After first working with WikiLeaks, investigative reporter Emma Best fell out with Assange in 2016, accusing him of lying about the source of the DNC email leak. In 2018, Best leaked sealed chat logs that were part of the case against Assange. Now it appears Best has set her sights on AssangeDAO Discord, threatening on Twitter what would be in effect a hostile takeover.
Having deleted Discord from my computer months ago in disgust, I cannot verify that Best and her 39K Twitter followers have made good on this threat. But I invite any of our few members who still keep occasional tabs on AssangeDAO Forum to check it out. If there’s evidence of potential subversion, AssangeDAO Discord moderators should be made aware of the source.
Of course she’s right, but does that mean she should be allowed to usurp AssangeDAO Discord as a chatroom for her Distributed Denial of Secrets website? DDoSecrets is a competitor to WikiLeaks, which Best claims is broken. She could easily create her own Discord channel, but she just wants to embarrass her old adversary Julian Assange.
AFAICT I rarely saw a proper community engagement that actively tried to really draft serious proposals, good ideas and have proper interest to help Julian. For many months there were misunderstandings (intentionally or unintentionally) and people that spreaded FUD and threats, which lead to less engagement from all sides. IMHO, everybody in this DAO has the opportunity to make an environment healthy and constructive, focusing on the mission and not forget why this place has been created in the first place. To free Julian and therefore to protect the future of journalism, human rights and free speech. It was not intented to be a crypto-casino for speculating gamblers and the donation that went to WAU Holland, is for me a completely different and independent topic, than the development of the DAO.
I think it’s not just 1-3 people, that are responsible for the developement of a DAO. Gabriel and people of the consensus unit work and tour hard to help Julian. It’s up to us, the community, to make this place as best as it could be. I believe that this place is still at the beginning and the sooner enthusiastic people join that actively want to fullfill the main mission and actively try to improve the DAO, the more momentum this place would get.
There always will be naysayers or people that rather focus on negativity, instead on concrete and constructive ways how to improve something.
Update. Evidently in response to the threat from Emma Best, the moderator @AssangeDAO has removed the account’s Twitter profile link to AssangeDAO Discord.
Since Emma Best has accused me on Twitter of misunderstanding her assault on AssangeDAO, I held my nose and reinstalled Discord on my PC to see firsthand what’s going on. It’s true I mistook her intention as being a hostile takeover of AssangeDAO’s Discord channel. Rather, she has hijacked the prominent Discord button atop the home page of AssangeDAO’s official website, redirecting its hyperlink to her own Discord channel, DDoS_DHO—where she attacks AssangeDAO under the nom de guerre Mx. Yzptlk. (Mxyzptlk, I am informed by Wikipedia, is a trickster deity in DC Comics’ Superman adventures.) I’m no techie, but I imagine Emma’s hack could be readily corrected by a moderator at AssangeDAO.org, providing there are any who give a damn, which I very much doubt.
BTW, prime AssangeDAO Forum member @EWillHelpYou, seemingly out of the blue, denounced Emma Best on his Telegram channel yesterday. He did not mention her ongoing AssangeDAO hack, but did say she “was always an IC [Intelligence Community] plant.” I don’t know whether or not EWillHelpYou is a moderator at AssangeDAO.org, but given his stature in this community, perhaps he can raise the alarm about what she’s doing, as I’ve documented above.
There are assets. If the DAO was to wind up - it would have to auction the NFT which it owns and distribute those proceeds and funds it has reserved in the treasury back to its token holders.
@rave I did not know that @EWillHelpYou left AssangeDAO. Did he announce it on Discord? I referred to him above as a “prime” Forum member in the sense of being among the first in time. Early in January he was, in his words, “elected as community manager of the DAO (meaning I am responsible for the development of its online community and overseeing progress in general), and unofficially built the website for the DAO (I wasn’t elected to do it, it just had to be done and no one else did it; still a bit of a work in progress but I managed to get the basics built and ready).” For such a key member to have dropped out is disturbing. His roles at AssangeDAO Discord show how important he has been to this project.
Is this the conversation you mean? I’m not sure I’d construe @GabrielShipton saying “Seems like E is off doing other stuff these days anyway” on Discord as E left the DAO weeks ago. And I certainly would not agree that, whatever @EWillHelpYou’s current status, it’s not this DAOs problem anymore what they think. You are being entirely too dismissive of a member whose contributions to AssangeDAO have been immense. As an administrator, E is an autocrat, and his high-handed treatment of @PMA was deplorable. But that does not negate his historical significance to AssangeDAO, where he became a founding developer at Julian’s request and spent every waking moment for more than a month raising >$55 million for Assange’s legal defense. He deserves respect.
Six days ago, longtime WikiLeaks enemy Emma Best hijacked the Discord link at AssangeDAO’s official homepage, redirecting it to her own channel.
Yesterday, Forum member @raveraised the issue at AssangeDAO Discord, asking for a tech person to fix it. Sixteen hours later, there has been no response. On Twitter, meanwhile, Emma continues gloating to her 39K followers.
They have a fundraiser that’s made not much more than a thousand dollars since early May. And that organization was banned permanently from twitter. They have their own legal issues. I can’t comprehend why they hurt their own reputation by wasting time on a stunt.
This DAO, with the help of Pak (who has millions of internet followers - refer https://twitter.com/archillect) and people like Harry Halpin and Amir promoting it to an international audience, raised - around 50 million. Funding for future Free Assange campaigns and all his legal expenses will be no issue.
I do hope our tech people can address the problem. If they can’t for whatever reason (?) - I think the DAO needs to employ an Operations Lead, a person vetted in the industry. PMA may not be here but I assume they would have good suggestions as to people the DAO could choose from. I assume many DAOs struggle with teething problems. Id like to see it being a success and responsive to people who are holders.
Hi guys, partly my fault. I am the discord administrator and I totally didn’t see that our nitro boost was expiring, and it let them steal our custom link…
Anyways our discord is still absolutely fine.
We need to get more active in the DAO - I don’t ever want the DAO to retire until Assange is Free.
