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Nostrel
Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
471–480 of 600 posts
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Just imagine if during the Johnson or Nixon admins the gov/FBI/etc had actual "embeds" in the WaShPo/NYT, etc. That’s pretty much what journalist Carl Bernstein claimed in 1977, followed much later by historian Hugh Wilford in 2008.
My understanding is that in those days the press and gov were on the same "page" but it was more like when airlines hike prices or lower prices in response to a competitor rather than having actual embeds offering their opinion on what was received facts and what was "misinformation". If Johnson or Nixon has had that level of access and influence, I doubt the VN war protests or Watergate complex scandal would have be…
I’m inclined to mostly agree with you, but I think when it came to politically charged subjects there might have been some influence or attempts, particularly around left-wing issues, communism, labor unions, and civil rights topics.
Nixon had his famous Enemies List which was filled with journalists, and Nancy Reagan was in frequent communication with Los Angeles Times publisher Otis Chandler about the criticism of her husband (then California governor) in the paper, as only two examples.
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#473Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two aspects to the root cause. You mentioned the first part, basic human biology pushes us towards content that elicits a reaction. The second part is that lies inherently have an advantage over the truth to elicit a reaction because they are only limited by human imagination while the truth is limited obviously by the truth. As long as humans have the free will to engage with whatever content they choose,…
We haven't recently invented the concept of a lie, so the idea of "that's just how we are" rings hollow. People are being radicalised by qanon, incels, redpill, the alt-right, at an increased rate because they're being force fed this content on a daily basis, and they're being siloed into custom fit echochambers by algorithms optimising for their engagement.
Which brings us back to my original point. Algorithms are just a multiplier.
If you give people two history books, one with actual history and one with interesting conspiracy theories sprinkled throughout, most people are going to find the one with the conspiracies more interesting. Stopping people from photocopying the book will help slow the spread of the false information in the book, but it does nothing to stop the underlying problem that people are writing fake history books.
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nonsense, if you tolerate disinformation you get more disinformation. Countries that fail to address it will fall and the world will be worse off because of it. The right to free speech does not include the right to a free platform or free promotion.
Who decides what's disinformation?
This narrative has killed many republicans who feared getting vaccinated, and it will only kill more. One could argue that it is their own actions, but I am not keen on blaming people for their circumstances.
The answer is we decide what is disinformation through our institutions and the value we place on them. Your and I's opinion on certain matters should never weigh remotely as much as an expert's on a particular topic unless we are such experts.
We ought to measure the value of one's speech through the scrutiny it has to go through to be published at trusted channels.
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not a keyboard issue. Everyone in my country uses a standard US keyboard, we just press AlgGr to type some characters. I even learned some foreign lanugages, so I use a (standard, included by default in every linux distro) keyboard layout that allows me to type most characters used in European languages by using chords - for example, alt-shift-2 + u = ü. So this is not a keyboard (hardware) problem, just a key…
> standard US keyboard, we just press AlgGr Standard US English keyboards don't have AltGr. But you may mean ctrl+alt on windows or the 'option' button on macs.
It's the right-alt key. If you're using a layout that defines AltGr, the key will just work like that on a US keyboard. Even with just the US keyboard layout, the right-Alt key can still be used with numbers in Windows to type any unicode character.
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
We haven't recently invented the concept of a lie, so the idea of "that's just how we are" rings hollow. People are being radicalised by qanon, incels, redpill, the alt-right, at an increased rate because they're being force fed this content on a daily basis, and they're being siloed into custom fit echochambers by algorithms optimising for their engagement.
Which brings us back to my original point. Algorithms are just a multiplier. If you give people two history books, one with actual history and one with interesting conspiracy theories sprinkled throughout, most people are going to find the one with the conspiracies more interesting. Stopping people from photocopying the book will help slow the spread of the false information in the book, but it does nothing to stop t…
It's a multiplier sure, but this is a completely new issue we're having (at least on this scale). It's caused by social media, that's not really up for debate.
You cannot prevent lies or deception, that's not within the realm of what we're capable of. Don't let good be the enemy of perfect.
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For anyone telling to use VPN, yeah, many people are used to using VPN because of these blocks not to mention, imagine learning to setup a VPN (Beacuse your life depends on it) while you're buried under rubble..
[flagged]
Let them eat cake.
How I miss n gate.
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with allowing the interpretation of whether something should be censored be based on the obvious nuances that it entails is that the exact nuance is not universal among all people. This is why ZERO censorship is the only reasonable form of censorship.
I have trouble grasping the extend to which you appreciate the degree of thinking done by other parties for your own benefit. It is the case that unless you are a polymath with copious amount of time and money, you will never be able to accumulate sufficient information to make fully educated decisions in a world truly devoid of censorship. By fully educated I mean starting from the bottom up and going all the way th…
Care to tell me what I did wrong to warrant this reaction?
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#479Erdogan's first speech was almost 2 days after the earthquake and he said "We are monitoring who said what on the social media and tried to provoke the people. Today it's not the day to go after those but we take notes and when the day comes, we will go after them". Just look at his face when delivering this speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doy38aKbMw4 It's like from V for Vendetta. The lighting choice is very…
Can anybody elaborate why? I understand if it's financial crisis or some other gov fuckup. But this is a natural disaster on an unprecedented scale, government may not have enough resources to handle it. What's the game here?
Let me try.
So Erdogan himself came into power after the 1999 Earthquake devastating the country and wrecking the economy, leading to early elections, leading to his party winning landslide election in 2002.
That earthquake was like nothing seen before, hitting the most industrialised and populous part of the country and they had to introduce new taxes like Luxury consumption tax to fix the damage and prepare so that this never happen again.
This luxury tax is applied pretty much on anything and that's why an iPhone 14 Pro cost 2300$ in Turkey(US price is 1000$). Turks also pay 2x to 5x the price of the price in EU or US on purchasing automobiles, so it's a big deal. They also have lot's of safeguards so people just don't buy from abroad, therefore everyone chips in.
Also, Erdogan's primary achievement is construction business. He made sure that the builders can build and profit hugely, they also destroyed a lot of nature in the process and fine tuned the economy to serve the construction sector through the years. Guess what was the first Covid measures Erdogan announced at the start of the pandemic? He announced credit facilities for purchasing homes, no joke.
Also, the new buildings were supposed to be built according to the new code which is quake resilient and it was one of the prime motivations of this construction based economy.
Fast forward 20 years and we were struck with another huge earthquake.
The initial response is very weak, in contrast to the 1999 quake because in that one the Turkish Army was summoned immediately but this time for some reason Erdogan doesn't request assistance from the army and the protocol allowing local governments requesting assistance was removed by Erdogan in the previous years.
A full day passes without anything to show as a response when people are sending selfies from under the rubble with their address, seeking help. Most places receive no help whatsoever and people go into a winter night under the rubble or on the streets without electricity, food or water.
Videos showing newly build homes collapsed, people find promotional materials claiming quake resistance and the new buildings are collapsing like the old ones
The luxury tax, AKA the earthquake tax collected wasn't used to be ready for the next quake. This was something widely known and criticised but now we have videos of newly built buildings collapsed. It materialised.
Anger builds up, Erdogan is no where to be seen and the ministers are giving ridiculous speeches about how everything is under control and use a language crafted for the upcoming elections.
Then Erdogan appears on the TVs giving the speech you can watch.
So yes, he fucked it up for about 20 years and fucked it up on the disaster night. He used to be huge critic of the way the politician he replaced handled the quake and he ended up doing exactly the same, even worse. If the irony has not set in yet, let me tell you that Turkey is in economical crisis for some years now and Erdogan is in a coalition with the guy who was in a coalition with the guy who he replaced. It's almost poetic.
Re: Twitter restricted in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nonsense, if you tolerate disinformation you get more disinformation. Countries that fail to address it will fall and the world will be worse off because of it. The right to free speech does not include the right to a free platform or free promotion.
Who decides what's disinformation?
I hear this question posed a lot in this context, but we already done this now don't we? Someone (or ones) decides which laws are valid, which educational material to teach our kids etc. Are those not ok because some person or body of people have decided for the rest of society?