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Turkish PM: "To Me, Social Media Is the Worst Menace To Society."
PolygamousRanchKid writes "Turkey's prime minister on Sunday rejected claims that he is a 'dictator,' dismissing protesters as an extremist fringe even as thousands returned to the landmark Istanbul square that has become the site of the fiercest anti-government outburst in years. With Turkish media otherwise giving scant reports about the protests, many turned to social media outlets for information on the unrest. 'There is now a menace which is called Twitter,' Erdogan said. 'The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.' 'The people are finally standing up, speaking up and fighting for their rights,' said Hakan Tas, a deputy for the Left Party in Berlin's local assembly, who took part in the protest."
Dictators don't like free speech for many reasons. Someone else would do a better job of listing them than me.
He's just saying aloud what a lot of world leaders are thinking.
The internet has created a revolution in information dispersment. No longer do the the Powers That Be have a lock on the news. Even before the Internet, of course, people could bypass the regime's total control of the media (e.g., Soviet samizdats) but even then distribution issues limited how widely alternate views could be spread. Now, thanks to the Internet, it is cheap and easy for anyone to post information onto the internet, and even easier for other people to read it. This isn't without its own problems - both in the flood of available knowledge and the lack of fact-checking - but on the whole it has radically challenged how regimes control what their populace knows and thinks. And this frightens them incredibly.
Ergodan is just voicing what many other rulers - be they third-world dictators or first-world politicians - believe in their hearts. If they had their way, they'd roll things back to the 1980s, before the Internet revolution threw everything into flux.
As extra information: going from designated Good Guy to designated Bad Guy does not need any change or adaption from the designated Guy. It just kinda happens.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
You should have the right to protest whatever regardless of your citizenship. Human rights are still human rights, this idea that we shouldn't care about and we shouldn't (peacefully!) try to do something about X has lead to some of the worst abuses in power in history. We are all humans and it is in all of our best interests that basic rights to self-expression, freedom of religion and the right of self-ownership are protected. Why should I care about sex-slavery in Africa? After all, I don't live in Africa, I'm white and I'm also male. Why should I care about what's happening in Syria? After all, I'm not Islamic and I'm not middle eastern and don't live in Syria. Heck, we can go even further, why should I care about the holocaust? I'm not Jewish, I don't live in Germany. Why should I care about the civil rights movement? I'm not black.
Rights need to be protected no matter who is violating them. The protection of human rights in Turkey is a cause that all liberty-minded individuals need to take note of and support no matter where their geographical location is, what race they are and whatever country you "legally belong to", because what happens to one human, affects us all.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The police is reacting extremely violent in the protests against Erdogan, the Turkish prime Minister. Streets were littered with tear gas canisters. Several people have been killed or shot and who knows how many people are wounded.
In the mean time CNN Turkey is showing a documentary about penguins and also other news organisations in Turkey are ignoring the protests.
Facebook and Twitter do indeed play an important role in the protests. For instance it helps organize medical aid for wounded and communication about the severe cases that need urgent help and need to be transported to a hospital.
Privacy is terrorism.