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Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

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Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#11

Post by anovikov »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #9
vbezhenar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good approach. Country must be able to control content served to their citizens. And that ruling should not be extended to other countries. Citizens can either elect different president or use VPN.

Freedom of speech/expression is a right of every individual on this planet. Any regime that does not support that should face pushback from its citizens, businesses, and other countries.

Why? If we are certain that values of free speech are important for national success, then if others suppress them, fine! It only provides us competitive advantage, let them suffer from their mistakes.

Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#12

Post by komahirrimbuke »

I'll leave this here in case anyone wants to argue YPG is not PKK. YPG is a literal terrorist organization. Imagine ISIS had a Facebook page.

"Senior US general explains rebranding YPG away from terror group PKK" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpaIO-Pj10

Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#13

Post by dalbasal »

There are no good solutions here.

Should Facebook ignore Turkish law? Should they go by the US' terror organisation list instead? Should they maintain their own "terrorist list" alongside Turkey & the US'? Separate classifications of illegal or immoral content for in every jurisdiction?

You think there are political biases in American FB or Twitter? ... Try FB in a language or political context that no FB executive even speaks.

Meanwhile, there's chance (grumblings in europe, atm) that FB/Twitter will be subject to positive pressures as well. IE, making it illegal to exclude (eg) a political party from a platform. It doesn't take long before the same content is illegal in one jurisdiction and illegal to restrict in another. The Armenian Genocide comes to mind as a likely example.

Zuck is like a case study in "no morals" corporate culture.

OOH, saying yes to revenue streams worked out really well. FB "retargeting" and creepy personalized advertising won. The effectiveness of the ads, and revenue soared. Being "cutting edge" really, really paid off. It was creepy, but people got used to it. Scandals like Cambridge Analytica also passed. Other platforms (adwords) did it too, and FB doesn't stand out too much.

On the other hand, having no morals makes it very hard to navigate issues like censorship & moderation in multiple jurisdictions. This is exactly the kind of work morals were invented for.

Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#14

Post by nindalf »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #10
carmen_sandiego wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... Zuckerberg should fund a coup in Turkey? There's an easy common argument for these things: restricted mass information/communication is better than none, or better than the lower amount you'd get with a home-grown platform. Seems a pretty good argument to me.

As a product of the United States you would hope that they would stand up for freedom of speech/expression as much as possible and take a principled stand occasionally.

There's a thin line between taking a principled stand and forcefully exporting your values to some other culture. For example, Germany outlaws Holocaust denial. It's not a crime in the US. Should Facebook follow German laws by taking down posts denying the Holocaust? Obviously they should follow local laws, most of us would agree.

Here's the thing - there's only two principled stands here. Either tech giants always follow US law exclusively, forcing it on every country in the world OR they follow local laws as applicable, even if they don't agree with the laws.

If a person says that following Turkish law outlawing the YPG isn't ok but following the German Holocaust law is, that's inconsistent.

Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#15

Post by carmen_sandiego »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #10
carmen_sandiego wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... Zuckerberg should fund a coup in Turkey? There's an easy common argument for these things: restricted mass information/communication is better than none, or better than the lower amount you'd get with a home-grown platform. Seems a pretty good argument to me.

As a product of the United States you would hope that they would stand up for freedom of speech/expression as much as possible and take a principled stand occasionally.

Given they can't change the government of Turkey, I would think maximizing the speech given to Turks within those constraints _is_ standing up for freedom of speech/expression.

In theory, Facebook and others are subject to the same laws as a local company would be. In my experience (in China) though, what actually happens is the local companies will be much stricter, pre-emptively crushing speech they consider just 'risky' rather than actually illegal. Western companies, whose execs are somewhat insulated from local pressures, tend to do better. But only if they're allowed in the country in the first place, which means they have to commit to a certain minimum level of adherence.

Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#16

Post by sneak »

vbezhenar wrote: post #7
thih9 wrote: post #2

To elaborate on the title, “silenced” means: > [YPG’s page] can’t be viewed by Facebook users inside Turkey > The page is still available on Facebook to people who view the site through U.S. internet providers. And “enemy of Turkey”: > Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization, although neither the U.S. nor Facebook do.

This is a good approach. Country must be able to control content served to their citizens. And that ruling should not be extended to other countries. Citizens can either elect different president or use VPN.

Why should any person, elected or otherwise, be permitted to decide what another adult human being is allowed to read?

Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#17

Post by vbezhenar »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #9
vbezhenar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good approach. Country must be able to control content served to their citizens. And that ruling should not be extended to other countries. Citizens can either elect different president or use VPN.

Freedom of speech/expression is a right of every individual on this planet. Any regime that does not support that should face pushback from its citizens, businesses, and other countries.

> Freedom of speech/expression is a right of every individual on this planet

I'm not aware of any country with unlimited speech. Definitely not US or EU countries. I'm not observing huge pushback from US citizens, business and other countries when Facebook and Twitter tried to silence Trump and some other conservative leaders. There are topics that are forbidden by law to discuss in EU, for example to deny Holocaust. Those are examples of lack of freedom in so-called "free" countries. So obviously freedom of speech is not universal approach and some limitation of that freedom is an accepted norm.

Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#18

Post by statstutor »

postingawayonhn wrote: post #9
vbezhenar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good approach. Country must be able to control content served to their citizens. And that ruling should not be extended to other countries. Citizens can either elect different president or use VPN.

Freedom of speech/expression is a right of every individual on this planet. Any regime that does not support that should face pushback from its citizens, businesses, and other countries.

I don't agree with Turkey's law in this case, but you're saying that we should impose our laws and values on all other countries, and also that online services should not have to abide by any laws, with the internet as essentially a lawless state.

I view those both as bigger problems.

Re: Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

#19

Post by sneak »

komahirrimbuke wrote: post #12

I'll leave this here in case anyone wants to argue YPG is not PKK. YPG is a literal terrorist organization. Imagine ISIS had a Facebook page. "Senior US general explains rebranding YPG away from terror group PKK" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpaIO-Pj10

If ISIS had a facebook page, I would be angry at facebook if they censored it.

Related: People claimed Cloudflare used to protect ISIS sites. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/19/cloudflar...

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