Signalling that you can get away leaking embarrassing secrets to the outside world, mostly. I'd reckon there'd be a lot more Snowdens, Assanges and Mannings out there if the American government didn't grossly abuse its power to make their lives a living hell.
I'm not sure in what sense do you are using "compromised", it is unclear for me in regards to context.
He is not a US citizen, and he was never a "pro-western-mainstream" or "pro-establishment" type (he was born into a cult with a history of systematic children sex abuse in Australia, one of the leaders was close to the AU government, Assange then became a teenage hacker, etc). He was a contrarian against the West from the start, while being of the West.
Do you use the term in relation to some of Wikileaks goals or mission statements, some hacker ethos, in the sense that he compromised himself in regards to some personal conviction of his ?
You’re unfortunately being downvoted because you are not toeing the HN crowd line that Assange is a hero. But the plain truth is he took a TV deal (bribe) from Russian state media[0] in exchange for suppressing whistleblowers leaking Russian involvement in Syria[1], and doesn’t even bother to deny that he’s been coopted by Putin[2] when confronted. He is very motivated to leak as much damaging information he can on America, but will censor and threaten those who want to bring his radical transparency on Russian oligarchs.
I'm ready and willing to accept that Assange is by no means unbiased, thing is, I don't really care.
I know that Russia has enormous corruption, as a matter of fact I don't even try to understand the degree and inner workings of said corruption and I very much doubt that it being public would really improve anything, that is, sadly, par for the course regarding Russia.
I care that when confronted with some ugly truths, a good deal of the American public immediately sided with authoritarianism because it was inconvenient for them to do otherwise, going all the way to conspiracy theories (pee tape, Russian prostitutes etc) and deep into propaganda, It's not "blackmail", it's now "kompromat", it's not "geopolitics" it's "realpolitik", it's not just "the elite", it's "Russian Oligarchs", there is this effort of antagonization, of alienation that both disgusts and scares me, and I think that's a way bigger problem than anything related Assange himself.
So your opinion is it’s sometimes necessary to suppress much uglier truths in order to expose much lesser ones?
If we’re being honest though, we’d frankly acknowledge that we’re not talking about Russian corruption. In this specific case we’re talking about supporting chemical weapon attacks against civilians, but we could also talk about the brutal war crimes in Chechnya.
Assange sees himself as at war with America and accepts Putin as his necessary patron to continue it. I just find it weird that other Americans (typically on the fringe left and right) try to tell me I need to view America as my enemy and Putin as my friend, and agree that we need to help censor truths about his rule in order to further his cause.
Personally, I’m disgusted by people who see a dictator who regularly murders his opponents, bombs his own cities, supports chemical weapon attacks against civilians, and think “he’s on my side”, then try to defend censoring the truths of his actions under the guise of “well we hate the same people”.
