Greenwald became a common punching target after he criticized the 2008 administration for continuing to significantly expand executive authority and brought black budget activities into a whole other level. Something that Bush Jr also massively expanded and people were much quicker to criticize from various sides.

By 2020 Greenwald was basically persona-non-grata for not pulling either US party lines and his strong support for people like Snowden. Despite his great work in Brazil on human rights and anti-corruption which is something that goes beyond partisan politics and should be lauded.

The problem is people trying to put him (or everybody) into convenient boxes - representing singular view points - without shades of grey, like the 24 hour news talking head guests pushing sound bites.

The type of pressure on any person who dares to enter political news for a living. Which to me seems like a never ending gauntlet.

That's unfair, because Assange's own actions also veered heavily around 2016, so to assume the arguments about him were all astroturfing is extremely misleading.

If tomorrow Sanders starts spouting antivaxx stuff, and half the internet starts attacking him, you wouldn't go and say "there's a misinformation campaign astroturfing against Sanders".