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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

#21

Post by carmen_sandiego »

aranelsurion wrote: post #8
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.

One could look for good arguments to frame this in a better way, though I believe there might be a simpler way to explain: follow the money. Companies and people in the West don't care what happens elsewhere, they're just in for the money. There's money to be made in Turkey as well, and Facebook doesn't care about specifics of how. For the common people this all sounds fair and strategic on the surface level, though…

It's possible that the choice that enriches Facebook is also good for other parties. Whether they even care about the latter or not.

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

#22

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

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

depends on the pov. What's a terrorist to one side is a freedom fighter to the other.

from this month:

> ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday his ruling AK Party and its nationalist allies may start work on drafting a new constitution, less than four years after overhauling the previous constitution to grant his office sweeping powers.

the coup was justified and it's a tragedy Erdogan hasn't been removed from power. The AKP/Erdogan is no longer serving its people. Erdogan/AKP are the real "terrorists".

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

#23

Post by torb-xyz »

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

Funny that you compare YPG to ISIS. YPG/YPJ (alongside others in SDF) where some of the most successful militia in fighting back against ISIS (so much that there where some strategic co-operation with US forces in fighting ISIS).

They also generally fight for Kurdish rights and, ethnic pluralism in general (saved several Yazidi towns from ISIS for example), women's rights and democracy (including forms of local direct democracy seen few other places).

The reason PKK and/or YPG/YPJ is on some terrorist lists is mainly because Turkish government is against Kurdish rights in general. Turkey tend to claim any group fighting for Kurdish independence and/or rights to be terrorists.

So if they're ”terrorists” in the same way apartheid South-Africa saw Nelson Mandela, ANC and others fighting apartheid as ”terrorists”.

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

#24

Post by fishnchips »

pjc50 wrote: post #3
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.

Yeah, "terrorist" is kind of a floating designator. The YPG should be distinguished from the PKK in this instance. The UK takes occasional erratic action against the YPG: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/terroris...

“Floating signifier” I believe is the exact scientific term. That is, if you consider semiotics a science.

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

#25

Post by kobasa »

torb-xyz wrote: post #23
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

Funny that you compare YPG to ISIS. YPG/YPJ (alongside others in SDF) where some of the most successful militia in fighting back against ISIS (so much that there where some strategic co-operation with US forces in fighting ISIS). They also generally fight for Kurdish rights and, ethnic pluralism in general (saved several Yazidi towns from ISIS for example), women's rights and democracy (including forms of local direc…

>The reason PKK and/or YPG/YPJ is on some terrorist lists is mainly because Turkish government is against Kurdish rights in general.

So you're just gonna omit the fact that they have a decades long history of bombing and killing innocent civilians including kids?

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

#26

Post by mountainb »

Hey man, but what if the CIA needs YPG to recruit more so it can put terrorist pressure on Turkey to, uh, defend NATO or something? Someone should check on the spooks to make sure that they're all OK and not suffering from some kind of collective degenerative brain disease.

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

#27

Post by mhh__ »

carmen_sandiego wrote: post #6
bitcharmer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not very uplifting if you account for who's ruling Turkey and establishing these laws, is it?

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.

There is no simple solution here, and we also really shouldn't just throw our arms when faced with moral questions - this is probably what these decades will be known for in the future.

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

#28

Post by dalbasal »

discobot1 wrote: post #4

Facebook is following laws of countries it operates in, truly shocking

Before you dismiss it, follow that wormhole a little.

Should amazon and wikipedia restrict armenian genocide content in Turkey? I believe this is illegal too. How about random blogger or small publication... should they geoblock content by country?

How about speaking disparagingly about a King? That's illegal in Saudi Arabia, Thailand & other monarchies. Should facebook do something about this?

Layer on to this the fact that FB has a near monopoly on all internet use in many developing countries through facebook zero.

At some point "just following the laws" acquires a pretty sinister smell. Content distribution isn't peripheral to what FB does. It's what FB is.

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

#29

Post by Barrin92 »

It's the correct decision (although Facebook likely only cares about its bottom line). the YPG is designated as a terrorist organisation by the Turkish state and it's quite obvious that Turkey will want to exercise sovereignty over its communication channels rather than letting an opposing military force broadcast freely to its citizens.

It's not really the job of a private company to undermine nations in this way for simple reasons of sovereignty, and because even if Facebook were to somehow win in the short term, the five to ten year consequence would probably be that nations like Turkey decouple entirely and take control over communications back a la Russia or China.

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

#30

Post by kristianc »

vbezhenar wrote: post #17
postingawayonhn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

This is simply tu quoque - clearly there are limits to free speech in every country but where possible the right to free expression should outweigh the the state’s desire to silence political opposition.

Twitter was a pretty good example of this actually - protecting people’s right to hear from the President (despite him saying and doing many things that would have got regular users banned) right up until the point where he led an insurrection on the Capitol. I don’t think you can argue anything other than Twitter taking their responsibility to free speech incredibly seriously - to the point where they were often accused of being complicit to juice user metrics. And perhaps do some research into Joel Kaplan before you claim the same of Facebook.

Clearly this is not in the same realm as Holocaust denial (which is incidentally also legal in roughly half of the EU countries).

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