91–100 of 224 posts
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They are because being kicked out of the EU requires unanimous vote and hungary and poland just veto eachother into the EU. Nobody expected two states to become fascist at the same time when the EU was created.
This kind of exaggeration surely doesn't help the cause either.
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Their opinions on Turkey might be fair, but beware that Freedom House is basically an arm of the US State Department.
If you’re not going to contest their conclusions, what was the point of bringing that up?
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If you’re not going to contest their conclusions, what was the point of bringing that up?
Acknowledging bias is worthwhile even if the conclusion might be the same.
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> The author doesn’t know whether there’s causal relation between the possible insult and the plans to control the social platforms. I don't know--seems pretty clear to me. “Do you see why we oppose social media like YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, etc...?” Erdogan asked in reference to the alleged insults of his family members. “It is imperative that these channels are brought under control.” Again in reference to the in…
In your quotations there's nothing about any insult to his family. That means a causal relation isn't yet proven.
>"We experienced similar attacks in the past. The lack of monitoring on these platforms have a role in the rise of this sort of immoral behaviour. These platforms do not suit this country. We want these platforms to be banned, taken under control."
The "similar attacks", and the "immoral behavior" are direct references to insults against him and his family on social media.
These are from the Al Jazeera translation of the press conference if you don't trust the AP:
"Erdogan said investigations were under way against those who "attacked" his family by "abusing a newborn".
"We will keep chasing these cowards who attack a family and the values they believe represented by them through a baby."
"We experienced similar attacks in the past. The lack of monitoring on these platforms have a role in the rise of this sort of immoral behaviour. These platforms do not suit this country. We want these platforms to be banned, taken under control."
Please stop being deliberately obtuse.
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> The government controlling social media platforms is vastly different from a collection of companies controlling social media platforms that they built. The difference is not particularly significant.
Yeah man I remember when Mark Zuckerberg came into my house and took my wife and kids for saying something on Facebook.
Likewise, I think allowing a handful of tech employees and billionaires to control what is and is not free speech -- without any democratic control or regulation -- is also highly concerning.
It blows my mind that the so-called left is advocating for the right of private, global, monopolistic corporations to act with impunity.
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 think the bigger problems is that people seem to have developed an inherent trust of information they find on the internet, same as with what they hear on the radio or TV before (well, and still). Perhaps the trust is when the information agrees with their already present biases and preconceptions, but the trust is there. It's dangerous, and hard to overcome. And encouraging a general distrust doesn't help either,…
I believe that's spot on, and it's essentially the same with newspapers and TV, at the very least today. 30 years ago, there was only one truth, and it was spread via mass media. Now, there are competing narratives, both in mass media and on the Internet, and everybody picks and chooses what fits into their understanding of the world.
> Net effect: No change to the nature of speech, just to the places they happen.
And the degree to which you can observe and influence what is said. If you force people to adopt secure communication en masse, you lose a lot of possibilities. I don't know how much this is a concern for governments, but I don't think that they will be able to win the crypto wars, so pushing people into secure comms by overreaching today means they will have a much harder time tomorrow. But maybe they won't be in charge tomorrow, so it's not really their problem.
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…
We see that the convenience of centralized social media is more valuable than the autonomy of federated social media. This is because the centralized social media is easily accessible, practically free and tolerably open regarding opposing viewpoints. Solve for the equilibrium. We would expect federated social media to increase in popularity when the convenience of centralized social media is jeopardized. I believe i…
> I believe in Russia, where people don't feel safe voicing their opinions publicly on centralized social media, ad hoc social networks have appeared on safe chat platforms like Telegram to take their place.
I'm Russian. Today is the last day of 7-day voting for the very controversial constitution amendments that would grant Putin two additional 6-year terms, among other things. My both VK and Twitter feeds are chock-full of posts about this. People are posting about how asinine these amendments are. People are posting about incessant violations in the voting process itself. People are posting pictures of their ballots. The feeling that people are afraid to publicly voice their opinions is certainly not there.
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Acknowledging bias is worthwhile even if the conclusion might be the same.
It’s also a good way to cast doubt on something indirectly, without having to explicitly enumerate any factual disagreements.
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> 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...
I am Turkish and I feel like the culture difference is just too massive to be a member of EU right now. Economically, it would be an nice addition to EU, because Germany and France would very much enjoy the free access to the this huge market, so the current situation reflects that: EU has nice access to Turkish market with the current agreements, but they do not allow Turkey to be a member.
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 think we need social media to operate as a non-profit like Wikipedia, and I think drastic action is the only way to do so. Building alternatives won't work. A for-profit model is just not compatible with the nature of social media.