As I scrolled through my Facebook news feed, I discovered the following artwork here, being shared by the page, “Being Libertarian,” and originally posted it to my own wall, along with commentary…

“2016: The year hackers broke some of the biggest news stories, and the journalists tried to cover them up.”

My Commentary: Since too many seem to lack understanding of the complex dynamics at play, I’ll try my best to clear things up. The “hackers” are those individuals securing and protecting high-value “leaked” data through various means, such as encryption, for example. Julian Assange, on the other hand, is a program coder, and the editor-in-chief of “Wikileaks.org,” where all of the various leaks, from all of their various different sources, are being disclosed for major public distribution and consumption. The “hackers” are also helping to keep Wikileaks, itself, secure and protected from being hacked, sabotaged, or otherwise shut down. The “leakers” are almost all anonymous whistle-blowers, mostly completely unrelated and unknown to each other. The “hackers” are helping to keep the “leakers” as anonymous, secure and protected as possible, for the safety of the “leakers,” and to keep more leaks flowing in, from both old and new sources.

The whole operation began as a sort of grass-roots movement, and has since become more centered in a crowd-sourcing model, especially since gaining popularity. All of those who are involved are working their hardest to provide a much-needed public service, in an effort to expose the dark, corrupt, and often criminal, underbelly of governmental operations with the understanding that the world deserves full transparency relating to the activities of our “public servants,” and our “tax dollars”. As you can read, the “hackers” are the glue that binds this operation together, and they are to be praised for their heroic efforts!

I hope this helps out everyone who’s taken the time to read this! And, if you have anything constructive or corrective to add, please feel free to comment below, as this information will be posted upon my website, AcidRayn.com, very shortly, and any helpful or clarifying comments will be added into a second post on the topic. Thanks! 🙂