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Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

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Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#221

Post by timthelion »

briandear wrote: post #80
timthelion wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just FYI, Youtube is heavilly sensored in the Czech Republic (we have very strong laws against political extremism, like jail time for extreme right wing speech..). But I don't know of any actual domains that are blocked. The government doesn't need a great firewall to censor. They can simply slap a 2 year jail sentence on anyone who shares a right wing video and that's enough to get youtube to censor itself. Edit: I…

Is there jail time for extreme left wing speech? Like Che Guevara, Mao, Hugo Chavez? Not arguing -- just genuinely curious how extremism is defined there.

You are very unlikely to go to jail for left wing speech. This isn't a matter of placement on a political spectrum though.

The law is as follow:

1) No Nazi symbolism outside of a historic context. 2) No inciting racial hatred. 3) No expression of hatred against a protected minority (the wealthy are not a protected minority).

These are very easy to prove, but none of them apply to normal left wingers. There are Islamist left wingers that fall into these categories because of their anti-semeticism or anti Christian sentiments.

4) No denying crimes against humanity.

This DOES apply to left wingers. If you deny Stalin's genocide against the Ukrainians that would be illegal. It also equally applies to holocaust deniers. I don't know how often it comes up though.

5) No speach which undermines democratic values and seeks to opress others.

I don't think that this is ever actually used. Though it might apply against left wingers.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#222

Post by fulafel »

agumonkey wrote: post #98
sorenjan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of people care, but what are we supposed to do about it? Here in Europe Erdogan makes the headlines from time to time, right before the referendum he made several speeches where he called the politicians of multiple countries "descendants of nazis" and similar. Everybody knows that he cares more about suppressing the Kurds than ISIS. He holds Europe hostage by threatening to release large amounts of refugees i…

I think we should stop communicating from the top. Many problems right now are because heads of state, not necessarily people. Erdogan, Putin ... We should try to get real people to talk, about who they are, what they want (peace ? surely .. war ? not so sure). So peoples in every nation start to avoid the national/patriot filter when thinking and voting.

This is putting your head in the sand. The problem is the people, the voters, who put Putin and Erdogan in office and kept voting for more autocracy instead of democracy. Those presidents are just manifestations, symptoms.

There's always going to be a candidate like that to vote for, and democracy can only survive as long as voters prefer candidates who uphold democracy.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#223

Post by mk89 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #190
mino wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More than 63% voted yes in Germany for instance. I also was baffled about the results of the Turkish vote abroad. How is it possible that, in many EU states, they won which such a majority? I would have expected expats to be generally more liberal/globalist/progressive.

When I lived in Germany a lot of the Turks I knew were very right wing. They were against asylum seekers and would have kicked out foreigners if they could have. The people in the US who are against big government while receiving government pensions remind me a little of that mindset.

Most of the Turks I have had contact with in Germany are racist against Germans (they are jealous of the lifestyle, or for whatever other reason).

The reason they are against asylum seekers may be simpler as it seems: they know that the situation was going to create troubles and escalate, and therefore it will be blamed on the dark ones (the focus is on them). Can you distinguish a Turkish from a Syrian, for example? Furthermore, with this huge expenses for refugees, the social money is likely to be reduced, and I don't have the numbers, but many of them live off of the social security provided by the state. (without even considering the money they get for the kids)

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#224

Post by enraged_camel »

kyriakos wrote: post #151
agumonkey wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should stop communicating from the top. Many problems right now are because heads of state, not necessarily people. Erdogan, Putin ... We should try to get real people to talk, about who they are, what they want (peace ? surely .. war ? not so sure). So peoples in every nation start to avoid the national/patriot filter when thinking and voting.

Erdogan was democratically elected. He's not a dictator (even if he does act as one at this point) and judging from the referendum results, at least half of Turks seem to like his direction. It's easy to say those voters are uneducated or misguided but the fact is that this is how democracy works. Where I am going with this is that we should not blame just the leader but also the people who put him there.

Democracy, just like any tool, can be manipulated and corrupted to serve one's own ends. This is how tyrants come to power: they use populism and nationalism to get elected, then slowly dismantle the very institutions that make up democracy until they are the only one in charge.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#225

Post by mk89 »

ardaozkal wrote: post #189
fulafel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The voters elected and support an autocratic leader, however wonderful people they may be. It's not just about Erdogan.

Reposting my comment from another place here, as it kinda applies to this too, especially the second sentence: > Every single billboard and half the TV ads before referendum were ads telling people to vote "yes". > People didn't even know what they were voting for.

> People didn't even know what they were voting for.

absolutely true! Which says a lot about those people who voted for him.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#226

Post by azangru »

richard_shelton wrote: post #144
azangru wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being a Russian, I am naturally very curious about this idea of the Russian propaganda getting a stronger and stronger influence over the minds of people in other countries. Could you kindly elaborate on the following issues that mystify me: - Where do people get the Russian news and why do they care about what Russia has to say? I mean, I don't follow Polish news (or French news, or German news, etc.); so why would…

Yes, I can understand your wondering (I'm a Russian too). When I hear about the waves of Russian propaganda all around the globe I can't stop to ask myself a question: "how we become so powerful?". I'm afraid that nowadays some people tend to call any opposite opinion in their countries as a Russian propaganda. And I can understand that with a lack of good opposition/alternative media people start to read Russia Toda…

> When I hear about the waves of Russian propaganda all around the globe I can't stop to ask myself a question: "how we become so powerful?"

Thank you! These are my thoughts exactly. I mean, I remember the Soviet times, when the Russian intellectuals, having zero confidence in the official news, used to listen to foreign radio stations over AM radio – Voice of America and BBC World Service (and perhaps Deutsche Welle too) being the most prominent among them. What happened that now the Western media loudly complains about RT? One might even think that the situation has now been reversed, and that the Western world somehow trusts RT more than they trust their mainstream media. But this does not make any sense!

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#227

Post by dogma1138 »

beloch wrote: post #31

I'm a canuck who has worked with Turks and has visited Turkey. They're a wonderful people from a beautiful country with a real problem of a person in power. Turkey is almost entirely Muslim, yet they produce alcohol and tolerate its consumption within their borders, even by their own people. Let that fact sink in for a moment. Erdogan is subverting the premier secular democracy of the Islamic world, but nobody seems…

You are describing the more modern half of Turkey aka the vacation belt.

The other half is much worse than what most western people who are familiar with the Turkish resorts imagine.

It's like looking at SF or SV and extrapolating from it the mindset of the Bible Belt.

Erdogan has support of at least half of the Turkish population and in many ways when compared to the more extreme mindset of it he's a moderate.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#228

Post by maxxxxx »

mk89 wrote: post #223
maxxxxx wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I lived in Germany a lot of the Turks I knew were very right wing. They were against asylum seekers and would have kicked out foreigners if they could have. The people in the US who are against big government while receiving government pensions remind me a little of that mindset.

Most of the Turks I have had contact with in Germany are racist against Germans (they are jealous of the lifestyle, or for whatever other reason). The reason they are against asylum seekers may be simpler as it seems: they know that the situation was going to create troubles and escalate, and therefore it will be blamed on the dark ones (the focus is on them). Can you distinguish a Turkish from a Syrian, for example?…

My experience is from the time before the refugee crisis. At that time asylum seekers were mainly from Africa.

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#229

Post by girvo »

icebraining wrote: post #132
cryptarch wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of western Europe, we should care because we don't have internal OR external border controls, and Turkey is a neighboring country with a lot of refugees to dump on us. I wish I understood why there isn't a move to reinstate border checks in the Schengen area. It seems ludicrous to me to keep internal borders open when it is clear that the external borders have failed.

I wish I understood why there isn't a move to reinstate border checks in the Schengen area. But there is a move. In fact, multiple countries have done so, although temporarily: https://euobserver.com/migration/130260 Thing is, border control isn't free; it may not be visible for many of us, but there are a lot of people reliant on the openness of our borders for their daily lives. Imagine having to pass a border chec…

Letting them drown is exactly what my (Australian) government did, disgustingly...

Re: Wikipedia blocked in Turkey

#230

Post by epmaybe »

ardaozkal wrote: post #180
mino wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More than 63% voted yes in Germany for instance. I also was baffled about the results of the Turkish vote abroad. How is it possible that, in many EU states, they won which such a majority? I would have expected expats to be generally more liberal/globalist/progressive.

When you don't feel the effects of your vote, you don't care about what you vote. I feel like this was the case of the referendum.

It also has to do with culture freeze. When people leave their country of origin, they try and retain the culture they left with, and fail to change with the country over decades. It's a type of coping mechanism for when they enter an unfamiliar place.
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