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Wikileaks says financial 'blockade' could put it out of business

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wraith808:
Wikileaks says financial 'blockade' could put it out of business

In July, WikiLeaks filed a complaint to the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission, saying Visa and MasterCard had breached antitrust provisions set out by the EU Treaty.
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Antitrust provisions for a not for profit?  Somehow that seems contradictory...

Stoic Joker:
This part was interesting:

The blocking of donations by Bank of America Corp, Visa Inc, MasterCard Inc, eBay Inc unit PayPal and Western Union Co had cost Wikileaks 95 percent of its revenue.
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...Guess we know who's really in-charge now, huh?

zridling:
...Guess we know who's really in-charge now, huh?-Stoic Joker (October 24, 2011, 11:35 AM)
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So true. In case you missed this article everywhere online last week:
http://boingboing.net/2011/10/22/densely-linked-cluster-of-147-companies-control-40-of-worlds-total-wealth.html

40hz:
Not surprising.

In some respects Wikileaks can take comfort in knowing their impact was obviously being felt in high places. Otherwise, their problems with the various online payment providers would never be happening.

One of the joys of living under the so-called rule of law: any time a government lacks the constitutional or moral authority to forbid a specific act or behavior, they usually find it's a simple matter to get business to do it for them by proxy. And all it usually takes is an extremely oblique hint to a business or industry group to make it happen.

Unfortunately, Wikileaks has made it all to easy to get such favors by not showing enough discretion or responsibility with what they have published.

They could easily have had the same impact using a much more limited or staged release of documents in their possession on more than one occasion. But they instead chose to show some 'attitude' and rashness. And that will cost them dearly in the long run. Possibly even to the point of it being their undoing.

Successfully locking horns with any government is a protracted exercise that requires strategic and and out-of-the-box thinking. The name of the game is to expose and educate the public to the point of where whatever government you've gone up against collapses under the weight of it's own contradictions, injustices, and lies. Because in the end every government can only rule with the ultimate consent of its people. Even if it has to manufacture such consent through the use of fear and intimidation.

Once that consent gets withdrawn however, (sometimes by enough public outrage that fear can no longer hold the populace in check) any government, from the most enlightened, to the most brutally repressive, will fall. Look in any history book.

Wikileaks got a little to big for its own hat, and assumed it had far more public support than it had. As a result, it acted rashly, defying the 'powers that be' to do anything about them...

I think they're now seeing the response to their challenge.

Pity. Wikileaks had the potential to do something worthwhile. Too bad impatience and ego tripped them up. Which, ironically, is the same thing that happens to so many governments.

Perhaps their successor won't make the same mistake.

nosh:
Putting Wikileaks out of play could create a dangerous vacuum. It wouldn't serve anyone's interest if some faceless new "organization" that doesn't even make a pretense of going by the book, becomes the de facto go-to place for anyone wishing to air some dirty laundry.

You may shut down Wikileaks but you can't stop the leaks.

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