A popular co-founder of the social news site Reddit previously attempted to gain employment as a consultant for Stratfor, a shadowy private geopolitical intelligence firm, despite his reputation as an open internet activist.
With help from Anonymous hackers, the anti-secrecy group
WikiLeaks has published more than five million emails from
Stratfor since 2011 as part of its “Global Intelligence Files”
campaign. The internal messages have revealed that the company
not only purports to disclose classified “global intelligence” to
the highest bidder, but also sells information that is poorly
sourced. Stratfor clients include Lockheed Martin, Dow Chemical,
the US Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense,
the Marines, Raytheon defense contracting, and a slew of
others.
Along with criticisms that the Texas-based intelligence company
is adding to the military industrial complex (with little
contribution, to boot), other intelligence executives have
asserted that Stratfor is guilty of fraud, breach of contract,
and a variety of other potentially illegal activities, including
nefarious relationships between Stratfor employees and government
officials.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote on his website that
Stratfor is made up of a “global network of informants who are
paid via Swiss bank accounts and pre-paid credit cards — which
includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists
around the world.”
The newest iteration of the “Global Intelligence Files,” which is
being disclosed intermittently, reveals that Alexis Ohanian
expressed interest in a position with Stratfor back in 2011.
Ohanian is best known as a Reddit co-founder but has gone onto to
invest in more than 50 internet start-ups en route to becoming
one of The Daily Dot’s most influential activists of 2012 and
Forbes magazine’s so-called “Mayor of the Internet,” in part
because of his anti-secrecy message.
The discussion, while never leading to any kind of employment,
began when Ohanian met Stratfor Chairman George Friedman at
Bloomberg TV. A series of emails followed, in which Stratfor
communications vice president Meredith Friendman wrote that
Ohanian is “a huge Stratfor fan” and the two parties
“met and talked about doing something with Reddit for social
media.”
Soon after, Ohanian emailed a proposal that, had the intelligence
executives accepted, would have paid Ohanian $25,000 for “the
following discovery phase:”
– Audit of the
Economist in social media & online– This includes
twitter, facebook, youtube, blogs, forums, social news,
podcasts, etc.– Audit of Stratfor
in social media & online– Audit of another
competitor (if you so desire) in social media & online– Three potential
campaigns for going forward based on our analysis– Five
recommendations concerning your existing profiles (e.g., top 5
ways to improve how you’re using twitter right
now)Moving forward, assuming you love our
expertise as much as we think you will, we’d be open to
discussing consulting services on retainer.
Ohanian then emailed: “If you’d like to call me up for a Skype
consulting session I run $1,000/hour.”
The revelations were quickly noticed by the Reddit community,
where forum-members are famous for advocating transparency and
authenticity above all. Some openly wondered whether Ohanian had
somehow manipulated the site to benefit Stratfor. Multiple links
posted on Reddit that redirected users to WikiLeaks’ page were
mysteriously deleted throught the day Monday.
“Reddit is just like any other mega-popular website. It sold
out, and then it became a lackey for the government,” posted
user BankerShanker. “Now you can be sure that every comment
you make is being stored in a machine somewhere, ready to be dug
up and used against you; without context, and with prejudice.
They made a back-door deal with the devil, and many Redditors are
unaware of this fact.”
Ohanian has posted much of the relevant material on his Twitter
feed and took to Reddit to explain the situation to angry
users.
“Let me say this unequivocally: I have never consulted for
Stratfor,” he wrote. “I have never worked for Stratfor —
they invited me to their office during South by Southwest, I got
a tour and they asked me for a quote to consult, so I gave it to
them, but it went nowhere. We hadn’t talked since.”
Republished from: RT