Julian Assange holds Reddit AMA, skips uncomfortable questions

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange fielded questions from Reddit users during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on January 10. Assange and Wikileaks have been accused of being responsible for  Hillary Clinton’s loss during the American presidential election, after the website leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee, possibly sourced from Russian hackers.

Assange has repeatedly denied Russian involvement in the email leak but avoided uncomfortable questions on the same issue during his AMA. Reddit user ‘Gddboygb’ asked a highly upvoted, albeit confrontational, question which Assange chose to ignore.

“Snowden claims to fight for privacy. He’s called privacy the bedrock of freedom, that one cannot be free without privacy.

You have called privacy obsolete and unsustainable. You’ve said that privacy has no inherent value. You appear to believe privacy and freedom are incompatible, that you cannot be free if others can keep secrets from you. You’ve published the credit card numbers, social security numbers, medical information, and sexual preferences of individuals of zero public interest. Two of your most recent publications are the personal Gmail inboxes of civilians, exactly the sort of thing Snowden has tried to protect.

Can you convince me that you’re right and Snowden’s wrong?”

Another user, ‘LameMeme’, questioned Assange about the Russian connection, which he also side-stepped.

“Since you are so adamant that Russia was not involved in the recent leaks that played a major role in the US presidential election, it would be helpful if you can make a compelling case for why Americans should trust you over their own intelligence agencies whose reason for existence is to defend the US against foreign threats and who are saying the opposite about Russian involvement.”

Assange choosing not to answer such questions obviously didn’t go unnoticed. User ‘Afernard’, who also asked a question probing the Russian angle (also unanswered), said “he [Assange] constantly repeated himself throughout questions” and called the AMA an “absolute joke”.