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

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

#201

Post by salmonfamine » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #200

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…

>I think drastic action is the only way to do so. Building alternatives won't work It sounds like you're calling for jackbooted thugs to go and shut down newspapers. This has historically not been a sign of a society headed in a good direction.

I am not. Thanks though.

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

#202

Post by closeparen » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

salmonfamine wrote: post #201

closeparen wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think drastic action is the only way to do so. Building alternatives won't work It sounds like you're calling for jackbooted thugs to go and shut down newspapers. This has historically not been a sign of a society headed in a good direction.

I am not. Thanks though.

Then what kind of drastic action against for profit media are we talking about?

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

#203

Post by closeparen » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 1:42 AM UTC

salmonfamine wrote: post #181

closeparen wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democratic input and regulatory oversight over discourse is in the same category as total surveillance: a perfectly benevolent operator would certainly be able to produce a better world with it, but we cannot trust anyone with that kind of power.

But we have before, at least in the US. It worked pretty well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine Just because there would be some democratic input doesn't mean there would be total democratic control. I think that's a pretty un-substantiated slippery slope.

The allocation of RF spectrum is unavoidable. It can be done in either time domain or frequency domain; the FCC opts for both.

Similar issues appear for the internet with respect to backbone capacity and video streaming, but political speech mostly doesn't encounter the kinds of scarcity problems that justify such a heavy hand.

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

#204

Post by triceratops » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 1:49 AM 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…

> he's not generally recognized as a "symbol of slavery"

He's not recognized as a symbol of plantation slavery because it didn't exist at the time. But he enslaved the native population of Hispaniola and was incredibly inhumane and cruel to them. So much so that the Spanish crown "canceled" him. Crazy, right?[1] He also never set foot on the US mainland. There aren't really any good reasons to have statues of the guy around.

> Most of the founding fathers had slaves

Is anyone taking down statues of Jefferson, Washington, Adams and co? You're drawing a false equivalence between them and Confederate leaders.

Confederate leaders engaged in high treason, and took up arms against their countrymen to defend their right to own other human beings. They deserve to be "canceled". There was already a public hearing about all of this 160 years ago. It was called the Civil War and they lost. The only reason these people weren't tried and executed for treason is because the Union saw fit to offer generous terms in order to end the conflict quicker and save lives (note how it never occurred to the Confederates that they too could save the lives of their own people, if only they gave up on their determination to own other human beings).

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#Accusatio...

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

#205

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #204

umvi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> he's not generally recognized as a "symbol of slavery" He's not recognized as a symbol of plantation slavery because it didn't exist at the time. But he enslaved the native population of Hispaniola and was incredibly inhumane and cruel to them. So much so that the Spanish crown "canceled" him. Crazy, right?[1] He also never set foot on the US mainland. There aren't really any good reasons to have statues of the guy…

> The only reason these people weren't tried and executed for treason is because the Union saw fit to offer generous terms in order to end the conflict quicker and save lives.

On the other hand, they were (at least those vary many who had sworn oaths to the federal Constitution that were broken in rebellion) permanently barred by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (not coincidentally the same one that expressly imposed due process and equal protection constraints on the States) from public service, federal or state, unless rehabilitated by a 2/3 vote of both houses of Congress. It seems silly to honor and celebrate people whose acts against the country were so extreme as to warrant the creation of such a bar in response.

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

#206

Post by redis_mlc » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

pnako wrote: post #193

Barrin92 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't mandate that people should buy bratwurst, or read Horace of course you can. Do you know why the Breton language in France is reduced to 200k speakers and the Académie française gets to determine how French is spoken? Because the state stamped out every regional language during the creation of the Republic, and that was that. Are the native cultures of the new world almost gone because they're worse cultur…

>Because the state stamped out every regional language during the creation of the Republic, and that was that. They had signs on the walls in Breton schools telling that "it's forbidden to spit on the ground, or speak Breton".

Malaysia, a former British colony, stopped teaching English in schools for the past 2 generations out of local pride.

Ironically, the generation older than that can still speak English, and roll their eyes when they have to translate for their adult kids who can't engage in tourism or trade.

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

#207

Post by kunfuu » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:54 AM 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…

I disagree with your factual statements as well as political theoretical statements.

Regarding political theoretical statements:

There are different paradigms of liberal democracy currently. Some of them can be regarded as appealing to the will of the majority for legitimacy, but essentially they don't assume that the majority are reasonable, but merely that we shall respect the will of the majority and base policies on their stance.

Disregarding illiberal democracy paradigms, all liberal democracy paradigms recognize the value of minority voices and recognize that their rights shall be protected, the right to freely express included.

Regarding the factual statements:

The mainstream US media didn't take social media as an input of significance for understanding the majority stance of US population before 2016. Those journalists had their echo chambers and represented a vocal minority in their echo chambers.

Social media, on the other hand, provides a meaningful alternative allowing some different opinion groups to express their opinions beyond the echo chambers of mainstream media. The liberal-leaning mainstream media now has a tendency to exaggerate the influence of some niche circles on social media (e.g. the so-called alt-right), though.

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

#208

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 4:51 AM 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…

I think you're arguing in good faith however we should normalise destroying what are essentially idols. It needs to go way way deeper than pulling down a statue though. Right through the education system. In order to not cancel historical figures we can be more honest about them. Add the current events and their background to the curriculum and discuss why they happened, AFTER, you have taught the children the history through the lens of the white colonialist (as is currently done in school). That would be a far greater educational experience than anything on offer today anywhere.

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

#209

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 4:54 AM UTC

chr1 wrote: post #192

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…

Instead of trying to silence the loud minority, a better solution would be to return a proportional voice to the silent majority. One way for that would be open voting where people vote not for political parties but directly for laws, and can trade votes between each other.

Given what happened with Brexit I think this idea can only work with a highly educated populace living within a society underpinned by intellectually honest political discourse. We have neither at the moment.

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

#210

Post by rorykoehler » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 5:13 AM UTC

dantillberg wrote: post #69

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…

> This is why we can have an election outcome that no one in the media predicted. I presume you're referring to the 2016 presidential election in the US, and if so that's patently false. FiveThirtyEight estimated a ~28% probability[0] that Trump would win, and other major media outlets had similar outlooks prior to the election. Many willfully interpreted "28% chance" as "with any luck it won't happen," but you can't…

I predicted a Trump win. Actually I said that Trump would win against Hillary but lose to Bernie. I still believe that to be the case. Though I like many of Hillary's ideas (such as freedom of movement in the western hemisphere) Hillary had too much baggage to win. She doesn't have the charisma to shake the baggage. Added to that after the DNC debacle (also after my prediction) there was no transfer of support from Bernie to Hillary. This was the final nail in her campaign. The main surprise to me was how close it ended up being. In hindsight Trump is the inevitable result of decades of gas-lighting. It may also be the pivotal moment in US democratic history where the majority re-assumes responsibility for their government. An awakening of sorts.... if it doesn't get hijacked by subversive political operatives.