign in a way that was designed to politically damage the candidate he opposed goes way beyond the mission statement of wikileaks and also brings into question whether wikileaks is operating independent of Russian influence.

The fact that material existed in the first place is solely the fault of the candidate.

Firstly, there is not one campaign that's existed since 2000 that won't have had atleast a few campaign staffers with embarrassing emails. Secondly, the issue isn't only about the clear co-ordination with a hostile foreign state, it's that rather than abiding by Assange's own claimed values, he kept the data private and then leaked it over a political campaign to try and cause political damage. That's nothing to do with data being free, that's a political campaign by a foreign power.

My point is that he had something to leak in the first place. Blaming Assange is shooting the messenger. Also, we don't know for sure a foreign power was involved - that partisan conjecture.

Although somewhat tangential the conspiracy charges prove his suspicion they were trying to get him extradited (contrary the coy responses from the admin). Given that as well as the half joking “drone him” joke, it’s not hard to imagine why he might have a bias.

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