Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

wikimediafoundation.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 283 posts

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#31

Post by lostlogin »

mengibar10 wrote: post #26
lostlogin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not clear. The elections were widely reported to be fraudulent and voter intimidation and violence were widely reported. A meaningful portion of the world’s imprisoned reporters are in Turkey. It is trivial to find articles and reports on this.

and you can say that while Erdogan's party lost all local elections couple of months ago in all major cities like Ankara, Istanbul?

> It is trivial to find articles and reports on this.

I’ll link to the Wiki, as that seems right. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_presidential_el...

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#32

Post by tomrod »

navaati wrote: post #25
brenden2 wrote: post #19

I wonder what will happen (politically) in countries that engage in mass Internet censorship when SpaceX's Starlink constellation goes GA. I've always believed (perhaps naively) that the Internet is a great equalizer for information. Free (as in freedom) and unfettered Internet access seems like one of the few things that could make it incredible difficult for bad and oppressive regimes to operate anywhere in the wor…

As a billionaire philanthropist you will still have to align to your home country’s foreign policy, because your billions only have value so far as the State enforces your property rights. So very concretely, if China says "hey US of A, please don’t bring uncensored Internet to my citizens: it would be a shame if all this manufacturing and trade suddenly stopped", and the US gov agrees, then Elon Musk will not provid…

Unless he hoards wealth and assets in a third party area, like Mars, Antarctica, or his private home with a hired army

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#33

Post by the8472 »

brenden2 wrote: post #19

I wonder what will happen (politically) in countries that engage in mass Internet censorship when SpaceX's Starlink constellation goes GA. I've always believed (perhaps naively) that the Internet is a great equalizer for information. Free (as in freedom) and unfettered Internet access seems like one of the few things that could make it incredible difficult for bad and oppressive regimes to operate anywhere in the wor…

Starlink needs special phased array antennas. Unless those become commoditized they can just ban imports.

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#34

Post by jedieaston »

brenden2 wrote: post #19

I wonder what will happen (politically) in countries that engage in mass Internet censorship when SpaceX's Starlink constellation goes GA. I've always believed (perhaps naively) that the Internet is a great equalizer for information. Free (as in freedom) and unfettered Internet access seems like one of the few things that could make it incredible difficult for bad and oppressive regimes to operate anywhere in the wor…

SpaceX has already said that Starlink hardware will be offered by partners for countries outside the United States, in order to abide by local laws (i.e., in China, the hardware will have to route through the gfw)[0]. It won't be a magic bullet for censorship, unfortunately (unless you could smuggle a US router into another country, but there may be some kind of DRM or something to prevent you from doing that).

[0]: https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlin...

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#35

Post by mmhsieh »

SXX wrote: post #23
alimoeeny wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You assume a vpn service (or even an ssh tunnel) is something a grad student in a third world country can afford? Often this is not the case.

I think you shouldn't use terminology you don't understand: 1. All this "1st / 2nd / 3rd world" is from cold war time and not really relevant anymore. 2. Turkey is NATO member since 1952 so it's would be your first world country. PS: Of course Turkey is not a rich country, but everyone there can certainly afford $3-5 a month for VPN. UPD: s/user/use/

yes, the three worlds concept was actually invented by mao and has more to do with bloc alignment and less with economics. it is outdated and new terms are needed.

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#36

Post by tomashubelbauer »

mengibar10 wrote: post #30
SXX wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you shouldn't use terminology you don't understand: 1. All this "1st / 2nd / 3rd world" is from cold war time and not really relevant anymore. 2. Turkey is NATO member since 1952 so it's would be your first world country. PS: Of course Turkey is not a rich country, but everyone there can certainly afford $3-5 a month for VPN. UPD: s/user/use/

Very well said. There are no worse people than those who trash their own country with ludicrous arguments.

Sounds like there would be worse people than that.

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#37

Post by input_sh »

brenden2 wrote: post #19

I wonder what will happen (politically) in countries that engage in mass Internet censorship when SpaceX's Starlink constellation goes GA. I've always believed (perhaps naively) that the Internet is a great equalizer for information. Free (as in freedom) and unfettered Internet access seems like one of the few things that could make it incredible difficult for bad and oppressive regimes to operate anywhere in the wor…

You can't connect to the satellite via your end device, you need an antenna.

So, a regressive country can just control the import of such antennas.

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#38

Post by Ididntdothis »

tomrod wrote: post #32
navaati wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a billionaire philanthropist you will still have to align to your home country’s foreign policy, because your billions only have value so far as the State enforces your property rights. So very concretely, if China says "hey US of A, please don’t bring uncensored Internet to my citizens: it would be a shame if all this manufacturing and trade suddenly stopped", and the US gov agrees, then Elon Musk will not provid…

Unless he hoards wealth and assets in a third party area, like Mars, Antarctica, or his private home with a hired army

Billionaires still need the protection of a nation state. Their wealth would go away quickly if they had to finance an army. Maybe trillionaires can pull that off.

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#39

Post by rdl »

brenden2 wrote: post #19

I wonder what will happen (politically) in countries that engage in mass Internet censorship when SpaceX's Starlink constellation goes GA. I've always believed (perhaps naively) that the Internet is a great equalizer for information. Free (as in freedom) and unfettered Internet access seems like one of the few things that could make it incredible difficult for bad and oppressive regimes to operate anywhere in the wor…

Most satellite systems allow countries to block access. The first tier is refusing to sell to locals/local billing addresses (which is ALSO imposed by sanctions, e.g. due to USA, satcom vendors with any US connection don't sell to Iran/NK); the second tier is allowing countries to ban operation within their borders. There are tricks (what actually matters to the satellite is your exact delay, so there's a range of spots which look the "same", and you can spoof GPS or fake it in the firmware...), but that's more applicable to fixed C/Ku VSAT than it is to portable systems like Starlink.

I'd love it if the US gave Musk the diplomatic/military cover to make Starlink available globally, but we might end up with issues (ITU or jamming/military) if that happened. Might still be worth it though.

Re: Access to Wikipedia restored in Turkey after more than two and a half years

#40

Post by mminer237 »

navaati wrote: post #25
brenden2 wrote: post #19

I wonder what will happen (politically) in countries that engage in mass Internet censorship when SpaceX's Starlink constellation goes GA. I've always believed (perhaps naively) that the Internet is a great equalizer for information. Free (as in freedom) and unfettered Internet access seems like one of the few things that could make it incredible difficult for bad and oppressive regimes to operate anywhere in the wor…

As a billionaire philanthropist you will still have to align to your home country’s foreign policy, because your billions only have value so far as the State enforces your property rights. So very concretely, if China says "hey US of A, please don’t bring uncensored Internet to my citizens: it would be a shame if all this manufacturing and trade suddenly stopped", and the US gov agrees, then Elon Musk will not provid…

You think China could make the US government make a private citizen censor the Internet in a different country?

1. Stopping trade with America would completely destroy China. They could bluff, but they have very little actual leverage. Their economy is hugely dependent on the US.

2. The US government is not really a fan the Great Firewall or of the Chinese government. It's unlikely it'd just be cowed into submission, especially with Trump in office.

3. Even if the government wanted to not upset China, I don't see how it could stop Starlink legally. You think a law would pass that would make it criminal to distribute uncensored information in China? There would be so much public outrage at that. I can't imagine either party supporting it at all. Plus, I can easily imagine that being struck down as unconstitutional. It would spend forever in the courts at the least.

4. Even if it did pass, Starlink would just move to Canada or South Africa or somewhere before it services China. In no scenario can Musk lose his billions. The US loses half its space economy, but there's no mechanism to take his money or to actually stop Starlink.

Post reply on HN