Thread by @micahflee

Over the last two weeks, WikiLeaks has targeted their army of twitter trolls against me, stemming from a unanimous decision from @freedomofpress's board. WikiLeaks and their trolls are spreading a lot of misinformation about this, so I thought I'd just clear it up. 1/x

In 2010, US government officials put pressure on Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Bank of America to stop processing payments for WikiLeaks. There was no court order, this was an extra-legal attempt to financially censor a news organization. 2/x

This was fucked up. Banks shouldn't have the power to shut down publishers, especially without legal process. What stops them from doing the same to Democracy Now, or whoever else? When I helped start FPF in 2012, we started processing payments for WL to bypass censorship. 3/x

We were successful. We stopped the censorship in its tracks, and anyone who wished to support WikiLeaks could continue to donate to them. Recently, based on all available evidence, we confirmed that this censorship is over, and probably ended in 2013. 4/x

We asked Julian Assange to provide evidence that the financial blockade was still active, if he had any. He responded with a rambling screed full of misinformation (which he published on pastebin) like his claim that he started FPF, and attacks on our board members. 5/x

But he didn't even address our one request, about the financial blockade. So, because there is no more financial censorship of WikiLeaks, the FPF board unanimously voted to stop processing payments. Here is our statement: freedom.press/news/beyond-bl… 6/x

Now to clear things up.

If the financial censorship were still going on, there's no way we would have voted to stop processing payments for them. I would have voted against that myself, because banks shouldn't have the power to shut down publishers. 7/x

FPF hasn't taken ANY money from WikiLeaks. All money donated to WL through FPF's website has gone to WikiLeaks.

FPF hasn't cut off ANY source of funding for WikiLeaks. FPF allowed people to use credit cards, PayPal, bitcoin. You can still donate to WL using these methods. 8/x

FPF still completely supports WikiLeaks rights as a publisher, and opposes any prosecution of WikiLeaks or Assange for their publishing activities. No matter how you feel about WL or Assange, this is critically important for a free press. 9/x

Another piece of misinformation: Julian Assange claims that he is a founder of Freedom of the Press Foundation, but he is not. He is lying about this, and it's easy to confirm by contacting FPF and asking. 10/x

FPF is non-partisan. We're not Democrats. No matter what WL claims, our decision has absolutely nothing to do with partisan politics. IMO, Hillary was an awful candidate with awful policies (although, she wasn't a white supremacist rapist, so there's that) 11/x

FPF hasn't been taken over by the deep state or the CIA. This is an absurd claim, and a perfect example of the type of conspiracy theory WL makes up and spreads on twitter on a regular basis. Just because we did something they don't like doesn't mean we work for the CIA. 12/x

I'm free to criticize WL/Assange as much as I want. FPF is a free speech org. I have the right to free speech.

Attacking WL for their conspiracy nonsense isn't attacking a free press. Infowars, Breitbart, and CNN are also publishers. Are any of them exempt from criticism? 13/x

And finally, after FPF's decision to stop bypassing non-existent financial censorship, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks called us rats.

You might be interested in the history of antisemites and nazis calling people they consider subhuman rats theguardian.com/artanddesign/s…