Julian Assange, wild child of free speech

Posted On 2:10 am |

IN a cafe in Melbourne, a friend of Julian Assange describes what he was like in the years before WikiLeaks. 
 
Over an hour and a half, a portrait emerges of a brilliant, socially awkward crusader, a "hard-core geek" who would rather interact with a machine than a person but who was also determined to change the world.

The friend is intensely guarded, as many of Assange's friends are, but the admiration for him is abundant. Assange is described as a humanist, a man who serves no masters, a Renaissance man with 21st-century tools at his disposal, who "decided early on that the world is not as fair a place as it could be, but that the internet provides a way of creating a more level playing field in terms of justice".

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Does Julian Assange Have an OKCupid Profile?

Posted On 1:59 am |

Even the great Julian Assange needs a woman by his side.

Julian Assange is arguably one of the most powerful members of the media right now. However, that's not to say he doesn't have the same problems the rest of us do: He sometimes has trouble getting a date. At least, that's how it looks, considering he apparently once turned to OKCupid for help.

Featured below are several images from what appears to be Julian Assange's own OKCupid dating profile. Obviously the authenticity of such an account is a subject of great debate. Under the user name HarryHarrison, the page shows several webcam pictures of Assange and has been out of use since 2006.


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Some Amazon websites felled after threats by WikiLeaks sympathizers

Posted On 5:27 pm |

Berlin/Washington - The European websites of online retailer Amazon were knocked out for hours Sunday night, amid attacks in recent days on other companies that have stopped doing business with the embattled WikiLeaks organization.

In Germany, attempts to view the Amazon.de website resulted in error messages. The world's largest internet retailer also saw its servers in Britain, France and Italy similarly affected, though the websites were viewable again late Sunday.

Amazon's US websites appeared unharmed, and the company issued no immediate statement about the incident, which follows hacking attacks last week on the websites of Visa, MasterCard and Paypal.

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Online free speech doesn't exist

Posted On 10:58 pm |

There is no freedom of speech on the Internet.

Many of us labor under the false believe that our society and our legal system will defend our right to speak the truth – in person or on the Internet – as long as we are in the right. Yes, there are consequences for bearing false witness against our neighbors, but as long as you say things, even controversial things, that can be supported with facts, the truth will out and justice will be served. Right?

Wrong. The truth is no defense if that defense cannot be offered.

On the Internet, it's not what you can prove that is important. Even whether you have a legal case against someone isn't important. What does matter, if you truly want to infringe on someone's online free speech, is what you can threaten, and whether the parties you threaten are easily intimidated. In most cases, the average citizen will find that he has only as much free speech as his host company's cowardly legal department allows him ... and perhaps less.

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