Wikileaks spokesman exits, and reveals his actual name

Daniel Schmitt, the German spokesperson for Wikileaks, shares his true name with the world as he exits the organization. Der Spiegel's story says he quit over disagreements with Julian Assange, but a tweet from @Wikileaks (presumably Assange himself) say Daniel was "suspended a month ago." Either way, the impression of internal strife grows.

• [Shift]

  Wikileaks is starting to sound strangely reminiscent of a gaming mod group. Those things always break down because one detail or another.

• [jphilby]

  “Wikileaks is starting to sound strangely reminiscent of a gaming mod group. Those things always break down because one detail or another.”

  Just like churches, school boards, and empires.

• [Marktschlacht]

  Yes, and Daniel revealed his wife Anke is employed as the top lobbyist (director government relations) by Microsoft Germany. That casts bad light on the potential role of the American company in all this and his illoyal attacks on Assange. Wikileaks published documents from Microsoft in the past and Microsoft went after other disclosure sites.

• [Anonymous]

  Remember that a strong leader is absolutely necessary for this type of organisation. I ran a company with 16 employees for years. I became a dictator eventually, although I didn’t want to be at the start. Was forced into it.

• [turn_self_off]

  To many egos basically.

• [Hools Verne]

  They really need to drop Assange. Soon it will be too late to undo the damage if its not too late already.

• [hassenpfeffer]

  Assange really needs to get his ego out of the way of his work. If he can’t do the work w/o his ego, he needs to hand over the reins to someone else.

• [Laroquod]

  I can certainly understand the conflict if it is over whether Assange should step back from his duties due to trumped politically motivated charges. Politically motivated charges are easy to trump up — what’s to stop it from happening to the people who replace him?

  Hard-working activists are not exactly a dime a dozen. I see logic on both sides of this debate; I think it’s a genuine clash of organisational philosophies, and if those in Assange’s camp think he shouldn’t give the hit squad a win by backing away from his duties, I can’t say he’s wrong. I can’t fault Daniel either for pointing out that the negative press is hurting the org — it is.

  This is a serious PR war and it isn’t totally obvious what is the best way forward for an activist org like Wikileaks. I don’t think it’s necessary to be characterising either side as stupid egotistical when there are real, substantive conflicts of strategic thinking at play.

• [MrsBug]

  I’m sorry to see this happening. I think Wikileaks is doing important work and it’s sad that disunity is causing so many problems.