{"id":48073,"date":"2014-09-29T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T11:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=48073"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:29:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:29:43","slug":"julian-assange-when-you-post-to-facebook-youre-being-a-rat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/09\/julian-assange-when-you-post-to-facebook-youre-being-a-rat\/","title":{"rendered":"Julian Assange: ‘When you post to Facebook, you’re being a rat’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assange joins party for his book <\/em>When Google Met WikiLeaks to discuss the consequences of Google\u2019s power in the 21st century.<\/em><\/p>\n

How does a wanted man have a book party? On Wednesday [24 Sep 2014] night at Babycastles, a Manhattan videogame-art collective, Julian Assange celebrated the publication of his new book, When Google Met WikiLeaks<\/em>. He was present via videochat. The collectivists projected him on their walls. A crowd had formed to see the shining-haired hacker king \u2013 youngish New Yorkers, mostly. They stood or sat and drank beers as Assange talked about the internet.<\/p>\n

Assange said: \u201cCompare the mission statements of Google and the NSA \u2013 the NSA, who literally say, \u2018We want to collect all private information, pool it, store it, sort it, index it, and exploit it.\u2019 Whereas Google says, \u2018We want to collect all private information, pool it, store it, sort it, and sell those profiles to advertisers.\u2019 Really, they\u2019re almost identical.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cEvery time you go to a party and take a picture and post that picture to Facebook, you\u2019re being a rat. You\u2019re being a narc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assange now wears a beard. It fuzzed as the feed wavered.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who use Google are the product,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Assange has not left the Ecuadorean embassy in London since August 2012. Meanwhile, he is cursed by statesmen, acclaimed by radicals, and copied by anarchists all over. \u201cThank God for prison!\u201d the hero of Aleksandr Solzenhitsyn\u2019s In the First Circle<\/a> thinks. \u201cIt gave me the chance to think.\u201d Assange, at least, has been writing.<\/p>\n

When Google Met WikiLeaks<\/a> tells the story of his \u201csecret\u201d meeting in 2011 with Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google. It is presented as a summit of equals \u2013 futurology as practiced by two prophets. But in an interview a day earlier, Schmidt had called Assange \u201cvery paranoid\u201d.<\/p>\n

Assange said: \u201cSchmidt is actually quite similar to me \u2013 a smart guy, a very smart guy, who grasps structures and systems quickly. Only he\u2019s very banal. He lacks language. He doesn\u2019t have the capacity for a nuanced understanding of geopolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assange said, \u201cIt really wasn\u2019t personal, until yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n

He drew up an image of Schmidt\u2019s new book. It is called How Google Works<\/a>. The cover is like Assange\u2019s cover \u2013 a mock Google homepage. On Assange\u2019s, \u201cI\u2019m feeling evil\u201d replaces \u201cI\u2019m feeling lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assange said, \u201cMine was leaked long before his came out. Could it be a happy coincidence?\u201d<\/p>\n

Assange spoke of revolving doors and unkept promises. He lamented the \u201cstandardization of human behavior\u201d imposed by Google. He attacked its \u201cplayroom logos and curved fonts\u201d, the kiddie aesthetic overlaying the corporate agenda. Assange seemed offended by the unadultness of it all. \u201cOnly these banal tech reporters will write anything about it,\u201d he said. \u201cNo one understood nuclear weapons either, at first, but like the internet they shaped geopolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assange spoke to an audience that believed him.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle never collaborated with the NSA,\u201d Schmidt said on Tuesday in response to Assange\u2019s claims. \u201cIn fact, we\u2019ve fought very hard against what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Babycastles, Assange worried only about being \u201cboring.\u201d Twenty minutes in, the camera pulled back to reveal MIA. The provocateur and pop star sat alongside Assange and expressed her hope for his imminent freedom. Assange quotes her lyrics in his book \u2013 \u201cArmbone connects to the handbone \/ Handbone connects to the internet\u201d \u2013 a mantra for the new paranoia. MIA explained, \u201cI was out living near burning man. Eric Schmidt must have had a bad LSD trip and I tuned into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then MIA wandered off. Assange skipped over his own troubles \u2013 the allegations of rape, the memoirs of the disaffected. He took questions and subverted their premises. What is a greater force for good, corporations or nations? \u201cYou\u2019re assuming a difference between the private sector and the state.\u201d Was \u201cparanoia a badge of honor\u201d? The question came from the moderator, Daniel Stuckey of Motherboard. \u201cWell \u2026 Schmidt has a difficult job,\u201d Assange said. Was he the only grown-up in the room?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s so punk,\u201d said Liz, a music journalist.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s steam<\/em>punk,\u201d said Pamela Drew.<\/p>\n

Said Nick, a student, of Assange\u2019s plight: \u201cIt\u2019s more like Brave New World than 1984. It\u2019s not like these sexy YA dystopias.\u201d<\/p>\n

The moderator took a survey \u2013 how many Google employees were in the house? No hands. \u201cI\u2019ll offer them a deal,\u201d Assange said. \u201cTwenty percent off, and we\u2019ll mail the book to you in a brown paper bag.\u201d Laughter \u2013 but could Assange hear it? His publisher, Colin Robinson, confirmed that Assange was for real.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assange said: \u201cCompare the mission statements of Google and the NSA \u2013 the NSA say, \u2018We want to collect all private information, pool it, store it, sort it, index it, and exploit it.\u2019 Whereas Google says, \u2018We want to collect all private information, pool it, store it, sort it, and sell those profiles to advertisers.\u2019 \u201cReally, they\u2019re identical. Every time you go to a party and take a picture and post that picture to Facebook, you\u2019re being a rat. You\u2019re being a narc.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}