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Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

nytimes.com

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Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#141

Post by wayn3 »

jacquesm wrote: post #76
wayn3 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really weird to think of you as an expat, because we are used to thinking of the turkish in ways that are improper. Most expats are expats because the grass was greener where they went. Why are some of us expats while others are merely "immigrants"? Just using that word makes it seem filthy for people from the middle east to come to europe. How are they different from europeans leaving their countries behind? La…

The difference between an 'expat' and an 'immigrant' is that an expat made their choice from a position of strength and an immigrant made their choice from a position of weakness. That's really all there is to it, everything else is exactly the same. Though usually people from wealthy countries would not like to be known as 'immigrants', they are expats, of course.

Yea, but that's just definition. In reality, we call people we consider undesirable "immigrant". Everyone else gets to be an expat.

I wouldn't call refugees expats, but their intentions aren't any different. They just do what's in their best interest.

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#142

Post by adrianm »

hartator wrote: post #139
gkya wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take Erdogan as a businessman instead of a political figure. Because that's what he does. Since when he started his political career, even before the AKP days, he and his family prospered to an incredible level. That's all the care, and the support comes from the businessmen trying to get some benefit out of the business. So the case of Turkey is the case of a group that fruits the state's resources for enrichment of…

> Freedom of speech does not mean irresponsible and banale flow of whatever one thinks. Actually, it is. Freedom of speech can't be whatever seems civil to each person, it's a binary issue. Either you have it or you don't. For example, France, which seems freer than Turkey, actually just fined a comedian that have insulted the prime minister of half retarded Musolinni. That's not okay and it's not fundamentaly differ…

So according to this binary definition of free speech, what countries actually have it?

It seems like many countries have limitations on free speech, which according to this definition would mean they do not actually have free speech.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#143

Post by untothebreach »

flatline wrote: post #128
jimbokun wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A preview of what's in store if the U.S. somehow manages to elect Trump.

Trump is primarily playing off a base of xenophobia and isolationism, for which Americans have always had a certain luxury due to our geographic isolation from the rest of the world. For our one neighbor to the South, he wants to build a wall. I see nothing that would indicate a stifling of the press, individual rights to free expression and assembly, rigged elections, and all the other problems facing Turkey today.

I disagree, I believe there would definitely be effects to freedom of the press and free expression. Trump's opinion of the press is well-documented[1], as well as his opinion on free speech[2][3].

1: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/02/27/trump-freedom-press-n...

2: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-...

3: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/business/media/25trump.htm...

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#144

Post by soundwave106 »

flatline wrote: post #128
jimbokun wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A preview of what's in store if the U.S. somehow manages to elect Trump.

Trump is primarily playing off a base of xenophobia and isolationism, for which Americans have always had a certain luxury due to our geographic isolation from the rest of the world. For our one neighbor to the South, he wants to build a wall. I see nothing that would indicate a stifling of the press, individual rights to free expression and assembly, rigged elections, and all the other problems facing Turkey today.

Donald Trump reminds me more of Silvio Berlusconi than Erdogan, personally.

Berlusconi was nowhere near Erdogan's style of strongman politics, but unfortunately, during his term, Berlusconi did stifle press freedom somewhat in Italy... primarily via questionable libel lawsuits against any critical outlet if I recall.

It's easy for me to see Donald Trump following a similar pattern, of attempting to sue any critical outlet into silence.

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#145

Post by gkya »

Grishnakh wrote: post #136
gkya wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erdogan is not an idiot for trying to censor German press. He does know that that won't ever happen because he wanted. But most the voters of his party will be excited to see him shouting at the Germany, the US, etc. This is not that obvious to the opposition. I came to know some supporters only recently, and boy, they have arousals when the guy acts like this. I'm a Turkish citizen BTW. And see, criticism of Erdogan…

>There was a guy who reported his own wife because she spoke pejoratively about Erdogan. What are divorce laws like in Turkey? I'm betting this guy just wanted to get rid of his wife, and found this to be a convenient way to do so.

Sound and modern. No need to pull a divorce italian style.

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#146

Post by studentrob »

gkya wrote: post #123
studentrob wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Erdogan is not an idiot for trying to censor German press It hurts your country's ability to leverage foreign minds when you begin to censor the outside world. Plus, with the internet, censorship becomes really impractical. China and North Korea don't do this completely successfully and they spend a lot of effort to keep their citizens on some form of lock down. So not only do you end up missing out on the collecti…

Take Erdogan as a businessman instead of a political figure. Because that's what he does. Since when he started his political career, even before the AKP days, he and his family prospered to an incredible level. That's all the care, and the support comes from the businessmen trying to get some benefit out of the business. So the case of Turkey is the case of a group that fruits the state's resources for enrichment of…

> Take Erdogan as a businessman instead of a political figure

The US is strong in the business world because they endure differing opinions!

Astute businessmen can see how limiting free speech limits their own success. Good businessmen do not surround themselves with yes-men.

When you limit free speech of a country, you cut off most of your people from certain intelligence. You could argue the intelligence agency has access to everything, however, at some point, the original guys will retire. They will be replaced with people who grew up without consistent access to the entire world picture. They will thus be disadvantaged when engaging in international politics and trade deals.

I guess it comes down to, do you think current and former leaders of the likes of China and North Korea are more or less happy or successful than current and former leaders of the likes of the US and France.

> Speech should not be regulated in any ways

You're not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater. Governments set limits to every right in order to balance public safety. If you think that's wrong, that's your choice. I'd just point out that you grew up in a society that benefited from this increased safety while sacrificing some portion of its people's rights. Unless you were raised in the jungle :-D.

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#147

Post by usrusr »

gkya wrote: post #78
gokhan wrote: post #35

These days, most forms of criticism of Erdogan is forbidden in Turkey. During the past 14 years, he and his party turned a barely standing democracy with imperfect rules into a semi-dictatorian state with no rules. Police force fully belongs to him and you can derive many similarities with Hitler's early 1930's. There are no mainstream press left daring to oppose him, no prosecutor can question him for his unconstitu…

Erdogan is not an idiot for trying to censor German press. He does know that that won't ever happen because he wanted. But most the voters of his party will be excited to see him shouting at the Germany, the US, etc. This is not that obvious to the opposition. I came to know some supporters only recently, and boy, they have arousals when the guy acts like this. I'm a Turkish citizen BTW. And see, criticism of Erdogan…

> most the voters of his party will be excited to see him shouting at the Germany, the US, etc.

It's even "better" than that, because it is so easy for a leader to re-spin outside criticism from "attack against me" to "attack against us", strengthening his position internally. And this pattern is not even limited to dictators and the like: when Americans made fun of Bush junior, it was perfectly fine application of of free speech. If Europeans did the same, it was antiamericanism making Americans rally around the flag to protect him.

So in the interplay between international and domestic opinion, there seems to be some kind of inverse Streisand effect. Can we please have a word for that? It would make the whole world easier to understand... (german has "Burgfriedensmentalität“, but that is the resulting state, not the mechanism that causes it)

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#148

Post by 6stringmerc »

untothebreach wrote: post #143
flatline wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is primarily playing off a base of xenophobia and isolationism, for which Americans have always had a certain luxury due to our geographic isolation from the rest of the world. For our one neighbor to the South, he wants to build a wall. I see nothing that would indicate a stifling of the press, individual rights to free expression and assembly, rigged elections, and all the other problems facing Turkey today.

I disagree, I believe there would definitely be effects to freedom of the press and free expression. Trump's opinion of the press is well-documented[1], as well as his opinion on free speech[2][3]. 1: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/02/27/trump-freedom-press-n... 2: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-... 3: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/business/media/25trump.htm...

Thank you for listing these; one of the most shocking observations I've had is how absolutely up-front Trump is about saying he'd basically gut the First Amendment because he doesn't like journalists. Having sources like you've provided is quite helpful. Why 'the press' hasn't savagely been aggressive and hostile toward him the way he has to them doesn't inspire confidence in me unfortunately.

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#149

Post by 6stringmerc »

soundwave106 wrote: post #144
flatline wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is primarily playing off a base of xenophobia and isolationism, for which Americans have always had a certain luxury due to our geographic isolation from the rest of the world. For our one neighbor to the South, he wants to build a wall. I see nothing that would indicate a stifling of the press, individual rights to free expression and assembly, rigged elections, and all the other problems facing Turkey today.

Donald Trump reminds me more of Silvio Berlusconi than Erdogan, personally. Berlusconi was nowhere near Erdogan's style of strongman politics, but unfortunately, during his term, Berlusconi did stifle press freedom somewhat in Italy... primarily via questionable libel lawsuits against any critical outlet if I recall. It's easy for me to see Donald Trump following a similar pattern, of attempting to sue any critical o…

Absolutely; he's stated as much flat out. "I want to make it easier to sue the press." As Trump so clearly shows, it's very easy to sue somebody in the US (or use it as an empty threat) - there's lots of avenues for recourse.

Unfortunately for Trump, the courts have consistently sided with the press when they report accurate and factual statements, even if they may be unflattering. This doesn't seem to register with Trump. If asked to define what "treating me fairly" actually, genuinely means, I'm pretty sure he couldn't.

Re: Erdogan’s Attempt to Suppress German Satire Has the Opposite Effect

#150

Post by untothebreach »

6stringmerc wrote: post #148
untothebreach wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, I believe there would definitely be effects to freedom of the press and free expression. Trump's opinion of the press is well-documented[1], as well as his opinion on free speech[2][3]. 1: http://www.politicususa.com/2016/02/27/trump-freedom-press-n... 2: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-... 3: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/business/media/25trump.htm...

Thank you for listing these; one of the most shocking observations I've had is how absolutely up-front Trump is about saying he'd basically gut the First Amendment because he doesn't like journalists. Having sources like you've provided is quite helpful. Why 'the press' hasn't savagely been aggressive and hostile toward him the way he has to them doesn't inspire confidence in me unfortunately.

My cynical opinion is that, unfortunately, "trump stories" == "clicks/viewers" == "more ad revenue", to the point where no news organization can afford to _not_ cover every ridiculous story about Trump.
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