Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says • Hacker News Board

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#131

Post by latraveler » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

lovich wrote: post #64

liberal_098 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The government controlling social media platforms is vastly different from a collection of companies controlling social media platforms that they built If the difference is measured by the effect produced then in many cases it is zero, that is, there is no any difference. For example,we frequently see collective censorship which effectively means the absence of freedom of speech. In fact, there exist also other int…

Freedom of speech is specifically freedom from the government interfering with your speech. Freedom of speech does not mean you can compel others into carrying your message forward. Take your argument to its logical conclusion. Say I want everyone you come in contact with to hear my personal thoughts on government. Are you ok with being compelled to pass along a card with my diatribe on it to all of the people you in…

that's fine, then it's time to slap most of big tech with massive anti-trust cases

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#132

Post by umvi » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

syshum wrote: post #129

stronglikedan wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And a majority of the nation supports ending systemic racism in our laws and institutions I'd wager that a majority of the nation knows there's no "systemic" racism in our laws and institutions, but does support ending the institutional problems that affect everyone who enters the justice system.

I dont know that I agree there is no racism in the laws. The War on Drugs is littered with laws that seem to have no other explanation that targeted racism. The most well known example is the Sentencing disparity between Crack and Cocaine. I would agree that not everything that is claimed to be racism based is in fact racism based, alot of it is Class based as well. But to say there is NO racism in the law is also an…

> I would agree that not everything that is claimed to be racism based is in fact racism based

It's hotly debated topic. Sometimes, statistics clearly show that some system has a racial bias. But often it's misleading because the variable the system is _actually_ selecting might be poverty, not race. The racial bias only appears due to the fact that is disproportionately impoverished.

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#133

Post by ecocentrik » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

briefcomment wrote: post #24

In a dictatorship, cracking down on social media is a no brainer. But I think social media undermines democracies as well. Social media vastly amplifies loud minorities. Democracy assumes that the majority of people are reasonable, so majority rule will also be reasonable. Loud minorities undermine majority rule. Loud minorities have always existed, but social media is now amplifying them to the point of obscuring wh…

The loudest minorities have owned media outlets and been major political contributors. Dictators and plutocrats both have the same need to control the narrative and mute counter-narratives that challenge their authority.

When most people complain about social media they use their previous relationship to media as a benchmark for normality but centrally controlled media never really existed and is no longer strictly possible. Cheap media is always going to be attractive to cranks. Years ago it was pamphlets, AM radio, tabloids and cable news, now it's social media and email campaigns (yes, they still exist). Our relationship to media keeps changing and people learn to deal with the political discourse, disinformation and outright crankery being amplified by these platforms the same way they learned not to pick up an issue of the National Enquirer and tune out the nuts on AM radio.

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#134

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #112

augustt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Columbus has been a point of contention for a while now. Regardless, corporations are not saying BLM because some tiny segment of the country thinks that. A majority of America supports the movement, and that's being reflected by PR now. The last line of defense for conservatives is "well actually there's a silent majority that thinks otherwise" and "actually most people don't care, they're just virtue signaling". An…

> Columbus has been a point of contention for a while now That's a given, but it's arbitrary in that he's not generally recognized as a "symbol of slavery" like Confederate flags or statues are, so it's just minorities taking advantage of turmoil to bypass the democratic process and impose their will on everyone. On a side note, I personally think it's wrong to retroactively "cancel" historical figures because we now…

The confederate statues were erected many years after the war they had lost, specifically to promote white supremacy. Lee wasn't ""cancelled"", he surrendered, and was shown considerably more mercy than the 20th century showed to the surrendering Nazis.

Putting up a statue of Lee was whatever the opposite of virtue signalling is - vice signalling?

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#135

Post by nurettin » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 5:02 PM UTC

zentiggr wrote: post #124

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Turkey is a puppet, who's holding the strings?

What does their export market and foreign currency reserves tell you? (I don't know myself, just suggesting the points of leverage.)

FX reserves tell us whatever every country's FX tell us. That countries have forex, gold and bond reserves to protect the value of their currency. It can also work in the opposite direction. India and US keep large sums of gold. Greece kept large sums of US govt. bonds (until 2008 market crash at which point they found out this was a bad idea).

Japan's Abe is famous for auctioning huge reserves of JPY in order to reduce the value of their currency and stock up on USD. Reduced currency value means their exports became temporarily cheaper and this way they got an artificial boost to their production industry.

This is a complex subject and doesn't show that "country X is the puppet of country Y", it rather shows how they like to strategize for their own benefit.

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#136

Post by csunbird » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #99

csunbird wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Turkish and I feel like the culture difference is just too massive to be a member of EU right now. Economically, it would be an nice addition to EU, because Germany and France would very much enjoy the free access to the this huge market, so the current situation reflects that: EU has nice access to Turkish market with the current agreements, but they do not allow Turkey to be a member.

would you say the cultural difference was equally massive 20 years ago, when turkey was much more aligned towards an EU future? I don't think so much has changed in turkey culturally, but a lot has changed politically

No, I still think we were not ready 20 years ago and we still not are. The main problem with the political changes that it stole from the time we could have used to find a middle ground between both cultures and be compatible, but it was spent on nonconstructive things instead. I do not support that Turkish culture should be replaced by European one, but we could have made it work somehow.

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#137

Post by salmonfamine » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

ferzul wrote: post #123

salmonfamine wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're encountering a fundamental conflict between an unregulated free market and a digital economy that doesn't have any notion of scarcity or cost. The old paradigm just doesn't fit. And the result is that a handful of tech employees and billionaires can wield outsized influence over the dominant media channels and public forums of the entire world without any democratic input or regulatory oversight. The fa…

so how does that work? i cannot think of a workable solution short of an end to the world wide web, and the beginning of a system of national internets and data ports (as in, places you send your data to to export them from one country and import them to another). otherwise, the democratic oversight will just be whatever the u.s can manage. the internet is already falling apart; i notice many u.s media sites are inac…

Yeah, good questions.

I'm not advocating an end to global platforms. And I don't think the democratic oversight should come from the US government. The end goal should be a website like Wikipedia -- non-profit, maintained and perhaps even funded by users.

In fact, I think a lot of the fragmentation of the internet you see abroad is a reaction against the powerlessness of users and governments against the unassailable power of these corporations. Maybe, if we are able to give users some degree of control over the design and policies of these platforms, we might be able to preserve the global internet. Some of that fragmentation -- as you see in the OP article -- is simply a result of governmental authoritarianism, which is a problem either way.

I think the first step would be to re-align some economic incentives by creating digital rights laws. GDPR is a good first step. So establishing something similar in the US. This itself is a hugely complicated step that could go very wrong, and due to the corrupt nature of US politics and the desire for large tech companies for regulatory capture, the potential pitfalls are many.

Then, if we manage to get that right, I think we need to find a way to create legislation that requires these platforms to give their users control regarding how content is presented to them -- essentially, the ability to control their feeds.

I don't know how we would manage to transition these companies to a true non-profit model. As long as they remain for-profit, they will fight and subvert these efforts every step of the way, even after they became law.

However, I think we are increasingly seeing how dangerous and unsustainable the current model is. Perhaps the best way to accelerate data rights is accelerationism -- making the exploits and faults in these platforms as visible as possible by "hacking" them.

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#138

Post by nickik » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

salmonfamine wrote: post #100

briefcomment wrote: post #24

In a dictatorship, cracking down on social media is a no brainer. But I think social media undermines democracies as well. Social media vastly amplifies loud minorities. Democracy assumes that the majority of people are reasonable, so majority rule will also be reasonable. Loud minorities undermine majority rule. Loud minorities have always existed, but social media is now amplifying them to the point of obscuring wh…

I think we're encountering a fundamental conflict between an unregulated free market and a digital economy that doesn't have any notion of scarcity or cost. The old paradigm just doesn't fit. And the result is that a handful of tech employees and billionaires can wield outsized influence over the dominant media channels and public forums of the entire world without any democratic input or regulatory oversight. The fa…

So what? You want to ban all websites with a comment section that are for profit? What about non-profits that make the founders rich by simply paying out a huge wage? Do you mean it should only be allowed to run on donations?

What if the US bans them, and Britain does not. Do you want the US government to systematically control the internet to prevent US citizens from using that British websites?

The things you say are easy to say, but hard to actually make in the real world without running into many more complications.

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#139

Post by nickik » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

salmonfamine wrote: post #137

ferzul wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so how does that work? i cannot think of a workable solution short of an end to the world wide web, and the beginning of a system of national internets and data ports (as in, places you send your data to to export them from one country and import them to another). otherwise, the democratic oversight will just be whatever the u.s can manage. the internet is already falling apart; i notice many u.s media sites are inac…

Yeah, good questions. I'm not advocating an end to global platforms. And I don't think the democratic oversight should come from the US government. The end goal should be a website like Wikipedia -- non-profit, maintained and perhaps even funded by users. In fact, I think a lot of the fragmentation of the internet you see abroad is a reaction against the powerlessness of users and governments against the unassailable…

> is a reaction against the powerlessness of users and governments against the unassailable power of these corporations

Its about governments powerlessness to control the message from foreign cooperations likely influenced by foreign governments.

Maybe 0.000001% of it is 'protecting users'.

> essentially, the ability to control their feeds

Again, probably 0.0001% of Users will so even if you give them the option.

> making the exploits and faults in these platforms as visible as possible by "hacking" them.

So hurting users even more in the process?

Re: Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

#140

Post by nickik » Wed, Jul 01, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

hetspookjee wrote: post #11

It's all too interesting what is happening in the region. Some say he's going back Ottoman empire with his entire navy and claiming pieces of Cyprus to the disliking of Cyprus and Greece. While also performing enormous military exercises under the guise of Mavi Vatan, which also bears symbolic reference to their history. Meanwhile Erdogan is set on keeping the steady flow of immigrants coming for as long as he's the…

I don't think Russia is 'desperate in acquiring more territory'. If anything its desperate to not lose more of them. The Cold War was ended in negotiations with the Soviet Union that stipulated that no NATO expansion towards Russia would happen. But then it did, and again, and again. Not to mention that the US basically broke all the missile treaties as well.

Belarus is staring to realize this and look West, so did Georgia and the Ukraine. Russia is desperate not to lose all influence over these.

They were desperate to keep the Crimea. But to be fair Crimea wasn't even part of Ukraine until 1960 when Khrushchev wanted to increase is own power base. Not really Ukrainians who live there and the region was never much for Ukrainian nationalism.

Russia is desperate not to get parceled up by China, Europe and the US. Russia is declining power, its population is collapsing, it has major brain drain, half of the Russian life outside of Russia. Putin is good at seeming strong but the long term battle is basically lost already.

> USA being somewhat the voice of reason

You mean the voice with the most financial and military power that told others what do? Are you rally so naive to think that 'reasonableness' is what made these things happen?

In the 90s the Russian were sticking mad as hell about this stuff, they just didn't have the power to do anything about it. In the last 15 years the have learn that they can, so they do.