Slashdot Mirror
Ghostwriter Reveals the Secret Life of WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange
An anonymous reader writes "From the Telegraph, 'He is vain, secretive, paranoid and jealous, prone to leering at young women and making frequent sexist jokes – and that's not the view of one of his many enemies, but of a friend ... A damning picture of Julian Assange ... has emerged in a detailed account by his ghostwriter. Assange behaves ... like an egotistical tyrant interested more in his own self-publicity than in changing the world. Worse still, he turns on his friends with increasing regularity ... Assange describes the Ecuadorean ambassador offering him diplomatic asylum as 'mad', 'fat' and 'ludicrous'. Even Assange's girlfriend, WikiLeaks researcher Sarah Harrison, grew increasingly frustrated at his behaviour. 'He openly chats girls up and has his hands on their a**e and goes nuts if I even talk to another guy,' she says. O'Hagan, who had hoped to find an anti-authoritarian rebel figure worthy of admiration, says he comes to regard Assange as someone who sacrificed the moral high-ground by attempting to evade trial over the rape charges.' — The Scotsman adds, 'Canongate director Jamie Byng yesterday hailed O'Hagan's account of the "impossibility of trying to ghost Assange's memoirs". He tweeted: "Andy O'Hagan's compelling, ring side account of Being (& being around) Julian Assange is smart, accurate and fair."'"
Sounds like much we already knew or suspected. I'm more interested in why some people keep trying to show us what an awful character Assange is, instead of focussing on what he has done. Love him and Wikileaks or hate them; the latter seems a lot more relevant.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
If you can't win: Ad Hominem.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Could describe any number of people who are/were successful in public but had feet of clay. Rev. Martin Luther King, Pres. Bill Clinton - the list goes on and on (admittedly King wasn't necessarily paranoid, they really were out to get him).
can I have 'smear campaign' for 100, please, alex?
we can see thru this character assasination easily enough; but the fact is, if you keep repeating lies enough, people will believe them.
regardless, what the man has done is what matters. personality does not enter into it, not one bit.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Sorry to post A/C, but there's too much hate for contrarian opinions on Slashdot.
I love how the pro-Assange crowd is already dismissing this. I'm sorry, but it does matter. The "why" someone does something is just as important as the "what". Assange takes a lot of credit for Wikileaks, but the truth is there are a lot of people involved in Wikileaks who are more valuable to the organization whereas Assange's narcissim and poor ethical decisions have not only made him an easy target but have also damaged the brand itself. With what they're trying to do, maintaining the ethical and moral high ground is paramount as the only thing they have to go on for their work to make a difference is their reputation; once that's damaged then the public at large will not trust them and nothing will ever really change. If you truly believe in what you're doing, then you don't put yourself into compromising situations with women etc.
My reading is that O'Hagan was brought in by the publishing company to try to take the book in the direction they wanted, not the direction Assnage wanted. Once this backfired, he explicitly compromised his strong desire to have no public connection to the text by becoming a mouthpiece against Assange in the world of news and current affairs programs. The length of time (years) since the incident has no bearing on the professional ethical implications of violating the privacy of a primary source, even if that source is committed to the idea of violating institutional opacity, and even if that privacy is assured only by convention, and not by a specific NDA.
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
Oh and by coincidence she only decided to put the accusation up AFTER she learned he slept with someone else. Go figure.
You mean that like many rape victims she was hesitant to complain to the police, but after finding that her attacker had a history of such assaults she found the courage? Hmmm.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The woman who had the sex with him dropped out the accusation man. She voluntarily let him in her bedroom and had voluntary sex with him before. She just wasn't 'in the mood' one of the times he did sex with her. That is a crime in Sweden? Good thing I don't live there.
Yeah, it's entirely possible for someone to consent to sex one night and then not consent to sex the next morning. See, people have the right to say no, whether it's because they're not "in the mood", because they're sleepy, because they're sick, or any other reason. And forcing yourself on someone who has said no is rape, even if you've previously had consensual sex with them in other circumstances. And that's not only a crime in Sweden, but in most other countries.