Netflix To Launch WikiLeaks Smear Job Three Days Before Assange Court Date

Netflix will begin streaming a brazen hatchet job on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks for its American subscribers on October 24th, just three days prior to a significant court date in Assange's fight against extradition from the UK to the United States on October 27th.

"You can stream We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks on Netflix starting Sunday, October 24, 2021, at 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET," Netflix Schedule reports.

We Steal Secrets was a "documentary" that is now so outdated beyond its 2013 release that one of its central characters, Chelsea Manning, is referred to by a dead name throughout its entirety. Why choose this specific moment to release it?

Well it doesn't make much sense at all, if the timing wasn't deliberately geared toward damaging Assange's reputation in the nation whose government is trying to extradite him for exposing its war crimes. Assange's October court date was set way back in August and Netflix didn't announce it had scheduled to begin streaming this film until two weeks ago.

Three days before a crucial court hearing – as Julian Assange fights against extradition to a US super-max prison – Netflix is showing Alex Gibney's execrable propaganda film We Steal Secrets. I wrote a post detailing its smears at the time of its release https://t.co/lJJUoerJDq https://t.co/BMpNrg2h4i

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) October 13, 2021

After all, We Steal Secrets was so egregious in its spin that not only did WikiLeaks supporters like World Socialist Website and journalist Jonathan Cook pan it as a smear at the time, but WikiLeaks itself went to the trouble of publishing a line-by-line refutation of the mountains of propaganda distortion heaped on the narrative by filmmaker Alex Gibney.

"The title ('We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks') is false," WikiLeaks writes at the beginning of its response. "It directly implies that WikiLeaks steals secrets. In fact, the statement is made by former CIA/NSA director Michael Hayden in relation to the activities of US government spies, not in relation to WikiLeaks. This an irresponsible libel. Not even critics in the film say that WikiLeaks steals secrets."

"Gibney’s latest release—We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks—is something else again," World Socialist Website wrote in 2013. "The 130-minute feature is a political hatchet job against Julian Assange and dovetails with the media and US government campaign against the WikiLeaks web site. Whether Gibney has shifted to the right or simply revealed the fatal limitations of his liberal 'oppositional' views is a matter for a separate discussion. In any event, his newest work is an effort at disinformation."

"The job of a good documentarist is to weigh the available material and then present as honest a record of what it reveals as possible. Anything less is at best polemic, if it sides with those who are silenced and weak, and at worst propaganda, if it sides with those who wield power," critiqued Jonathan Cook at the time.

RELEASE: "We Steal Secrets: Not the Story of WikiLeaks" full annotated transcript http://t.co/Va4R9LOsy4 @westealsecrets @BaLueBolivar

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 23, 2013

This would not be the first time Netflix has helped circulate narratives that advance the interests of the US empire, or the second, or the third, having already run blatantly propagandistic "documentaries" advancing imperial interests in nations like Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, and multiple ones about Syria. Netflix has also signed deals with the Obamas and with British royalty.

So they're not exactly looking out for the little guy, which from a company worth an estimated $229 billion should come as no surprise.

Still, such open facilitation of the world's most powerful government in its campaign to imprison a journalist for inconvenient journalistic activity is a special kind of reprehensible. If there is a healthy humanity in the future, it will look back on the worldwide smear campaign against Assange and WikiLeaks with horror.

Comment:

Obama has a production deal with Netflix...

You might have heard about the Facebook whistleblower who’s debut was on 60 minutes and then she testified to congress about how FB is not doing enough censorship. Just like the Ukraine whistleblower who got congress to make whistleblowers protected this woman is working with democrats to get FB and social media to censor more heavily. But Trump’s persecution of Assange was never brought up by democrats who continually blasted him for his war on the press and journalists. Of course not..they are F'ing hypocrites. And they have an agenda to set which is more and more censorship. And backed up by many of their supporters. Grrr!

Hypocrisy at its finest: Facebook whistleblowers are feted, while Julian Assange is jailed

The very contrasting treatment of whistleblowers willing to testify against Facebook with that of the imprisoned WikiLeaks founder shows us that the Establishment’s support of those ‘spilling the beans’ is highly selective.

All whistleblowers are equal, but some are more equal than others. Or, we could more specifically say, whistleblowers whose revelations aid ruling-class agendas are put in front of Congress and handed the mic, while those whose revelations expose ruling-class agendas are persecuted and end up in maximum-security jails.

"Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy,” Haugen told senators. The company put profits before “the common good.” Which is exactly what the faux-communitarian pro-censorship elites wanted to hear. There is a war going on against Facebook at the moment, in case you hadn’t noticed, but those who are waging it don’t have the same issues with Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant that you and I might have.

We are concerned that Facebook already censors too much in the political sphere, but the ruling elites are concerned that it doesn‘t censor enough. They want more government control over the internet. In fact, they want total government control over the internet, as in China, the country they routinely criticise on “human rights” grounds, but who they are doing their best to copy.

Haugen’s testimony furthered that pro-censorship, pro-control agenda, which is why her words got such glowing coverage in the mainstream media.

Meanwhile, as Haugen and Zhang are feted because they are saying exactly what the political class wants to hear, (and, as Glenn Greenwald points out, have the potential to earn millions of dollars from the SEC whistleblower program) the world’s most famous ‘whistleblower’ is still languishing in Belmarsh Prison.

Julian Assange spilled the beans on what Western (and other governments) were doing in secret with our money – but instead of being lauded by the media for the service he was doing for democracy, he was eviscerated. There was no invitation for him to address Congress. And no prospect of him winning awards of millions of dollars from US state bodies.

Assange has paid a terrible price for telling us what went on behind the curtain – things which we were never meant to find out, but which were our right to know. Which is what makes the current adulation of the Facebook “whistleblowers” by those who stay silent on Assange‘s treatment, or who actually support it, so nauseating.

The media has ignored Julian's plight after some called him a coward for seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. And after a few news sites got accolades for publishing the information he gave them. If you didn’t know the trial for Julian was the most blatantly corrupt trial in history because the judge made up her own rules of what evidence she would allow. If Julian is extradited here he will have another trial that will be rigged against him because it will allow no evidence for defense.