Rubénerd!

I suspected my Fifth Estate post would generate some feedback, and it did!

@wonk_01: It's a dangerous new step for them into the military-entertainment-complex, imho.

Agreed.

@TypeDom: Regardless of everything political or propagandistic about it, Benedict Cumberbatch looks creepy.

He was a devilishly attractive Sherlock, but being done up in a creepy fashion is in itself propaganda.

@babylove0306: you [sic] are ridiculous. Judging a movie before it's even filmed?

That's the great thing about scripts. I'm relieved I'm ridiculous though, my greatest fear in life is mediocrity. Well, that and funnel web spiders.

We've finally got some details about that "Fifth Estate" movie about Julian Assange and Wikileaks, and unsurprisingly it's a piece of propagandistic bullshit. Pardon the French, but this is such a cliché hit piece it's embarrassing.

Assange was understandably angry:

"It is a lie upon lie. The movie is a massive propaganda attack on WikiLeaks and the character of my staff," the Australian Internet activist told the audience at the university's Oxford Union debating club.

Reading from the script, he said the opening scene was set inside a military complex in Iran with documents containing nuclear symbols. [..] "How does this have anything to do with us?"

Regardless of your opinion of Assange, the fact the movie is misrepresenting honest people and advocating war should be unacceptable to all of us. I'm disgusted.

Produced by DreamWorks, the movie is being directed by Bill Condon, the genius behind the first two Twilight movies. I'm not making this crap up.

"We want to explore the complexities and challenges of transparency in the information age and, we hope, enliven and enrich the conversations WikiLeaks has already provoked," he said.

I don't know what's scarier, that he's being paid to say that, or whether he actually believes that's what he's doing. Ditto Benedict Cumberbatch.

Sorry for the serious tone, this stuff just makes me furious. This is important, not that fake Facebook Graph search scandal that merely made public what governments with and without due process have long had access to already. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Patrick Wintour reporting for The Guardian:

Britain and America are willing to offer the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, safe passage – and even clemency – as part of a diplomatic push to convene a UN-sponsored conference in Geneva on political transition in Syria.

And yet Julian Assange, who has not been charged or convicted of any crimes, is asking Equador to protect him from Britain and America. This whole farce would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.

Reminds me of that rehashed Assange quote from last year:

What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private information on corporations to you for free, and I’m a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.

As of TODAY Julian Assange has been detained for one year without charge (prison, then house arrest) swedenversusassange.com
~ @wikileaks

I've generally refrained from watching Q&A lately, but I'll definitely be getting the podcast this time around, as I also announced on The Twitters. The unrelated Battlefield trending topic tag along with Julia and Assange was a nice syncronicity ;)

I blogged about Chris Hitchens' appearance on Q&A in 2009.

Despite Dave Winer being an arsehole to me several times (I wear it as a badge of honour!), I have no qualm with saying he answers the question about Julian Assange's agenda pretty damn well (Does Assange Have An Agenda?).

Mr Assange and plenty of other people at Wikileaks and other sites are just doing what "news" organisations are supposed to be doing, instead of just being paid off, glorified subsidiaries of special interest groups, political parties and companies.

Those "news" organisations have been caught with their pants down, and they're understandably embarrassed and frustrated. Its harder for news to be curated and manufactured to fit a preferred narrative to condition readers and viewers when independent sources keep messing it up with facts.