ARM in the mood for shorting - Eva Glass
|
|
|
Only half of INQUIRER readers think Wikileaks is independent
JUST LESS THAN half of The INQUIRER's readership thinks that Wikileaks is an independent whistleblowing outfit with a third seeing the website as an ego trip for its recently jailed founder and public face, Julian Assange.
With over 2,470 votes cast by today, 1,145 voters or 49 per cent think Wikileaks is independent but another 760 believe that it is Assange's ego trip. The remaining 20 per cent see the website as either a victim or a collaborator in spreading government propaganda.
The arrest of Assange pending extradition proceedings to Sweden from the UK would suggest that Wikileaks is not a collaborator with the UK or Swedish governments. So the six per cent of our poll respondents who think Wikileaks is a government controlled disinformation outfit might be wrong.
But Wikileaks might still be a victim of some government's agenda. Why not leak information that seems to relate largely to Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions and Arab governments' preferences for military strikes against it, if that is in your interests, and then cry foul and try to lock up the people to whom you have leaked the information, in order to promote their renegade credibility?
Certainly if Wikileaks is, as 11 per cent of INQUIRER readers think, really an independent truth teller that is playing some intelligence agencies, then Julian Assange has been burned very badly.
But then so also have been government officials sacked because Wikileaks revealed that they were spying for the US. µ
Share this:
Share
At this point it doesn’t smell right. The first rule is, don’t get captured. He’s supposed to know that. He had a Government invitation to stay. So why did he leave Iceland? All the leaks appear more or less US orientated. Where’s my Romanian, Russian and Algierian leaks? The recent Canadian terrorist hot spots Intel was the topper. Dams and pipelines. A two dollar gas station map shows all our gas and oil pipelines, railroad tracks, our dams are tourist sites. Eye of sight for hydro wires. I’m sure they teach that at terrorist school. If that’s the best Wikki has to offer, better watch out for National Geographic. It’s poof stuff. Sweet, puffy, some light substance. Julian as Patsy? Useful idiot? If someone’s got cool stuff to dump and they’re so psychologically motivated why go to all this trouble? Why not just dump it on a dozen newspapers un-moderated comments section? Why does anyone need Wikki? A rogue employee can post the entrance codes to the flying saucer factories on Baffin Island in a South African chat room or even right here on Macleans. I’m less convinced then I was. Distraction and disinformation and blaming the social network for something is part of this. What’s the half inch story on page 73 beside the used car auction advertisements?
Or maybe wikileaks is mostly a loose organisation of old cypherpunks who don't actually know who each other are and don't want to as they work from behind layers and layers of anonymous remailers. Even Assange doesn't know most of them.
Since the ego thing is thought up by US propaganda (and in the US it actually means 'intellectual' which in turn means 'not mouth-breathing idiots') one would have the tendency that people falling for that are of a certain group, a group that is not favorable towards wikileaks.
Unfortunately due to the infamous gullibility across the board in the US that conclusion might indeed be wrong.
Independent whistleblower
49%
Controlled disinformation outfit
6%
Independent whistleblower playing some intelligence agencies
11%
The victim of an elaborate disinformation operation
4%
It's Julian Assange's personal ego trip
30%
The overwhelming majority said either that Wikileaks was independent or that Julian Assange has an enormous ego. The two are not mutually exclusive. That you would report the results of the poll as news at all is mildly offensive.