11,000 Wikileaks Twitter DMs Have Just Been Published For Anyone To Read - Forbes

Jul 30, 2018, 12:08pm
11,000 Wikileaks Twitter DMs Have Just Been Published For Anyone To Read

Thomas Fox-Brewster
Forbes Staff
Cybersecurity

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange remains couped up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, as thousands of private Twitter messages sent to and from the organization leak out. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

Ever wondered what's going on behind closed doors at Julian Assange's pro-transparency outfit Wikileaks? Thanks to journalist Emma Best, you can now rifle through 11,000 direct, private messages sent to and from Wikileaks' Twitter account.

Best released the messages Monday, saying they came from the "Wikileaks + 10 chat," a private group for the organization's more active supporters. She claimed many of the messages contained offensive material. "At various points in the chat, there are examples of homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexism, racism, antisemitism and other objectionable content and language." Wikileaks hadn't responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

More obviously, the messages show a strong Republican favoritism. Previous reports had already revealed portions of the Wikileaks' Twitter chats. They included messages allegedly sent by Assange himself, one saying, "it would be much better for the GOP to win." He later described Hillary Clinton as "a bright, well-connected, sadistic sociopath."

Wikileaks' antipathy toward Clinton stretched back to at least 2015, and the organization didn't have much love for President Obama. "Obama is just a centralizer. He’s bad because representionally he does not look or act like that which he represents. Hillary has similar representation confusion, but she will actively lead the machine to a dark place," read one message dated November 19 2015. On the same day, Wikileaks wrote that "Hillary has so muc hslime [sic] on her shirt it is now hard to make dirt stick."

A leak from Wikileaks

Best told Forbes in Twitter direct messages the leaked Wikileaks DMs showed it was biased against Clinton. "Those DMs just show more of their bias and desire to get the Democrats in general and Clinton in particular."

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The messages briefly touch on the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 election that saw Donald Trump come to power, though they don't reveal any obvious signs of collaboration on behalf of Wikileaks. But U.S. intelligence agencies have said Wikileaks was at the very least a vessel for Russians to spread leaked files that the Kremlin's online spies had stolen. "Whether or not Assange sought to collude with [Russia], he was willing to," Best added.

Wikileaks simply pointed Forbes to its Twitter feed, where it had one post related to Best's release, claiming some tampering may have taken place.

WikiLeaks
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@wikileaks
 Alleged chatlogs from WikiLeaks' supporter group to correct Twitter misinformation : https://www.pastefs.com/pid/65845

Note that the logs appear to have been modified as can be seen by coversational holes (e.g search for 'Norton') but are useful in other ways.https://www.newsweek.com/wikileaks-secret-chats-exposed-11000-twitter-messages-leak-online-1047509 …

2:41 AM - Jul 31, 2018

WikiLeaks suffers its own leak as 11,000 private Twitter chats are exposed online
The secretive cabal—populated with around 11 close supporters—was a “low security” Twitter group.

newsweek.com

Assange remains in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Reports last week indicated talks are taking place between the U.K. and Ecuador on Assange's future.