Slashdot Mirror
Turkey Has Reportedly Banned Google
oxide7 and a number of other readers sent word (from mostly non-authoritative sources as yet) that Turkey had imposed an indefinite ban on some Google properties. "Turkey's Telecommunications Presidency said it has banned access to many of Google IP addresses without assigning clear reasons. The statement did not confirm if the ban is temporary or permanent. Google's translation and document sharing sites have also been banned indefinitely along with YouTube and Facebook in the country. Other services such as AppEngine, FeedBurner, Analytics, etc., have also been reportedly banned." Some real-time commentary (much of it in Turkish) can be found at Twitter hashtag #TurkeyCensoringGoogle. We have noted in past years the censorious ways of Turkish courts.
Well it looks like the Green damn has begun to flood the world.
I think this quote applies here:
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commissioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
source
Shh.
The Turks don't want anyone to talk, write or even think about Armenians or Kurds. And they don't care for Jews all that much either.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Those Turks are real jive turkeys! And to think I was going to blame the Israelis for the flotilla disaster! Now I've got my eyes squarely perched on the Turks! Especially that Bald Bull fella, I don't trust that guy at all!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Isn't the 'net supposed to route around that sort of crap?
It's about time that Turkey was expelled from NATO. It's turning into a fascist religiously controlled state at an alarming rate.
Seriously, what does this hope to accomplish other than drawing attention towards censorship?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
'Telecommunications and Communication Ministry' has placed a ban on various ips of google, ranging from google analytics to youtube.
despite the cause on the surface is shown deragotary videos of kemal ataturk on youtube, nothing could justify banning analytics ips. so, in the end one of the ministers slipped the real reason - google doesnt pay tax to turkey.
there is no reason why it should either. google is a corp that is centered in america, and according to treaty to prevent double taxation, it should not pay tax here, since it pays tax in usa. so there is no legal justification for trying to tax them.
but then again, you cant expect reasoning, or, abiding by laws, from an islamist government.
Read radical news here
Is this a DNS thing, where Turks could get around it by using a different DNS server than their ISP's?
Loose lips lose spit.
It's the law: Learn it, know it, live it.
Jeff Spicoli: He's the full hot orator.
This is very worrisome given that it is coming from what is supposed to be the crossroads country between the west and the middle east. If a country like Turkey is engaging in acts like this, what hope does the rest of the Middle East have?
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
You lack the imagination to apply structure to our world? That entire page is taken from a carefully constructed and coherent extrapolation of human activity and knowledge. There are quite a few examples of quotes on the same page that are taken directly from our actual history as well. Apply your sensibility and winnow out the impossible, what is left are situations to consider. Think.
Shh.
Because this kind of unacceptable behavior is not the only one. They are not at all respecting the human rights set by international rights, for a start. They do not firmly condone nor accept the Armenian genocid. The list is long.
This is sadly a country that is now going "backwards" and I honestly hope they'll never make it in the Euro (thankfully now that Greece is collapsing the last thing people want is an even more messier Europe, which accepting Turkey would clearly create).
To half of the Turkish citizens who are progressive and trying to westernize Turkey and to enter Europe: I feel really bad and sorry for you, keep fighting until you overpower the other half. To the other half: f*ck you, we don't you in Europe.
there has been numerous court orders to ban youtube due to some laws, but telecommunications board was always banning the domain name, and leaving the ip untouched, therefore allowing everyone to use youtube by just a hosts file change or a dns change.
now, this board, which is under islamist govt's control, decided to try to tax youtube. therefore, they are trying to blackmail google by banning the ips too. the court orders are just an excuse.
Read radical news here
They do not firmly condone nor accept the Armenian genocid.
I'm really, really hoping you don't want them to condone the Armenian genocide.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
To half of the Turkish citizens who are progressive and trying to westernize Turkey and to enter Europe: I feel really bad and sorry for you, keep fighting until you overpower the other half.
The problem is that the progressive Turkish citizens aren't breeding as much as Islamists do. Without numbers on their side, how can they win, except by becoming a dictatorship?
-- Support a free market in the field of government
ya now re-read that and KNOW the truth of google's activities
Clearly you're baiting the question of "why?".
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
This could be a separation from East and West, or it could be a switch to a local search engine by eliminating the competitition. There are various possibilities as to the motive, but the Internet is a service, not yet a right, and as such roadblocks like this will pop up.
I'm not seeing much real time commentary on twitter, mostly dozens of people Re-Tweeting the same article. If you want to see the commentary, search #TurkeyCensorGoogle -"Access to certain Google services blocked from Turkey"
apparently he was some sort of political correct idiot or a muslim.
im in turkey. we have an islamist government which clearly stated they are islamist, on top of us. they are engaging in innumerable ways of censorship, of this google thing, is only one of them.
their main censorship tool is attacking the media outlets which do not publish in the manner they like, with the finance ministry, which is the ministry that governs taxes. if you are such a media company, suddenly finance ministry starts to review your previous tax payments, and, without fail, comes up with a lot of fines to fine you. so high that you cant pay, and they confiscate your company. approximately 2 major media groups consisting of 2-3 major newspapers and a television channel each, have been foreclosed in this way, and have been sold to their backers by zero interest loans from government banks.
google is an outside company. they were not able to do the same thing to google. therefore, they are trying the method of banning, to subdue google.
and, to the idiot - dont use your mod points in subjects you dont know about.
Read radical news here
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ratified by Turkey in 1948.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Declaration_of_Universal_Human_Rights#Adoption
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Oh, sweet merciful fuck, just when I thought I'd purged Serdar Argic from my memory, you have to remind me of USENET and the SERDAR ARGIC 1994 HOWLING THROUGH THE WIRES WORLD TOUR...
(No, I'm not looking to see if the 'bot is still spamming USENET. I'm traumatized enough!)
You can't fly like an eagle if you're hanging around in Turkey anyway.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Google has banned turkey. Google staffers will no longer be allowed to consume the tasty foul on Google property.
Actually, yes, it is ok. As OK as it is for Fox News to show the president getting 2 minutes of silence in a speech in front of soldiers when all other channels showed him getting standing ovations.
More to the point, it is legal. Whether or not it is morally right or wrong, who gives a fuck in this day and age, the fish in the Golf of Mexico or the waterboarded tourists in Gitmo certainly don't.
tl;dr
lrn 2 paragraph plox
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I think this quote applies here: As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. Commissioner Pravin Lal "U.N. Declaration of Rights" source
IS IT OK FOR GOOGLE TO REMOVE NEGATIVE PRESS ABOUT ITSELF, WHILE THE REST OF OUR LIVES ARE EFECTED BY WHAT GOOGLE DISPLAYS ABOUT EACH OF US. THEY HAVE WON IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, BUT NOW THEIR MONOPOLY EFFECTS ALL OF US AND THEY HAVE A FEDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY TO THE WORLD TO ACT ETHICALLY AND THEY ARE NOT!!! I NEED HELP AND ADVICE ON WHAT TO DO ABOUT GOOGLE. I THINK WAHT THEY DID WAS ILLEGAL AND JUST WRONG!! My name is Rob Shambro, I am the CEO of GenosTV (www.genos.tv) a global broadband cable operator launching on January 6, 2011 at the Consumer Electronics Show. GoogleTV Invigorates the IPTV Market and Genos' CEO, Rob Shambro, Dissects the AlternativeTV Space. Here is a link to hte article. It was an upstanding, educational release just stating the FACTS in the IPTV marketplace. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/prnewswire/2010/05/21/prnewswire201005211326PR_NEWS_USPR_____AQ08961.html In the press release I state, "A quick Google search on GoogleTV today, shows very mixed emotions on the service, leaning towards the "not so impressed." A. Do you think I would even dare to say that if it were not true? Absolutely NOT! B. I issued the release around 9am PST. Here is the good part, at around 10 am I go back to Google and do another quick search on GoogleTV and every single negative press article was gone. I could not believe it. C. On top of that the search results were nice and neatly organized in near chronological order! Do they not have to live by their page rank software? I printed out everything, 30 search results pages deep, before and after. The change would have been IMPOSSIBLE using their software. D. My press release above ranked in the top 100 releases for MAY in PRNEWSWIRE. This release was picked up everywhere, yet it’s nowhere to be found on Google unless you absolutely search for it. E. Then I went to Bing.com and did a search on GoogleTV and Google TV and printed out the search results pages, 30 deep. This how their software would display the search results. F. The NUMBER ONE article about GoogleTV is HULU Unlikely to Run on GoogleTV on mashable.com. http://mashable.com/2010/05/20/hulu-google-tv-android/ In the past I had some negative articles posted by some anonymous people that showed up first every time you did a search on my name. This was like that for years. It has cost me millions of dollars in financing and stress. I almost gave up and never started another company again because of Google.. Just recently a 10 year old negative article that came up first in my search results and CAUSED ME NOT TO GET a $500,000 investment from a local investor. I can prove it. You hear horror stories about Google ruining people's lives because of negative press showing up first in their search results. I am sure I am not alone here!!! I wish I could go into my search results and change them around so they all look positive and neat, JUST LIKE THEY DID. This is NOT fair. You hear about doctors that can not get a single patient because on Google is some old domestic violence case that happened 20 years that comes up first on a search on their name. Google should have to live by the same rules as everyone else. I think this is illegal. They have cau
Rob Shambro Chairman/CEO GenosTV www.genos.tv
I dunno, but it seems to me that dogmatic, xenophobic, recidivist behaviour is on the rise worldwide -- Islam certainly has no corner on the market for running amok, not now, and not historically, and the term "Christian" probably carries as much negative baggage through the years as "Muslim" does.
Meanwhile, Christianity also has no corner on the market for truly pious, love-thy-neighbour actions -- one of my good friends growing up made it his life's mission to open an elementary school for the poor in his home town, and a book drive at our high school helped get him the beginnings of their library. A fellow named Ali, who is Bangladeshi, and Muslim.
Just sayin'.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Sorry Rob, life isn't fair. When you run the show you make the rules. Don't kick a hornet's nest unless you're expecting to get stung. And in business, nobody says you gotta fight fair, unless you're a monopoly then you only gotta be fair to both sides of the aisle, not the people. Rome is here again, the only thing is, this time Machiavelli has taught Caesar how to keep the plebs in line for real.
With grammar and spelling like that, I'm not surprised you couldn't get an investment. I find it funny when people whine about their past coming back to bite them in their ass. Look up the word "reputation", we have a word for that for a reason. If you ever got anywhere in business, the next ting we'd be hearing would be something like, "THE FTC IS SOOOO EVIL! THEY FINED ME MILLIONS BLAH! BLAH! BOO-HOO!" as they put your ass in jail.
Well, let's see. In the Federal Republic of Germany they disallow the depiction or trading of "Nazi" paraphernalia and have laid claim on the term "Gmail". In the French Republic, they will take away your Internet privileges if you share your stuff with others. In the United Kingdom, there are a number of behaviors that are listed as "hate speech" and are severely punishable. Each of these conditions would be considered strange or wrong under the American idea of Free Speech. But at the same time, we have severe restrictions on what language or what is "decent" to be viewed or heard on the "public airwaves" in the United States. Rightly or wrongly each country decides for itself what are the bounds of acceptable behavior.
Your overuse of caps-lock precludes anyone from taking you seriously. I just thought I'd let you know for any future crazy rants...
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Unfortunately this kind of thing happens all the time, and the government cannot do anything about it. Even the president has criticized the ban last week, but it's all up to the courts.
According to Turkish law, *any* PA can ask for a preliminary injunction to ban *any* web site. The web site has to comply within a month, otherwise TK (which is the telecomunnication authority) will have to block the web site in question. Nobody (including prime minister, or the president) cannot stop the ban (unless the website complies).
So if a person from a small town complains about a web site (for example Youtube, or Blogger), and the PA for that town finds the case worthy, he/she request a court order for the ban. This has actually happened (Blogger was banned since some bloggers published world cup matches, and the local TV stations which bought WC rights have complained).
The Google ban comes from Youtube ban. Previously they only removed youtube.com from DNS servers, but people have installed alternate DNS servers, and all was fine. Now they decided to block based on server IP, which is probably shared with other Google services as well.
Anyways they are trying to amend the law, so that this kinds of bans will be restricted (not just any random PA in any random town), but the best would be abolishing the law altogether.
Regards,
Rob Shambro
You need a marketing guy Rob. Someone to make sure you don't post such things on das interwebs :p ;)
I really feel for you, I do, but the stress shows in your post. Doesn't look so good for investors.
Best of luck with your venture though! Sounds interesting!
Ah Turkey. When they're poking their finger in Israel's eye, they're the darling of Leftists far and wide. When they censor, ban, and oppress themselves suddenly we're up in arms. Fuck 'em. It's Turkey!
Google retaliates by banning turkeys.
What a bunch of Turkeys!
*ducks*
any investor with a brain should stay away from you. you have got to be the stupidest son of a bitch on earth to put your part of Infinium Labs in your bio. You "spearheaded" a fake product. That's probably why they didn't give you 500,000. Seems like a waste to give it to you just to not make something. Bravo.
Sounds like his problem is critical thinking skills. Along with his clients.
I'm not sure that's what the word means...
Can I be blamed for others lack of critical thought? The quote begins:
;)
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century...
Anyone who is thinking as they read instead of blindly ploughing through the words would have realized that Earth has not reached it's final century yet?
And it was fully sourced too..
Shh.
I was going to reply that they have Eagles, but it seems they don't. They do have a fleet of Falcons though.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
founded by Jews.
* Turkey starts enriching uranium for Iran, saving Iran at the last minute from international sanctions.
* Turkey government puts mercenaries on Gaza flotilla to violently engage Israeli security and push them to the point of drawing arms, then makes a global media carnival on the brutality of Israelis on a peace-activist ship.
* Turkey has been at peace with Israel and its Gaza policies for decades until this governments radical Islamization shift
* Turkey ingaging in promoting the cause of the Hammas, an oppressing, fascist regime which executes those who oppose it and openly supports delivering explosives into civilian population to drive their agenda.
* Turkey bans free speech
Can anyone see a trend here?
On a sombre note, it's now that the world gets to find out if they have a "democracy" or a democracy.
tl;dr
I would have thought that a "HighTechGenius" would know about the paragraph tag.
Insightful comments. Time to stamp out the Jew World Order.
"Turkeys reportedly banned Gobble"?
This is a big part of why Turkey is blocking youtube and facebook:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGuwUGaI9o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOGG_osOoVg
What do you expect from a country that band Youtube? I wanted to show the "Charlie bit me"-video to a friend in Turkey, a couple of years ago, only to discover that Youtube is not available, together with a plethora of other online services.
I now firmly believe Turkey is not ready for the EU.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
This only ensures that you won't be arrested for holding an opinion or for blogging on Google or elsewhere. This document, however, does not require anyone to make it technically possible. So you may have a right to do something, and no ability, and that's all legal.
Google: BAN TURKEY!
I thought I'd share an account of what hapened to me a couple of years ago, in Istanbul, arguably the most westernized of all of Turkey: my friend and I decided to stay at this hotel outside the center of the city, and had to take separate rooms, since we were not married. In the evening, I went to her room for a chat. After about half an hour she gets a phonecall: some guy tells her that she is not to have male visitors in her room! That's right. They have cameras in each room. Even more sadly, my turkish friend told me this as a matter of fact, "nothing to see here".
I'm not saying every hotel in Turkey is like that, but I will say this: Turkey is bad news, very fucking bad news.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
If anyone wants to know how screwed up that country is, just ask any Greek, as they've been enslaved by them for 300+ years. They're trying to join Europe to gain the Euro, but Greece won't let them. Turkey was a country that cut off your hand for stealing. That was their version of a mistermeaner.
They haven't gone a long way from their past. In my book they're just as bad as North Korea, but America doesn't mind because Turkey helps them out in the middle east.
IIRC, from my Turkish roommate in college, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk the founder of the modern Turkish state (vs. the old WWI Ottoman Empire) setup the Turkish Constitution so that the military had a right to go in and establish a coup whenever the civil government got too Islamic. Then after a reasonable amount of time the military ceded power back to a newly formed civil government. This has happened many many times in Turkish history.
This is not some South/Central American junta. No-one is electing the Generals "President for Life". The military invokes their Constitutional rights. They de-radicalize the government ("put the train back on the tracks"), and then give the government back ("let the model train run again").
I think they're saying it with a soft G... Calling it Jewgle, which might explain lot.
This line of thought crops up a lot, and Eurocentric commentators often wave the "Enlightenment" as a sort of mystical talisman without investigating very closely what, exactly, it was about the Enlightenment's interaction with Christianity that created modern civilization as it we know it today. Because on the face of it, the Enlightenment actually did very little to Christianity. The holy text didn't change. The leading institution of the faith didn't change. The number of faithful didn't change (or at least didn't until centuries afterwards).
So what, exactly did the Enlightenment accomplish that transformed Christianity from a backwards zealous militant ideology to what we know today? (And yes, the preceding sentence is a horrifically reductive caricature and I largely phrase it that way in order to paraphrase a certain way of thinking.) Well, empiricism diluted religion to the point where even if thinking people professed to be Christians, they were no longer stupid enough to actually take the written dictates of their faith all too seriously. That's it. That's all. It wasn't very revolutionary, or very difficult, and there was nothing about it that was particularly unique to Christianity or the West.
The same process is happening throughout the world, including in Islam, including in Turkey, where the cosmopolitan educated elite professes to be Muslim but finds a YouTube ban just as silly as we do. Trust me, Turkish college students want to be able to watch cute kitten videos. The problem is that the Turkey's highly federalized political structure gives disproportionate voice to fringe elements - imagine if that one Catholic dude who's always on TV bashing South Park could actually get courts to file injunctions on his behalf, and you've have an approximation of what is happening here.
I just Googled it, and didn't find any information.
You know what they say about opinions. They're all fabulous!
i really dont know about it. I am realatively new to Slashdot input and blgging. Its a user name and thanks for your help. rs
Rob Shambro Chairman/CEO GenosTV www.genos.tv
Historical allegory aside, my intent was actually more to point out the fallacy of couchslug's professing to have a handle on the "true Muslim character". What is the "true Muslim character"? What is the "true Christian character"? My friend is a devout Muslim, and one of the kindest, gentlest, most sincere people you could hope to meet. I'd much rather spend time in his company than with some of the self-identified Christians I've had the misfortune to know, who claim some personal connection with Jesus at one moment, and happily spout bigoted hateful venom the next.
Islam has its own foundational principles of modern civilization. That these foundational principles don't happen to match your own is an issue of cultural discourse, not absolutist violence. For that matter, some of the vaunted Enlightenment is actually predicated on learning imported from the Muslim world.
Swap "their" here for "our" -- for can we not say exactly the same thing about the US? The United States, for all its fanfare and mythologizing, has been one of the biggest thugs on the planet for the better part of a century.
Given that the core tenet Christianity is essentially "love thy neighbor", it sounds like you've hit the nail on the head here -- I'd hazard that neither Ann Coulter nor yourself are all that familiar with the underlying ideals you both seem to be espousing. Never mind the general ignorance of what Islam is. Yes, there are wacko bad apples, and yes, some of these elements happen to run countries. These do not define Islam, any more than Pat Robertson speaks for all Christianity, though they do appear to define the face of Islam as perceived by many here in the US.
Moreover, any look at the cultural friction between the many countries and political groups identifying themselves as Islamic must look as well at how the various governments of the West are fully implicated in helping to polarize and poison the dynamics at work. For instance, the situation with Iran and militant Shiism owes much to the hamfisted bungling of MI5, the CIA, and our friend in the Gulf, BP. Being ignorant of the West's role in defining the anger and resentment expressed by many of the more vocal elements of the Muslim world is fixable and excusable; ignoring it is hypocritical. The West helped create this problem, and the West must also help solve it, constructively. Sadly, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Gaza, among other present issues, aren't helping.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Turkey: "You're baaaaaaaaaanned!"
Google: "Booh, that's fowl play!"
The only reason I wouldn't want them in is that we've already got enough pro-censorship assholes and it would tip the balance even more in their favour. Quite the irony isn't it. They'd fit right in.
Can only mean one thing, Invasion!
Curious about Storage and Virtualization? Check out
condone : to regard or treat (something bad or blameworthy) as acceptable, forgivable, or harmless.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/condone
Turkey has been lobbying and pressuring the EU for joining. For many years I've been very afraid that would happen. Now it seems it will not happen in my lifetime... OR should I be even more afraid now?...
I tried to read whole conversation but couldn't make it to the end because it is funny how most of you guys talk about things that you do not really know. Mostly blabbering and gossip. None of the posts related to topic of the thread and none of you even asked "why Google is censored" or contributed any thoughts.
I am Turkish and I don't support current ruling party (actually hate them for what they did to my country) but not because of reasons mentioned here. The things mentioned here are coming from biased and ignorant people in my opinion. You guys hear something from someone and believe it unconditionally. I am sure most of you think because most of the Turks are muslim, they must be Arab.
About the Google thing; a while ago, YouTube is banned in Turkey because of several videos about founder of modern Turkey posted on it. Censorship is one of many bad things done by Turkish governments in last 40 years but this last one is interesting because it is coming from a party which does not really like the founder of the secular state but they went ahead and did it because of constitution. They tried to ask Youtube to remove the videos but since Google and Youtube has no rerpresentative in Turkey so no Youtube Turks (unless if you know how to do DNS hacks).
So Google is not banned, this latest incident is completely related to this YouTube ban, communication ministry tried to make it harder to access YouTube.
On a side note, current party is elected with about 35 percent vote of the population and many of those voters did not vote for them to bring sharia, they voted because Ak Party tricked them by playing with their belief and faith. And for example USA is not more secular than Turkey because in Turkey leaders don’t have to visit bishops in church to make people believe that they are Christian (as Obama did). Oh imam and mosque in this case.
This wasn't something about, Turkish yada yada...
This something about, abusing Law for profit.
YouTube consumes too much Bandwidth.
And Privatized Turkish Telekom new owner dont' want to spend too much to increase bandwidth.
So ?
Abuse the law...
And yes. We need improved Law about issue.
And those politics.
Wake up Western, you can't always right, you can't always win....
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
Turkey was a world leading country by 15th century in mathematics, medicine, architecture, etc.
But while Europe experienced the movable type printing revolution in 15th - 16th centuries, in Muslim countries the movable type print was banned for 200 years for "moral" reason.
Certainly, as any human invention, printing was also used for producing "adult" materials. But it was also used to produce maps, textbooks, literature, etc.
So as a result the Europe moved into a modernity, but the countries, where printing was banned, stayed behind. The "moral" reasons were rather an attempt of the patriarchal leaders of society to guard their power.
In the long run this ban did not benefit the society. Nowadays many Turks have to move to Germany, Austria, etc. to find a job. This is a result of the error, which was made by the Islamic countries' society five hundred years ago.
Many medieval churches in Europe were build by architects, who learned architecture from Islam mosques' builders. We still use Arabic numerals for mathematics. But now the Islam world is well behind in technology and science, including human science.
Unfortunately they step on the same rake again, because it is not possible for culture to develop without free discussions, without free access to information.
> Anyone who is thinking as they read instead of blindly ploughing through the words would have realized that Earth has not reached it's final century yet?
Just how sure are you about that? :-)
I mean, we know, but we don't actually know.
If you (and lots of people) just knew how people in Turkey and some parts of Govt. are sick and tired of "EU stick", you wouldn't mention it on your message.
EU has nothing to do with it. In fact, Ataturk has nothing to do with it. It is some really deep political matter and some kind of conspiracy by the forces who _really_ wants to exclude Turkey from rest of the secular World... As Slashdot is not really a political site, I refrain from going deeper.
It even has something to do with Google acting like "Who gives a F to what you think?" lately. Forget the Ataturk video which is supposed to start all, I am just asking one question. What happens if Al Queda starts posting training videos to Youtube and Youtube ignores the removal requests by US courts? I am not even mentioning the "easy way" which even Slashdot admits to do from time to time, e.g. a very credible and serious message from secret service.
Do you have more information on this? What where the names of the banned holdings? What do you think was the influence of the EU in this? Did they in any way take the traditional military wing out of the game?
There isn't much to set back in the first place, they don't stand a chance entering EU.
Turkey's ruling party AKP is slowly turning the country into an islamic tyranny. Turkey's most influential free-thinkers, academics and secular activists are jailed with phony accusations. Hundreds of such people have been in jails without any proof of their so called illegal activities for two (2) years. Several of them already died due to health complications caused by this disturbance.
Its funny you remain anonymous, of course you do. You sit back in your arm chair contribute nothing except negative feedback in every comment. I guess it empowers you. I try, ever heard of that word? I passed the mensa test , i guess thats stupid huh?
Rob Shambro Chairman/CEO GenosTV www.genos.tv
If it costs me money, I give a shit. What are you the guy in the lunch room that let everyone beat you up and take your lunch money. Is it ok to stand for yourself these day! Or should we all just roll over and play dead, I am sorry son, that's the day I am dead no blood flows through my viens until then I am standing up for what I beleive in. Is that so bad?
Rob Shambro Chairman/CEO GenosTV www.genos.tv
I smell some PR campaign against Turkey for not playing ball with US/Israel...
Turkey is an odd nation. It is most free when it is ruled by its military leaders. It depends on military coups for civil rights... something that western nations, especially the EU can't grasp. They insist that the military plays no political role whatsoever (this is the situation in western nations) and that it is instead controlled by politicians. Rather then the army controlling the politicians.
But it is the army that is the guardian of the secular nation of Turkey as created by Ata Turk. He wanted to make Turkey from a has been semi-arabic throwback into a modern nation. The guy was about as enlightened as you can get especially considering the region. Make no mistake this guy was a visionary and among the truly great statesmen.
And Turks loved/love him. To a point. Turkey like so many countries is not all the same. Ankara is not the same as the rural parts of the country just as New York ain't the same as Utah.
And just as enlightened New York has to deal with voters from backwards parts of the nation, Turkey has a strong religious part in the country side. And when things change a lot, and Turkey has been undergoing enormous change, the religious tend to rise up and demand things slow down to stabilize the country (read: they don't want to give up their positions). Turkey the western nation, alley of Israel, secular and separate from the Arabic world. Well that causes a lot of upset. Among Arabic nations, Turkey stands tall, a clear beacon of light. Among western nations, it is nothing. A pathetic bunch of towel heads with a booming economy because going from 0 to 1 is a huge growth.
So what is they Turkish identity? Who are they? What is their culture? Is their culture that of Ata Turk? Or is it that of Islam?
That is what we are seeing right now. The AKP is the religious right wingers mobilizing fueled by the "freedom" emposed by the EU that the military can't slap them down. The military wants to be with the EU. The AKP less so, at least not on the terms that it has to be more western.
And yes, the recent incident has EVERYTHING to do with this. It is very intresting that at the same day, Turkey once again bombed koerdish positions. Very handy to have this incident with Israel to hide their own occupation and suppression and killing of civilians. Planned? Oh surely not. Especially not when all the people killed by Israel were known trouble makers with clear ties to Hamas. And all the ships that were "honest" protestors (bit suspicious to see a moroccan protest the occupation of gaza when no such protest is heard about her own country occupying the Sahara illegaly) there were no incidents. Just the turks.
Turkey is playing a game. Torn between the desire to be part of the EU but unable to qualify yet and wanting to be part of the new nations (Turkey and Brazil are trying to use their recent economic success to become more important on their own terms) and not loosing its own identity, it is making some odd choices.
Turkey also showes clearly why censorship is often not an all or nothing affair. The protection of the image of Ata Turk is part of the protection of the secular nation. So censorship of critism of him is to fight censorship. Because make no mistake, those that attack Ata Turk might right on a banner of free speech, but would tear free speech down first change they got.
It is like neo-nazi's claiming their have the right to freedom, but would deny it to anyone else.
Sometimes when you are against censorship, you got to be on the site of people who censor, because the people they censor are even worse. But that is not a catchy slogan.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
AKP is highly Euro skeptic. In fact, they're election was partially distrust of Europe.
Europe will not favor enlarging again for quite some time given the recent economic problems. In fact, Turkey would unquestionably join the ranks of the PIGS. I'm doubtful that Germany, France, etc. will ever feel like they've fixed the PIGS situation, so Turkey is effectively out permanently.
You know, Turkey never had very good odds for entering anyways. Greece would oppose them for military reasons. France would oppose them since France requires a public referendum for new admission into the E.U. Austria would oppose them for Austrian reasons. In fact, Switzerland would even oppose them now that Switzerland joined Schengen.
In the long run, Croatia and Montenegro will all be admitted before Turkey, but they'll vote against Turkey for religious reasons. Bosnia and Serbia might not be admitted for quite some time either, but Serbia would also oppose Turkey's entrance too.
p.s. E.U. expansionism has basically been a substitute for unpopular immigration that allows political elites to lower labor costs. Imho, they are crazy about labor costs not for competing with developing nations, but largely China. China cannot manipulate their currency indefinitely, which will remove the immediate pressure. All the newly admitted countries like Poland will provide cheap labor for some years, with the Ukraine another possible expansion if China holds out.
p.s.2 There has been however an European policy of educating people from Central and South America, kinda an opposition to the Monroe Doctrine. We're now seeing this policy provide higher quality and more culturally similar immigrants than Turkey, the Middle East, or Africa. Face it, if people see Turks or Africans they think Shira law or female circumcision, but if people see Brazilians they think Carnival and barbecue. And immigration from the Americas could easily provide the required labor force control.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
... have been modded up, just because you're blaming religious governance.
As you have already stated, the ban on YouTube came from the OPPOSING camp. AKP government has always been critical about it, to the extent that the PM told the press that he himself had been watching YouTube despite the ban.
So, what's your argument? Are they using the taxation excuse to justify the ban (which doesn't conform with the above fact) or are they using the ban as an excuse to impose taxes? What does religion have to do with it? This isn't even about the government, but the State.
Sorry, I'm an atheist myself, but everything isn't about religion either. Sometimes you should have to consider that the easiest explanation might not be the right one.
If they would, they could; you know how this works.
I'm unsure about Germany a priori, but Austria opposes it vehemently. Switzerland has now joined Schengen and will oppose it to their dying breath. France has decided that future admissions must occur by referendum, which means France will oppose Turkey's entry forever. I'd imagine that Croatia will join first, maybe even Serbia, but those nations will vote against any Islamic member, given the balkan war. It follows that Turkey has zero chance unless the E.U. changes the admission rules, currently even one vote against prevents ascension.
Turkey would unquestionably join the ranks of the PIGS. I'm doubtful that rich European nations will find a truly bullet proof method for controlling PIGS spending, so after the current crisis Turkey will be permanently kept out of the Euro even. And I'm imagine the PIGS crisis will prevent the E.U. from changing the ascension rules within the next couple generations.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Turkey never had much chance unless the ascension rules were loosened, which then might weaken the E.U. dramatically.
I'm pretty sure the PIGS crisis has dramatically and permanently altered the European political landscape now though. Eastern European nations have not exactly joint the ranks of the PIGS. Turkey otoh would clearly act like the PIGS. So the crisis has given average Europeans a perfect basis for opposing Turkey's ascension indefinitely.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Looks like the islamistic Milli Görü based Goverment is now finally departing "the west" and joining up with the jihad union.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
As a Turk, could you tell me why the military is not intervening? It might not be popular, but the longer you leave it the worse it gets, and it seems to me like this religious government needs to be slapped down. Ataturk would approve.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I don't think it's anything new here. Muslims, Communists/Liberals, and Fascists have always locked down media. Look at what the White House is pushing now. Cybersecurity Act of 2009 repackaged.
This is old news; I heard about this almost two weeks ago.
Islam didn't experience the Enlightenment and rejects it today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
Want to know what ended it? Religious hard-liners coming back into power. Rather similar to a recent president who had Bible quotes printed on the covers of his Iraq war briefings.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
I think GP is talking about the Dogan Group. IIRC they accused some of Erdogan's men of being corrupt and then Erdogan fined them $3 billion dollars, Dogan's market capitalization was less than that. Happened last summer or fall. The EU -- as is expected -- condemned the actions but didn't do anything else. I don't know anything about military involvement.
analytics, and youtube ips are unreachable. any service that uses or alternates with these ips are unreachable. these are in the turkish press for 2-3 days now. there is no relevance of eu to this. islamist government is wrong, what google did is nothing illegal.
Read radical news here
it is not intervening, because the idiots in usa and eu have been pressurizing against it. hence, the islamist government is becoming bolder by the day. today, they have started proceedings about ripping immunity from 2 opposing party mps, in order to arrest and jail them through a 'coup trial' that they have been almost illegally running for 2 years without any charges, by their supporting das and judges. they just accuse and jail you. and then drag the court proceeding for years.
Read radical news here
My question still rather stands. The army shouldn't give a damn about the USA. Unless the USA is seriously going to invade Turkey, this is an internal Turkish affair. The confidence of politicians shouldn't matter anyway. It isn't any good up against the barrel of a gun.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
... into another wack-job country. Once upon a time, like many other countries in that region, Turkey seemed on the road to becoming a modern civilization, but lately it has fallen more and more into the Luddite mind-set that is Islam. As a result it is quickly becoming yet another crazy back-water hick town...
Quite true. But since the invention of Copyright, Europe and most of the West have started banning the free copying and sharing of information as well.. And with the successive extensions of Copyright terms (how long until we have Perpetual Copyright?), we're caught in the same downward spiral than those countries.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Well, guess it's time to fire up the proxies then.
With all that is going in Turkey right now, Atatürk probably does at least 6000 RPM rolling in his grave.
What a shame, it was a nice country just a few years ago.
Thank you for sharing this link. The Internet is a new format and hence constitutes affiliation with the right to receive and impart information through any media. Yet, one has to wonder if the potential suspects behind this ban are fully aware of the severity of their actions.
Oh noes, someone doesn't like you. Boo fuckin' hoo! Life's tough, get a helmet.
I am in Istanbul now, Google has already changed their IP's and Google (the search engine) works fine. As for youtube, that is still banned. Google DNS is NOT banned, trivial.
Algebra, optics, and chivalry all arise as examples of indigenous Arabic or Islamic developments that were later adopted by Europe. Yes, the Arabs imported the concept of zero from India, as well as the basics of algebraic equations. But algebra as a full-blown discipline, independent of arithmetic or geometry, comes into its own in the Arab world.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Your question is actually not an easy one.
First: If you are a democracy,do your political parties occasionally get "overruled" by the military?
Second: When the military has this much power,do you seriously think they will be merciful with their power? Or will they become corrupt and "unquestionable"?
Third: when there is a coup,your constitution is for naught.The new leaders can effectively silence everyone and suppress free speech by power.
Fourth: When your biggest ally is Usa and you,the army who declared itself the ruler, need us weapons,do you actually not listen to them?
In conclusion,there is only one way; democracy should be protected by the people not the army. And liberals love the islamist government!
"By the people for the people."
Turkey accepts that armenian people died. They are wary of the political power of the word "genocide".
liberals love the islamist government, because it practically sells EVERYthing in the country almost for free, to outside private interests from usa.
turkey doesnt need u.s. weapons. russia is more than willing to sell anything.
a democracy which is being taken towards religious dictatorship, is not a democracy.
military is set and raised to be the guardian of secular democratic republic, by constitution, and their internal training curriculum. ie, they are brainwashed to protect secular democracy since 80 years.
people cannot protect democracy, while there is a government that uses all the available means it has to suppress opposition through seemingly legal means. to the extent of going the way of election fraud, as it was certified in various districts, and suspected in many, nationwide. there can especially be no democracy in a country which opposition members are jailed under suspicious accusations, through a 'specially authorized' court that runs the agenda of the government.
in conclusion : democracy needs to be protected. if it didnt, then we wouldnt have nazis grabbing power in 1932, and then instituting fascism.
Read radical news here
Second: When the military has this much power,do you seriously think they will be merciful with their power? Or will they become corrupt and "unquestionable"?
How has it worked in Turkey for 100 years, with the military actually properly enforcing a secular state and not being corrupt?
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Anon, you've completely missed my point.
The argumentative structure, "A doesn't do B any more than C does D", means that C does *not* do D, and only compares the relationships between A and B, and between C and D.
When I say that extremists don't define Islam, I then analogize to say that Pat Robertson doesn't define Christianity. Both are factually true points. This in no way makes the case that Pat Robertson is the same as Ruholla Khomeini, and in no way tries to "drag" anyone down to any level.
Thanks for playing. Have a nice day.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
military is set and raised to be the guardian of secular democratic republic, by constitution, and their internal training curriculum. ie, they are brainwashed to protect secular democracy since 80 years.
This is something I never quite understood. Turkey has mandatory military service for males, right? So, vast majority of all male population (excluding those disqualified on health grounds etc) should have gone through the same indoctrination. Why doesn't it persist once they leave the army?
Unless you have some serious poll figures to back that up, I don't think you can fairly claim to speak for either any Christian or Muslim majority. Yes, there are a lot of people on both sides making a lot of unpleasant noise -- but there are many more people participating in both religions that we never hear from in this grand media-based echo chamber, and I'd hazard that few of them indeed support any kind of atrocity. Maybe I'm just being naïve, but my life experience to date seems to bear out the position that most people are actually pretty reasonable. There are assholes and idiots everywhere, sure enough, but most people aren't either of these, most of the time.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Yes.Some of the liberals in Turkey, are indeed idiots.
Democracy brings the ability to question. Even if the middle and lower ranked soldiers were well-meaning,it still takes one not-well-meaning general to actually damage the freedom of speech and secular thinking. "Everyone should know how to pray" Remember that?
You can't question a coup leader. He can suppress free speech,crack down on the middle class.And he can effectively be worse than the overthrown party. Remember 1980? And the overthrown party wasn't even bad!
You are right,there are unlawful practices by the ruling party.Hopefully,people will see that and vote "the bum"s out!
Let's hope that people will choose democracy in the upcoming election.
Hey Slashdot, stop spending your mod points modding up "THE ISLAMISTS ARE COMING, WE MUST READY THE NUKES" posts so that people can see a post with actual content.
Second: When the military has this much power,do you seriously think they will be merciful with their power? Or will they become corrupt and "unquestionable"?
How has it worked in Turkey for 100 years, with the military actually properly enforcing a secular state and not being corrupt?
But you forget the saying: Power corrupts,absolute power corrupts absolutely. The last big coup in 1980,was exactly that. In fact,that's why islamists are now the ruling party. The army is both secularist and nationalist.So when there is a chance that turkey will go the communist route,the army intervenes. In the 1980 coup,they built up the religious activities and crushed the leftists and even the party which founded the republic! Just to be sure that turkey wouldn't be in the soviet block. When that happened,the religious part of the society began to accumulate serious power. That's why there shouldn't be a coup. Democracy should be protected by democrats. hope that centrists and leftists will win the next election. Turkish people should all realise that power through force is not the way to go if you are a democracy. The army should just be a safekeeper if there is an armed uprising against democracy.
They're blocking all the Google sites that don't start with a Turkish man's given name...
When what you believe is a rambling nonsense, yelling, bad spelling, lousy punctuation, yeah, it's bad. Shut up or get your act together.
I do know this:
I will pretty much avoid your company. I don't have any hop for a company whose CEO can't present and argument in a logical and sensible manner. I am shocked that you can even managed to put together a business plan.
Then the Hubris of calling yourself a genius just makes the whole thing sad.
I'll be sure to mention your little rant at my next investor meeting. Just to be sure Shambro doesn't appear on the list.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
mandatory service lasts only 1.5 years. you dont get any political education during that. the education we speak of are given to career officers of the army.
Read radical news here
top ranks of the army have more indoctrination in regard to the principles than the middle and lower ranks. this, the coups before have shown. even if 1980 can be shown as an exception, one needs to remember that turkey was going either in the direction of totalitarian communism, or in the direction of being another iran, through the outside dominant forces acting on the country in those days. however brutal and repressive 1980 has been, it still effected an independent democratic continuance in which republic of turkey protected its existing characteristics.
considering how the ruling islamist party is heavily prosecuting the opposition through various means, and considering how the ergenekon prosecution asked the removal of immunity from 2 opposition party parliamentarians to arrest them, from the assembly, you may not have a choice in the next election.
Read radical news here
So any military coups that happened in the pasts were carried out by officers alone on all levels?
I'm just wondering if this sort of thing can eventually backfire. If the majority (or even a significant part) of the population is Islamist, then so is most of the army, since officer corps are numerically smaller. Who's to say that, should another coup happen, the soldiers won't just turn their guns against their officers to defend the Islamist regime?
We've had this discussion, and his answer was "no". As he explained in more detail, his view is that killing is out of the picture, but that others in the Islam camp do not hew precisely to the "turn the other cheek" doctrine and do condone violence, against an attacker only, in cases of self-defense. Per his take on the issues, the hardliner terrorist bomber types are not proper Muslims. The mainstream of Muslim thought would condone violence to drive out an invader if that's what it took to get them to leave, as with the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the Soviets in Afghanistan in years before, but even in such cases, any proper defender of the faith should only act against the oppressing soldiers, and should have compassion and mercy for all others. As such, suicide bombings in crowded markets is the antithesis of Islam.
Frankly, this strikes me as reasonable. I understand the ideals of Christian love, but I am also aware that if someone is attacking me, I am not guaranteed a favorable outcome either way, should I be passive, or should I actively resist. At least in an active role, I seem to maintain more control over the situation.
For that matter, when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan, it's more just the old story of a local population fighting an invading force, no matter how much religion gets bandied about. Vietnam was cast in the light of the Free West against the Iron Curtain of Communism, but in the end the conflict was more about "get these damn furreners out of our country!" That's what we hear now from Arizona, from Palestine/Israel (where both sides claim the country as "ours"), from the Basque regions, from Ireland (though thankfully less these days), from East Turkmenistan/Xinjiang Province, etc. etc.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
1980 coup was a very organized coup, in which majority of military top down knew about, and they were all informed on what precise task they were to do when the coup was made.
the population that is hardcore islamist to the extent that would take up arms to prevent a coup against islamicization of the country is around 20% traditionally. therefore, when army engages in a coup, they are not a factor within the military. because, army continually removes such people from its ranks. (thats why the islamist government is trying to prevent that removal, by issuing various laws, so they can place islamists in officer ranks). since the percentage is rather low, it doesnt create issues in the conscript ranks too.
Read radical news here
A colleague in Turkey just sent me this message: "I am using google search engine here so I do not know what the article refers to. I am also using google earth."
Out of passion I may not have worded it right for you English major types but at the least I stand up for my shareholders and my company, something they didn't teach you in bschool. Sorry you don't understand. Stick to grading papers.
Rob Shambro Chairman/CEO GenosTV www.genos.tv
So in banning open access to information, the Moslems have taken over the country.
Cranky educator.
Lawmakers are very silly persons.They supposed to block some web sites.But everybody can enter google,youtube etc.Praticaly, nothing banned in Turkiye.Because there’re tons of way to entering blocking sites and whole country know how to use it. e.g. just only change pc dns ip to opendns numbers and everything is allright or proxy programs, sites, several ip numbers, ghost ways However Prime Minister Erdogan watches blocked youtube and suggest peoples to use it and added that people also know how to open blocked sites. Still Turkish users have got high user ratings in these sites.This events occurs because of youtube ip pool complexity with google. And google still do not answer to Turkish government for their tax payments for a long time. Google have got office in Turkey, and they're not registered as tax subject. Google pay taxes to every country except Turkiye. So, TAX is the center of it.