I think not.
Outside of the USA virtually nobody buys into the pathetic attempts of the US establishment to slander Assange,Snowden,Manning and others;(on a personal note, my respect for Obama died the day he referred to Snowden as a "common hacker"). Within the US, perhaps they have had more success. I must point out that this is so because despite the tech credentials and high educational levels of HN (and other website) readers, you still find a fair share 'murica' nationalists.
HN is very dominantly US (both in sponsorship and membership), so that doesn't really invalidate the point at all.
Look at how partisan WikiLeaks is - look at the countries that it doesn't publish information on, look at the candidates it doesn't try to discredit
Listen to others who were a key part of Wikileaks talk about Assange's behaviour towards others, look at the comments that his sexual behaviour was going to get him into trouble long before this case blew up.
The CIA may have been after him but ultimately he discredited himself
In any case, I think you're wrong that WikiLeaks doesn't publish information on certain countries [0]. And, I agree that they do have political opinions however it's impossible to avoid this: if you don't think something is political, it's because you share its politics.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5n58sm/i_am_julian_as...
Before we get carried away by the attitude: "Johnny does it too...", why don't we focus on the information that has been published. The crimes that have been exposed by Wikileaks ? From a pragmatic point of view , it would be stupid of Wikileaks operatives or anyone in their position to antagonize all sides. Where would Snowden be today if he did not have the Russians to help save his life? In any case, as I have stated, focus on the crimes laid bare before us now. They can always leak more later.
>Listen to others who were a key part of Wikileaks talk about Assange's behaviour towards others, , look at the comments that his sexual behaviour was going to get him into trouble long before this case blew up.
His sexual behavior is irrelevant to the expose.
Note that Wikileaks did try to redact the material they got. So eventhough they messed it up, they tried to do the right thing.
Wikileaks was supposed to be a platform for leakers. To get their material out. Wikileaks is not supposed to be balanced publication that tries to compile some sort of truth.
So in that sense, given the original goal of wikileaks, they just had to publish those documents during the US elections. It would be different if there was evidence that they got documents damaging to Trump and refused to publish them.
So, Assange is an idiot and best not invited to parties. Wikileaks is probably a bad idea. But none of that warrents a complete abuse of the legal system by Sweden. And also a complete violation of basic european human rights by the UK.
This is a fact
As it is a fact that WL "leaked" documents relating to Fillon (before his candidature sank - though not because of WL) in France
So, no, he's not a "neutral party" (though he has an entirely understandable beef with HRC)
Wikileaks Twitter shows that they linked to a search result for "Fillon" in their old releases, which they often do for current topics.
But what really did him in (I think) were the Canard Enchainé revelations
They linked to search results - in fact for multiple (opposing) candidates - from their old leaks.