THE INTERNET – Geo’s newest Chronicle Career took a turn for the worst Saturday after the 17-year-old PS3 addicted college dropout decided once and for all, again, that his beloved Internet newspaper has gone astray.
“I thought you guys were back on the right track after [redacted]’s article about [redacted], but with every celebrity death hoax you spawn out of boredom, my faith in you is just a little bit more eroded.”
Let me show you how it’s done:
[chronicle.su article by geo himself]
Up and coming stoner critic salutes self righteous indignation
I’m geohotz. Anonymous hacked Sony and later, the government. I think they are onto us, by the way dude, just to let you know. Smoke weed erryday niqqas you kno how I do, keyboard warriors represent 2012.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: this is actual copy written by Geo] when i first stumbled upon this site thanks to the hacking of the playstation network, i thought i had found a group of people with similar ideas and morals who had wisdom beyond mine they could pass on to me.
for awhile, that was true. and then later i was like no.
it dawned on me around the time of the Akon article that I knew far less about these individuals than I had thought. but i still knew they were so much better than me
While i still believe Brutus had somewhat good intentions in this endevoar, I can’t say the same for you Trout, you disgusting motherfucker. Even though Brutus wrote the Akon article. I’m still not sure about him. Hm. Wonder if he’s gay?
Look at these dead and faggot soldiers. I bet he got his little dick blown off by an IED planted in a child's vagina. lol we're fighting three wars, and two in space.
And that’s why the chronicle sucks and I’m outta here. And I’m never coming back.
So today I signed onto Chronicle.SU and saw fucking porn ADS popping up all over the place. What the shit has this place become?
Just a couple of days ago I read a really great article and I thought Chronicle was finally making a comeback…
Now they’re just going to make a bunch of ridiculous stories up for hits, you know. Not even writing funny stories, just hit stunts using search engine tricks. Fuck the Internet Chroncile. Yeah you heard me, fuck this place.
I’m quitting this fucking web site, you’ll never see me here again. Kilgoar and Ol Brutus are dead to me. Everything they write from this point on is just to make money. Fuck. I hate this.
When Julian Assange revealed the collateral murder video in Washington DC, I was so incredibly glad that someone had finally brought light to the horrors of war. After learning the effect that such reporting could have from the Vietnam war, the US government has essentially taken complete control of war reporting. I was less impressed with Cablegate, which raised a lot of questions for me. Was the publishing of this information simply a manifestation of Assange’s anti-American bent? Was it possible to even view these cables in the proper context? At this point in time, I still sided with Assange and felt that Bradley Manning’s good intentions and idealistic desire for transparency would make for a better world.
WikiLeaks was marginalized and then demonized in a way that shocked me deeply. I was inspired by the response from Anonymous, and quickly shocked by the pure extremism which climaxed with the FBI’s AntiSec sting operation. Likewise, the publishing of Stratfor’s internal e-mails, which were stolen simply out of opportunism and malice, was absolutely horrifying.
WikiLeaks has become a tabloid, cheerleading for Anonymous and publishing snippets of e-mails from Stratfor which are taken wildly out of context. One infamous quotation of George Friedman, CEO of Stratfor, has been misrepresented in a deeply crass and disgusting way. As is the rule for tabloids, outrageous headlines obscure the true story.
Oh, that must mean Stratfor is not to be trusted!
The link, of course, leads a tiny minority of readers to a silly e-mail about lunches being stolen from the fridge at Stratfor headquarters. The vast majority of people read the quote and go on to the next tweet, automatically assuming that Stratfor is a bunch of conniving liars. The notion that Stratfor is a “Shadow-CIA” has also spread to all corners of the Internet, although it is a gross misrepresentation at best. Really, Stratfor isn’t nearly as sinister as it might sound.
Supporters of WikiLeaks repeatedly state that Stratfor is a legitimate target for this campaign of forced transparency simply because its business overlaps with the military industrial complex. While I fully agree with the sentiment that the military industrial complex is basically an overgrown monster, is it okay to attack Campbell’s soup for feeding the troops? This simple bad guy/good guy paradigm is obviously not realistic, and the situation is much more complicated. Stratfor provides their services to many corporations, individuals, and government entities both in and outside the United States. Many of these subscribers have been targeted by Anonymous and literally robbed, seemingly for no reason at all. The suggestion that there are important confidential e-mails dripping with scandal and crime has so far proven totally false.
What the Stratfor leaks have revealed, essentially, is that there are a bunch of analysts doing their best to figure out world events and speculating about practically every major happening. Some of these analysts don’t really like Julian Assange, and some of them even make racist statements in private e-mails. On the surface, the Global Intelligence Files appear to be an astounding list of revelations which will keep conspiracy theorists abuzz and WikiLeaks in the public spotlight. At their heart, it’s a sad failure for truth where context has been cut out to push an obvious anti-American agenda.
Right now, you might be thinking, “Hey, but all these tabloids are trying to take down WikiLeaks and smear Assange,” and you’d be totally right. But Assange has fired back, making equally outrageous claims about his detractors. The reductio ad absurdum of Assange’s stance is summarized in the following tweet:
Of course the e-mails from Stratfor are legitimate.
I have considered Assange a genuine agent for positive change and much needed transparency in the past, but this is the tweet that made me realize what WikiLeaks has become: A stupid tabloid with a penchant for the absurd. Look at the web site around you. This is absolutely the Internet’s fastest growing tabloid, featuring intelligent and biting satire. I know what a tabloid does. WikiLeaks has become a tabloid.
I challenge Assange to officially recognize the importance of context. Assange should pony up the $50,000 because I pointed out where he literally destroyed veracity by placing a quotation wildly out of context. And what is truth, if the framework of meaning behind it has been omitted?
A tabloid we may be, but at least we aren’t perniciously cramming a single-minded agenda down your throat by twisting the context of stolen material. Well, I guess we are, but at least our agenda is just all about the laughs. Kinda.
