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On October 4, 2006 WikiLeaks was launched, created by internet activist Julian Assange. From the article:
The group has released a number of prominent document dumps. Early releases included documentation of equipment expenditures and holdings in the Afghanistan war and a report informing a corruption investigation in Kenya.[11] In April 2010, WikiLeaks released the so-called Collateral Murder footage from the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike in which Iraqi journalists were among those killed. Other releases in 2010 included the Afghan War Diary and the "Iraq War Logs". The latter allowed the mapping of 109,032 deaths in "significant" attacks by insurgents in Iraq that had been reported to Multi-National Force – Iraq, including about 15,000 that had not been previously published.[12][13] In 2010, WikiLeaks also released the US State Department diplomatic "cables", classified cables that had been sent to the US State Department. In April 2011, WikiLeaks began publishing 779 secret files relating to prisoners detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[14]
During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, WikiLeaks released emails and other documents from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta.[15] These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been attributed as a potential contributing factor to her loss.[16] The U.S. intelligence community expressed "high confidence" that the leaked emails had been hacked by Russia and supplied to WikiLeaks, while WikiLeaks denied their source was Russia or any other state.[17] During the campaign, WikiLeaks promoted conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.[18][19][20] In private conversations from November 2015 that were later leaked, Julian Assange expressed a preference for a GOP victory in the 2016 election, explaining that "Dems+Media+liberals woudl [sic] then form a block to reign [sic] in their worst qualities. With Hillary in charge, GOP will be pushing for her worst qualities, dems+media+neoliberals will be mute."[21] In secret correspondence with the Trump campaign on election day (November 8, 2016), WikiLeaks encouraged the Trump campaign to contest the election results in case they lost.[22]
WikiLeaks has drawn criticism for its absence of whistleblowing on or criticism of Russia, and for criticising the Panama Papers' exposé of businesses and individuals with offshore bank accounts.[23][24] WikiLeaks has also been criticised for inadequately curating its content and violating the personal privacy of individuals. WikiLeaks has, for instance, revealed Social Security numbers, medical information, credit card numbers, details of suicide attempts, and other sensitive personal information.[25][26][27][28]
History
Staff, name and founding
Julian Assange was one of the early members of the WikiLeaks staff and is credited as the website's founder.
The wikileaks.org domain name was registered on 4 October 2006.[4] The website was established and published its first document in December 2006.[29][30] WikiLeaks is usually represented in public by Julian Assange, who has been described as "the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organiser, financier, and all the rest".[31][32] Sarah Harrison, Kristinn Hrafnsson and Joseph Farrell are the only other publicly known and acknowledged associates of Assange who are currently living.[33] Harrison is also a member of Sunshine Press Productions along with Assange and Ingi Ragnar Ingason.[34][35] Gavin MacFayden was acknowledged by Assange as a ″beloved director of WikiLeaks″ shortly after his death in 2016.[36]
WikiLeaks was originally established with a "wiki" communal publication method, which was terminated by May 2010.[37] Original volunteers and founders were once described as a mixture of Asian dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.[38] As of June 2009, the website had more than 1,200 registered volunteers.[38][39][40]
Despite some popular confusion, related to the fact both sites use the "wiki" name and website design template, WikiLeaks and Wikipedia are not affiliated.[41] Wikia, a for-profit corporation affiliated loosely with the Wikimedia Foundation, purchased several WikiLeaks-related domain names as a "protective brand measure" in 2007.[42]
On September 26, 2018, Julian Assange stepped down as editor in chief of Wikileaks.
Purpose
According to the WikiLeaks website, its goal is "to bring important news and information to the public ... One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth." Another of the organisation's goals is to ensure that journalists and whistleblowers are not prosecuted for emailing sensitive or classified documents. The online "drop box" is described by the WikiLeaks website as "an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to [WikiLeaks] journalists".[43]
Some describe WikiLeaks as a media or journalistic organisation. For example, in a 2013 resolution, the International Federation of Journalists, a trade union of journalists, called WikiLeaks a "new breed of media organisation" that "offers important opportunities for media organisations."[44] Harvard professor Yochai Benkler has praised WikiLeaks as a new form of journalistic enterprise,[45] testifying at the court-martial of Chelsea Manning (then Bradley Manning) that "WikiLeaks did serve a particular journalistic function" although "It's a hard line to draw."[46] Others do not consider WikiLeaks to be journalistic in nature. Media ethicist Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies wrote in 2011 that "Wikileaks might grow into a journalist endeavor. But it's not there yet."[47] Bill Keller of The New York Times considers WikiLeaks to be a "complicated source" rather than a journalistic partner.[47] Prominent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams writes that Wikileaks is not a journalistic group, but instead "an organization of political activists; ... a source for journalists; and ... a conduit of leaked information to the press and the public."[48] Noting Assange's statements that he and his colleagues read only a small fraction of information before deciding to publish it, Abrams writes that "No journalistic entity I have ever heard of—none—simply releases to the world an elephantine amount of material it has not read."[48]
The group has released a number of prominent document dumps. Early releases included documentation of equipment expenditures and holdings in the Afghanistan war and a report informing a corruption investigation in Kenya.[11] In April 2010, WikiLeaks released the so-called Collateral Murder footage from the 12 July 2007 Baghdad airstrike in which Iraqi journalists were among those killed. Other releases in 2010 included the Afghan War Diary and the "Iraq War Logs". The latter allowed the mapping of 109,032 deaths in "significant" attacks by insurgents in Iraq that had been reported to Multi-National Force – Iraq, including about 15,000 that had not been previously published.[12][13] In 2010, WikiLeaks also released the US State Department diplomatic "cables", classified cables that had been sent to the US State Department. In April 2011, WikiLeaks began publishing 779 secret files relating to prisoners detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[14]
During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, WikiLeaks released emails and other documents from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta.[15] These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been attributed as a potential contributing factor to her loss.[16] The U.S. intelligence community expressed "high confidence" that the leaked emails had been hacked by Russia and supplied to WikiLeaks, while WikiLeaks denied their source was Russia or any other state.[17] During the campaign, WikiLeaks promoted conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.[18][19][20] In private conversations from November 2015 that were later leaked, Julian Assange expressed a preference for a GOP victory in the 2016 election, explaining that "Dems+Media+liberals woudl [sic] then form a block to reign [sic] in their worst qualities. With Hillary in charge, GOP will be pushing for her worst qualities, dems+media+neoliberals will be mute."[21] In secret correspondence with the Trump campaign on election day (November 8, 2016), WikiLeaks encouraged the Trump campaign to contest the election results in case they lost.[22]
WikiLeaks has drawn criticism for its absence of whistleblowing on or criticism of Russia, and for criticising the Panama Papers' exposé of businesses and individuals with offshore bank accounts.[23][24] WikiLeaks has also been criticised for inadequately curating its content and violating the personal privacy of individuals. WikiLeaks has, for instance, revealed Social Security numbers, medical information, credit card numbers, details of suicide attempts, and other sensitive personal information.[25][26][27][28]
History
Staff, name and founding
Julian Assange was one of the early members of the WikiLeaks staff and is credited as the website's founder.
The wikileaks.org domain name was registered on 4 October 2006.[4] The website was established and published its first document in December 2006.[29][30] WikiLeaks is usually represented in public by Julian Assange, who has been described as "the heart and soul of this organisation, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organiser, financier, and all the rest".[31][32] Sarah Harrison, Kristinn Hrafnsson and Joseph Farrell are the only other publicly known and acknowledged associates of Assange who are currently living.[33] Harrison is also a member of Sunshine Press Productions along with Assange and Ingi Ragnar Ingason.[34][35] Gavin MacFayden was acknowledged by Assange as a ″beloved director of WikiLeaks″ shortly after his death in 2016.[36]
WikiLeaks was originally established with a "wiki" communal publication method, which was terminated by May 2010.[37] Original volunteers and founders were once described as a mixture of Asian dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.[38] As of June 2009, the website had more than 1,200 registered volunteers.[38][39][40]
Despite some popular confusion, related to the fact both sites use the "wiki" name and website design template, WikiLeaks and Wikipedia are not affiliated.[41] Wikia, a for-profit corporation affiliated loosely with the Wikimedia Foundation, purchased several WikiLeaks-related domain names as a "protective brand measure" in 2007.[42]
On September 26, 2018, Julian Assange stepped down as editor in chief of Wikileaks.
Purpose
According to the WikiLeaks website, its goal is "to bring important news and information to the public ... One of our most important activities is to publish original source material alongside our news stories so readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth." Another of the organisation's goals is to ensure that journalists and whistleblowers are not prosecuted for emailing sensitive or classified documents. The online "drop box" is described by the WikiLeaks website as "an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to [WikiLeaks] journalists".[43]
Some describe WikiLeaks as a media or journalistic organisation. For example, in a 2013 resolution, the International Federation of Journalists, a trade union of journalists, called WikiLeaks a "new breed of media organisation" that "offers important opportunities for media organisations."[44] Harvard professor Yochai Benkler has praised WikiLeaks as a new form of journalistic enterprise,[45] testifying at the court-martial of Chelsea Manning (then Bradley Manning) that "WikiLeaks did serve a particular journalistic function" although "It's a hard line to draw."[46] Others do not consider WikiLeaks to be journalistic in nature. Media ethicist Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies wrote in 2011 that "Wikileaks might grow into a journalist endeavor. But it's not there yet."[47] Bill Keller of The New York Times considers WikiLeaks to be a "complicated source" rather than a journalistic partner.[47] Prominent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams writes that Wikileaks is not a journalistic group, but instead "an organization of political activists; ... a source for journalists; and ... a conduit of leaked information to the press and the public."[48] Noting Assange's statements that he and his colleagues read only a small fraction of information before deciding to publish it, Abrams writes that "No journalistic entity I have ever heard of—none—simply releases to the world an elephantine amount of material it has not read."[48]
WikiLeaks - Wikipedia
Posted from en.m.wikipedia.orgPosted in these groups: 
World History
American History
Military History
Intelligence
Freedom of Speech
World History American History Military History Intelligence Freedom of Speech
Posted 6 y ago
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Putin's own bulletin board. It is interesting how many young people, professing their allegiance to "progressive" causes, hold Assange and his ilk in high regard when this whole thing is said to be run by Putin's regime - the same regime said to be behind the rise of the alt-right.
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