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WikiLeaks is not a Wikimedia project and is thus not affiliated with Wikipedia. For a list of Wikimedia
projects, see Wikimedia Foundation § Projects and initiatives.

WikiLeaks (/ˈwɪkiliːks/) is an international non-profit organisation that publishes news leaks[5] and
classified media provided by anonymous sources.[6] Its website, initiated in 2006 in Iceland by the
organisation Sunshine Press,[7] claimed in 2016 to have released online 10 million documents in its first
10 years.[8] Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and
director.[9] Since September 2018, Kristinn Hrafnsson has served as its editor-in-chief.[10][11]

WikiLeaks

1Graphic of hourglass, coloured in blue and grey; a circular map of the eastern hemisphere of the world
drips from the top to bottom chamber of the hourglass.

The logo of WikiLeaks, an hourglass with a globe leaking from top to bottom
Screenshot

WikiLeaks homepage screenshot.png

Screenshot of WikiLeaks' main page as of 27 June 2011

Type of site

Document archive and disclosure

Available in

English, but the source documents are in their original language

Owner

Sunshine Press

Created by

Julian Assange

Website

wikileaks.org[1]

Alexa rank

Negative increase 23,396 (August 2019)[2]

Commercial

No[3]

Registration

None

Launched

4 October 2006; 13 years ago[4]

Current status

Online

The group has released a number of prominent document caches. Early releases included
documentation of equipment expenditures and holdings in the Afghanistan war,[12] a report informing a
corruption investigation in Kenya,[13][14] and a manual for operations at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.[15][16] In April 2010, WikiLeaks released the Collateral Murder footage from the 12 July 2007
Baghdad airstrike in which Iraqi journalists were among those killed. Other releases in 2010 included the
Afghan War Diary and the "Iraq War Logs". The latter allowed the mapping of 109,032 deaths in
"significant" attacks by insurgents in Iraq that had been reported to Multi-National Force – Iraq, including
about 15,000 that had not been previously published.[17][18] In 2010, WikiLeaks also released the US
State Department diplomatic "cables", classified cables that had been sent to the US State Department.
In April 2011, WikiLeaks began publishing 779 secret files relating to prisoners detained in the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[19] In 2012, WikiLeaks released the "Syria Files," over two million
emails sent by Syrian politicians, corporations and government ministries.[20][21] In 2015, WikiLeaks
published Saudi Arabian diplomatic cables,[22][23] documents detailing spying by the U.S. National
Security Agency on successive French Presidents,[24][25] and the intellectual property chapter of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, a controversial international trade agreement which had been negotiated in
secret.[26][27]

During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, WikiLeaks released emails and other documents
from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta.
[28] These releases caused significant harm to the Clinton campaign, and have been attributed as a
potential contributing factor to her loss.[29] The U.S. intelligence community expressed "high
confidence" that the leaked emails had been hacked by Russia and supplied to WikiLeaks, while
WikiLeaks denied their source was Russia or any other state.[30] During the campaign, WikiLeaks
promoted conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.[31][32][33] In private
conversations from November 2015 that were later leaked, Julian Assange expressed a preference for a
GOP victory in the 2016 election, explaining that "Dems+Media+liberals woudl [sic] then form a block to
reign [sic] in their worst qualities. With Hillary in charge, GOP will be pushing for her worst qualities,
dems+media+neoliberals will be mute."[34] In further leaked correspondence with the Trump campaign
on election day (8 November 2016), WikiLeaks encouraged the Trump campaign to contest the election
results as being "rigged" should they lose.[35]

In 2016, WikiLeaks released nearly 300,000 emails it described as coming from Turkey's ruling Justice and
Development Party,[36] later found to be taken from public mailing archives,[37] and over 50,000 emails
from the Turkish minister of energy.[38] In 2017, WikiLeaks published internal CIA documents describing
tools used by the agency to hack devices including mobile phones and routers.[39][40]

WikiLeaks has drawn criticism for its alleged absence of whistleblowing on or criticism of Russia, and for
criticising the Panama Papers' exposé of businesses and individuals with offshore bank accounts.[41][42]
The organization has additionally been criticised for inadequately curating its content and violating the
personal privacy of individuals. WikiLeaks has, for instance, revealed Social Security numbers, medical
information, credit card numbers and details of suicide attempts.[43][44][45][46]
History

Administration

Legal status

Financing

Leaks

Authenticity

Promotion of conspiracy theories

Criticism and controversies

Reception

See also

References

External links

Last edited 3 days ago by Snooganssnoogans

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