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Turkey determined to control social media platforms, Erdogan says

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

#71
post #64

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…

> Freedom of speech is specifically freedom from the government interfering with your speech

Yes, it is an important point but somewhat old. Nowadays it can be generalized: freedom of speech is a protection of the stage from monopolization by anyone (being it a government, company or private person). I would say, now it is more important and much more difficult to protect the communication channels from giant companies which are much stronger than most governments (and in many cases actually control the governments).

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

#72
Every time I see news like this I can't help but wonder what would happen if federated social media becomes mainstream. All these attempts to regulate social media generally revolve around there being a "platform", it being a company, it caring about profits, it having a legal department etc. It all falls apart spectacularly if you frame social media as something intertwined with the internet itself, with no central authority whatsoever.

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

#73

I wonder what some mid- to long-term consequences of Turkey slipping into dictatorship will be for NATO as a whole. It's clear Turkey is drifting away from the values held by the alliance members. I'm so glad they haven't been accepted into the EU. That would be a disaster.

This is the sixth or seventh incident within the past 10 years. Every time economy goes to the gutter, they make a speech about how "outside forces are trying to bring us down" or "the world is envious" or "we will shut down twitter". Two weeks later, everything goes back to normal. So far, wikipedia took the longest to recover because everyone was too scared to take action without asking the president and he was pro…

>"Every time economy goes to the gutter, they make a speech about how "outside forces are trying to bring us down"

Thank you for discovering universal rule. If you read US/Canadian press for example you might find out that for any bad thing happening inside some evil foreign entities are responsible. Any government needs an enemy to take people's eye from their own f..k ups.

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

#74

There is a reason why we're seeing the rise of the autocrats (Erdogan, Putin, Jiping, Orban, Bolsonaro, Trump, Duterte, Kaczyński, ...): it is because openness and democracy triumphed before. And it won because previous autocrats failed. Edit: my point is: starting in the late 70's, authoritarian regimes failed miserably before all over the world, therefore there's no reason to believe they'll succeed thist time. Rem…

> it is because openness and democracy triumphed before How do you think openness and democracy triumphing cause the rise of autocrats? Are you referring to Plato's five regimes theory, where each type of government degenerates into a different government, in a cycle? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes

> How do you think openness and democracy triumphing cause the rise of autocrats?

Sorry, I expressed myself badly. It doesn't "cause" it just provides a contrast that makes this look as different of what was there before.

If Latin America, Eastern Europe, Middle East and East Asia were still under the authoritarian rulers of the Cold War era, these new autocrats wouldn't be a novelty.

My point is that autocrats failed before and all those places tried democracy. It succeeded in most of them, but a few want to go back to something that is not viable anymore.

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

#75
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bulgaria is another notable outlier. Formal EU member, democracy by constitution, government officials relatively well respected in Brussels. Inside - autocratic regime with no division of powers, facade institutions serving the interest of the political oligarchy, no authentic political parties representing the interests of the wider population.

I remember about 10-15 years ago, I went there during their Liberation Day. There was a TV on, and I could understand most of what was said, due to having visited Bulgaria many times before. The guy was standing on a podium, between two eagles. First they played Flight of the Valkyries. Then the guy started speaking openly, and to wild cheering form the crowds, about how he wanted to send Turks and Gipsys back to the…

That was probably Volen Siderov, the founder of the first nationalist political party after the fall of communism. His "Ataka" party gained some serious momentum during 2005-2009, but is now largely defunct, with very little support, partly thanks to his inconsistent and outrightly rude behaviour. They always held rallies on the Liberation Day during those years and many Bulgarians were seeing "Ataka" as the only authentic party among all other creations of political engineering under the guidance of former state security.

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

#76

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'm surprised you chose this as the prime example. I think things surrounding George Floyd protests are more apt examples (tearing down arbitrary statues, cancel culture, CHOP/CHAZ, social media mobs, etc).

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

#77
post #25

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…

But Turkey is not a democracy?

> Turkey is not a democracy?

It's a democracy in terms of the electoral process, mostly... at least historically. Flawed, but the people select their leaders by election.

It's not really a democracy in terms of political culture and rights. Very weak free speech, right to organize, right to assemble, freedom of the press, etc. They jail a lot of journalists, on charges like "subliminal messages announcing the military coup."

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

#78
post #76

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'm surprised you chose this as the prime example. I think things surrounding George Floyd protests are more apt examples (tearing down arbitrary statues, cancel culture, CHOP/CHAZ, social media mobs, etc).

Yes, those are better examples.

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

#80
post #14

I wonder what some mid- to long-term consequences of Turkey slipping into dictatorship will be for NATO as a whole. It's clear Turkey is drifting away from the values held by the alliance members. I'm so glad they haven't been accepted into the EU. That would be a disaster.

> I'm so glad they haven't been accepted into the EU. That would be a disaster. At that time though Turkey would have been a real welcome growth addition to the EU. 2005 +9% growth, the year the EU opened accession negotiations with Turkey. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union%E2%80%93Turke...

Yes, Turkey's economy was ok but how is its GDP per capita, democratic index, wealth inequality, human and minority rights like?

There's a reason EU countries have huge numbers of Turkish expats already despite Turkey's economy.

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