Much more interesting: https://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange-Schmidt.htm...

There is another HN thread discussing this. I would not take Assuage at face value, and Newsweek is not a particularly good source either.

I wouldn't take anything at face value - no need to call out Assange. Read everthing you can and consider all arguments for their individual merits. If the article isn't making you Google things, The Hacker News thread has quite a bit of discussion as a starting point as well as good links.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8500970

Could the downvoter explain why this didn't contribute to the conversation? I suggested taking an even handed approach, and to consider arguments based on their own merit. I also included a link to discussion with further related content. Why is a downvote warranted?

Participating for a year, there are certain tribes in HN who will down-vote moment it does not conform to their world-view. For example, anything against Google will get down-votes except from a very few people; while generally criticizing Microsoft and Quora will get you upvotes. MS does have some strong defenders, though - which Quora does not (except me). Also, anything which shows that libertarian or conservative economic principles are not working will be either knocked off from the front page, or occasionally flag-killed. HN is dominated by a set of people who have only one world-view which they think is right, and you better not speak against them for the purpose of maintaining "quality" (#sarcasm).

More examples is that anything exposing problems with sexism in the tech industry seems to get flag killed around here.

The downvote/flag system is broken as it is on HN unfortunately, and used as a bludgeon to squelch voices.

So basically, you're saying that the very vocal minority of Google worshipers have the mental capacity of inbred cattle? That's news to me.