Eric Schmidt met with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in secret in 2011, according to the transcript of a wide-ranging discussion published late Thursday by the document-leaking organization.
(Credit: Charlie Osborne/CNET)
The transcript of the meeting, which occurred while Assange was under house arrest in the U.K., was published just days before the scheduled release of Schmidt’s new book, “The New Digital Age,” on Tuesday. The book’s co-author, Google Ideas director Jared Cohen, was also present during the discussion, according to the transcript.
The interview, offering an intimate look into the thought processes of two of the tech world’s most influential individuals, was apparently conducted to provide material for that book, according to Assange.
“I have been given a guarantee that I will see the transcript and will be able to adjust it for accuracy and clarity,” Assange says on the transcript.
During the wide-ranging five-hour interview, Schmidt expressed interest in WikiLeaks’ inner workings and Assange’s role in developing the technology behind it. Assange said the genesis of the site was in response to what he saw as a “crippled” information distribution system.
“I fundamentally believe that disinformation becomes so easy to generate because of, because complexity overwhelms knowledge, that it is in the people’s interest, if you will over the next decade, to build disinformation generating systems, this is true for corporations, for marketing, for governments and so on,” Assange said. “And it makes the job for a legitimate journalist that much harder, right.”
