Facebook Allows Turkish Government To Set the Censorship Rules

New submitter feylikurds writes: Facebook has been blocking and banning users for posting Kurdish or anti-Turkish material. Many screenshots exists of Facebook notifying people for such. You can insult any single historical figure that you like on Facebook except one: Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal 'Ataturk'. However, he should not receive special treatment and be protected from criticism, but rather should be treated and examined like everyone else. In order to be accessible within Turkey, Facebook has allowed the repressive Turkish government to set the censorship rules for billions of their users all around the globe. Facebook censors Kurds on behalf of Turkey. To show the world how unjust this policy is, this group discusses Facebook's censorship policy as it relates to Kurds (Facebook account required) and how to get Facebook to change its unfair and discriminatory policy. Makes re-reading Hossein Derakhshan's piece worth the time.

Comments

Slippery slope...

[QuietLagoon]

Once the infrastructure is in place for censorship, that infrastructure will be used.

Re:Slippery slope...

[ememisya]

Of course not. They're the good guys saving the citizens from bad propoganda. Besides the system is there to combat terrorism. You know, hide scary stuff from your precious eyes. Sigh..

Re:Slippery slope...

[Anonymous Coward]

Farcebook's greatest mistake, was to apply this censorship to people outside of Turkey.

Re:Slippery slope...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense.

I have been with Facebook since the beginning. There's no way they will expand this cenXXXXXXX. XXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XXX.

Re:Slippery slope...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the people outside of Turkey who are Turkey's problem. The people inside are too afraid to post or too poor to have the internet. the Iraqi province of Kurdistan, on the other hand... they have internet there. And an increasing alliance with the west.

Re:Slippery slope...

[jstuxx]

The infrastructure is already in use. Facebook is just a propaganda machine serving the NSA and US military. Just take a look at the cesspit Facebook is nowadays, I can't even spend a minute on Facebook without being bombarded with articles telling me how guilty I should be for being white and how a white girl not wanting to "go out" with a black is racism and how I should condemn it and blah blah blah, (I'm Eastern European btw). Facebook also promotes Islam, anti-Greek articles, anti-Russian articles, and whatever serves the political agenda of the powers that be, that means standing up for Kurds, white people, Greeks, Eastern Europeans, Russians is out of the picture and censored. That's Facebook and Googles business model, not just data mining but modern day propaganda.

Re:Slippery slope...

[jstuxx]

Do you really think the West gives a crap about Kurds or anybody else. Turkey is the west's biggest ally.

Re:Slippery slope...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the people outside of Turkey who are Turkey's problem.

In which case, Farcebook would be better served censoring the offensive content strictly within Turkey's borders.

Wow.

[Frosty Piss]

That's quite the write-up... I feel like I've just been to a rally.

Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Shakrai]

When USENET, IRC, and other mediums that were hard to censor were the rule rather than the exception? Now the "go to" places are all for profit enterprises, Facebook, Twitter, Google, et. al. They may profess to follow Western ideals, they may even actually believe in them, but when push comes to shove they'll always do what's necessary to enrich the bottom line.

As an aside, I wonder why the EU is hesitant to consider admitting Turkey? Or why the United States insists on advocating in favor of such a course of action.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[fustakrakich]

As an aside, I wonder why the EU is hesitant to consider admitting Turkey? Or why the United States insists on advocating in favor of such a course of action.

I know it sounds crazy, but maybe it could be something about Russia? All our great empires hold strategic alliances that appear odd from a certain point of view, but this is their game.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[siddesu]

True, but the Internet was much smaller and less important then; it was, with few exceptions, a one-country, one-language affair and, luckily, that country wasn't Turkey, China, or the Soviet Union. That time is gone, however, now the Internet is big, international and outright dangerous to many a regime and government. So you're only going to see more of this.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Shakrai]

The EU isn't a defensive alliance; that's what NATO is for and Turkey is already a NATO member. One that's keeping us from forming a coherent policy against ISIS, incidentally, since our natural allies in the region and only proven effective anti-ISIS force happen to be Turkey's sworn enemy.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

since our natural allies in the region and only proven effective anti-ISIS force happen to be Turkey's sworn enemy.

You meant eh truth about Armenian genocide?

If Turkey has a sworn enemy, they belong in neither the EU nor NATO.

Ataturk humped little boys ... censor that bitches.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Shakrai]

I was actually thinking about their "complex" (understatement) relationship with the Kurds.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only nerds and some enthusiasts with time to waste used IRC and USENET. IRC was a nightmare with splitting servers, script kiddies using "war"-enhanced clients to boot people off channels and assorted crap. USENET was user-unfriendly as hell. Like it or not, the Internet has been de-elitized. It belongs to the man in the street as much as it belongs to the socially inept early adopters who messed up with Trumpet Winsock when the Web wasn't yet around. Part of its "democratization" was its privatization and centralization. While a decentralized structure is less vulnerable to localized attacks, centralization is more efficient business-wise, so expect to see more of this. Balkanization will also inevitably occur because some nations or alliances of nations do not want some content available, so there's nothing to be done here as well. Already I cannot buy from Amazon anymore a lot of stuff I used to, because there are new rules. The Internet is simply another commodity now and it will become more and more hobbled in the real world. There's nothing you can do.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled.

Err; the Internet is still uncontrolled thank you very much; remember, Facebook != Internet; that is all.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Shakrai]

remember, Facebook != Internet

It is to many people, particularly those that came of age after the internet went mainstream, as well as those that are older and less technically adept.

Like it or hate it, Facebook is the Internet to a lot of people. Try having a brick and mortar business these days without a presence on Facebook. There are countless people that will go looking for something on Facebook long before they think of a simple Google search. Why do you think Google has invested so much effort into social media despite their many failures? They're terrified of people like this.

At the rate things are going the "dark web" isn't going to be warez, criminals, and black hats; it's going to be anything that's not on Facebook and Twitter.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like it or not, the Internet has been de-elitized.

This is one of the biggest blunders of modern times. The popularization of the internet has spurred generations of click happy idiot morons. The perception that people know and understand technology is flat out wrong. If that was actually true, IT departments the world over would not exist. People are just too god damn lazy and (in some cases) too god damn stupid to understand or want to understand the internet or any other life changing technology.

"It should just work. Don't care why or how, but it better damn well function or else we'll get very angry and blame you for it." - Every normal person with a computer and/or smartphone

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[HornWumpus]

So was AOL in it's day. Those people should be kept off the general net if at all possible.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Tough Love]

I wonder why the EU is hesitant to consider admitting Turkey?

EU so far does not have any dictatorships as members, and doesn't want to start. Also, Turkey still illegally occupies half of Cyprus. Those two alone are enough for a permaban without even looking at Turkey's financial governance etc.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

As an aside, I wonder why the EU is hesitant to consider admitting Turkey? Or why the United States insists on advocating in favor of such a course of action.

Probably because they're reluctant to allow a Muslim country that will instantly become the second biggest in the European Parliament.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

What killed those was the tragedy of the commons... spam. Back when it really meant that it could cost hundreds of dollars to post on USENET, if someone spammed, the spammer's domain would pull their access, and if the domain wouldn't, the upstream would.

IRC wasn't really killed by spam, but more killed because it didn't really scale. You could be having a conversation in #foo, a netsplit would happen, it would come back, and you would get smacked offline, or four bots would be on the channel kick-banning all people. So, IRC split into various networks. Additional code and cryptography went into minimizing that, but by then, it was too late.

After IRC, mailing lists, and USENET died, it was mainly web forums. Of course, someone with a VPN access could easily make account after account to troll or sock all day long.

Now, it is social networks. The reason why people use these is that they guarantee non-anonymity. You ban John Doe, he is gone for good. Yes, he can create another account, but he needs to find a real-life address that isn't in the system, a burner phone, a valid E-mail address, and if one thing is amiss, the social network will block the account until proof is served that it is correct. With this type of gatekeeper, trolling on FB is relatively low, since you just block each moron once.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Grishnakh]

The problem when we had USENET, IRC, etc. was that the users back then were FAR more technically adept than the average user now. There's just no way you're going to get Grandma to figure out how to use IRC or USENET so she can look at pictures from her grandkids, or write posts about Obama being a Muslim communist who's using FEMA to set up concontration camps. This is why Facebook is so successful: it's fairly easy for any moron to use. Also, its nature is different: it basically lets any moron set up their own blog; USENET and IRC were never designed for that kind of purpose, for one person to be able to have their own soapbox which others could elect to see. Of course, it's easy to make something like this now with Wordpress, but that's still far, far more difficult than just using Facebook.

However, your principle is sound: the problem is open platforms not under the control of any one entity versus closed, proprietary platforms that are completely under one entity's control. This example shows yet again why proprietary service providers should be avoided at all costs: you simply have no control over your own destiny when you give them power over you. We do have alternatives these days too, such as the Diaspora decentralized social networking platform.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[westlake]

[Remember] when USENET, IRC, and other mediums that were hard to censor were the rule rather than the exception?

I remember hating the geek's frustrating, jargon-ridden, clients for these services with the passion of a thousand suns. I used them only because they were serviceable over very low bandwidth connections.

If the Internet looks different now, the geek has only himself to blame.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[rch7]

EU had already admitted Greece, and see how "well" it worked? Turkey is much bigger than Greece, has even more different culture and economy from the West Europe, and most of the Turkey is not even in Europe.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[jstuxx]

Western ideals don't exist. The Western ideal is to silently censor whatever is not convenient for the political agenda and then pretend to follow some ideals when there is an attempt to censor propaganda in favor of their agenda.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[jstuxx]

The EU doesn't isn't going to have an coherent policy against ISIS. Everyone even the brain dead imbeciles know that ISIS is a US/EU/CIA/whatever creation.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[jstuxx]

The Internet is controlled. Who is responsible for delivering the Internet: a bunch of ISP's, whilst every country has their own local ISP's the International fibre optic links are controlled by a handle of multinational US corporations. Who controls the assigning static IP addresses, i.e. the IP addresses which allow you to host your own web page, that's right a few corporations. Who controls domain name servers, a hand full of the same corporations which control IP addresses and the fibre optic links. Now the question is can the people who control the Internet take down content which they do not like, they most certainly can a notable example is Megaupload which was taken down, wasn't even hosted in the US, due to copyright infringement. If I decide to do something similar, distributing free copies of popular music, distributing pirated movies and software I will be arrested and my content will be taken down. There are certain things which are censored on the Internet: child pornography (adult pornography is not censored), content containing "racist", "hate speech" will be censored but of course that again is influenced by politics: Black people can post all the racist bigoted hate speech they want but the same privilege does not extend to white people. There are plenty of other cases which are censored but usually fall under these three categories "hate speech", "copyright infringement" or "terrorism" the last one of course is BS and is used to censor anything which the politicians don't like. The Internet is censored, Facebook's actions are nothing new.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[jstuxx]

EU is a dictatorship just with a different face of course it's not as bad as Turkey. As for Cyprus, the EU and US fully endorses and supports Turkey, because Turkey is their biggest ass kisser in the middle east, need to start a revolution or send reinforcements to anti-government rebels in Syria, Turkey is here to help. If the US/EU cared about the "territorial integrity" of Cyprus they would have bombed Turkey like they bombed Serbia in the 90s, like they bombed Iraqi forces in Kuwait during the first gulf war, or at the very least would be non stop complaining about territorial integrity violations like they are with Crimea and Abkhazia.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[X10]

I was actually thinking about their "complex" (understatement) relationship with the Kurds.

"Complex"? Really? Mr Erdogan (and a large part of the population of Turkey, I assume) don't like Kurds. For racist reasons. At the same time, Mr Erdogan is turning the secular state created by Kemal Atatürk back into an islamic state. I'm not surprised that Turkey is bombing the Kurds, and thus helping IS. Soon, Turkey will be an ally of IS, not an adversary. This of course makes that Turkey can't be part of the EU in the next 50 years or so.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[jstuxx]

It worked out very well now Germany has now effectively colonized Eastern Europe no way Russia is taking over again, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Greece are now nice sources of slave labour ala China, and with all this Germany has a devalued currency to export it's stock under lower prices.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[fustakrakich]

Oh please! What the hell is a 'natural' ally?? ISIS is an American/Saudi creation, arising out of the 'moderate' rebels in whatever country the US is 'liberating' at the moment.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[ememisya]

So Kurds to Turks from a US understanding is like Iraqis (but think Iraqis who live in the US), from a UK understanding (or most of the West really) like Afghanis. Kurds are who Turkey's been bombing since the dawn of UN (P.K.K the Kurdish Party is officially recognized as a terrorist organization by UN) and everybody's been cool with this. Except now Kurds are back on the mainstream media because there is a new Kurdish party who has been gaining a bit of support (they accept LGBT citizens and have a more far-left liberal outlook) so it's bugging Erdogan a bit it would seem, given they cost him the majority of seats in the last election.

Now coming back to the issue at hand here, we really don't have the mental structure to freely exchange information as a society it would seem, and I see this from the perspective of any country today. Here's a tool (and I say this dearly for Facebook) to connect the world, and we secretly or outright declare, "You can insult anyone except Steve! Because Steve is cool!", which tells you something about how privately owned these communication tools really are, masquerading as proponents of freedom of speech and social media, or at least in the minds of most, it's like a phone. In reality however it's much like telling Bob to tell Alice to tell Joe to let Steve know his picture was liked. Well Joe isn't talking to Steve right now, so no, it will be taken down.

Such is the state of the planet. Star Trek tools, medieval operators. Albeit we as in the planet haven't been successfully able to implement a free tool for everyone since the dawn of time, I think Tesla tried that, free energy for everyone, and died broke in a hotel room somewhere.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Tough Love]

As for Cyprus, the EU and US fully endorses and supports Turkey, because Turkey is their biggest ass kisser in the middle east...

Neither EU or US recognizes Turkey's claim to Cyprus as legitimate, quite the opposite of endorsing and supporting. (In fact, no country recognizes Turkey's claim, so the world properly regards the presence of Turkish troups as an occupation. Not even bad actors like Russia and China were willing to break ranks over that one.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, if the Internet was controlled you'd not be able to do most of the aforementioned things in your post.

Turkey's Internet by comparison is controlled, as is Farcebook.

The Internet is censored, Facebook's actions are nothing new.

The word you're looking for, is monitored, unless you happen to live in one of those countries where your Internet really is censored like Turkey or China for example.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not even bad actors like Russia and China were willing to break ranks over that one.

Reveals a lot about you. You know, a couple of billion people consider the West (US, UK, etc) to be "bad actors".

It also reveals a lot about who controls the UN & NATO when Cyprus remains illegally occupied 41 years later. There are still many living, displaced Greek-Cypriots who left homes & possessions and ran south for their lives when the Turkish army landed in the north. When do they get to return home? And who gets punished for those who couldn't run fast enough, and were butchered?

Meanwhile, since northern Cyprus was occupied in 1974, how many other illegally occupied nations have been liberated?
Kuwait? Invaded 1990, liberated 1991.
East Timor? Invaded 1975, liberated 2002.

As has been said many times elsewhere, Turkey is given a free hand because they are one of the West's biggest allies and launch points to the Middle East. Nothing noble here: it's pure, simple, dirty politics.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Chris Mattern]

EU so far does not have any dictatorships as members

Hungary's getting pretty damn close. In fact, I'd say Hungary is closer to one than Turkey. Last election in Turkey, the ruling party didn't get a majority of the seats in parliament and had to form an alliance with a party it doesn't control. That's not something you generally see in a dictatorship.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Tough Love]

Posting ad hominem as anon reveals a lot about you. Make no mistake about it: I personally am critical of the Turkish regime, as is the US administration and the EU administration as evidenced by no ascension anywhere on the horizon. But indeed, filthy politics, and real economic constraints, tend to get in the way of the necessary calvary charge.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Runaway1956]

Just how complex is genocide?

Some great stories available here - http://kurdishdailynews.org/fe...

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[jandersen]

When USENET, IRC, and other mediums that were hard to censor were the rule rather than the exception?

They were not hard to censor; in fact, it would probably have been much easier, since the volumes were much lower. It was just that few realised the potential of this new technology; I remember well how, for years, my workplaces only had a very thin internat connection - in one place there was 1 PC, placed in the reception, connected via a modem, for the whole company to use. It was regarded as a curiosity that probably would fizzle out after a while.

They may profess to follow Western ideals, they may even actually believe in them, but when push comes to shove they'll always do what's necessary to enrich the bottom line.

Welcome to Capitalism, where the only valid measure of anything is The Bottom Line. Freedom is only Freedom and truth is only Truth, if they increase profits.

...why the EU is hesitant to consider admitting Turkey?

Because, for all its rhetoric about freedom and equality, EU is about freedom and equality FOR BUSINESS first and foremost. They don't want Turkey because Turkey is not valuable enough in terms of business, and because for all the lofty ideals, Europeans are deeply bigotted against the idea that Muslims might be good citizens in a European country. It is no longer PC to call them 'swarthy' like we used to, so now it is about 'the clash of civilizations' and how 'Islam leads to terror' and of course the good ol' 'they breed like rats'. That is the ugly truth about why EU doesn't admit Turkey - if Turkey joined the EU, Turkish people would have the right to move and work everywhere.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[tehcyder]

The problem is nothing to do with "democratization", it's to do with "monetization".

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[tehcyder]

As an aside, I wonder why the EU is hesitant to consider admitting Turkey? Or why the United States insists on advocating in favor of such a course of action.

Probably because they're reluctant to allow a Muslim country that will instantly become the second biggest in the European Parliament.

Turkey is a secular country, whose majority religion is Muslim. It's not a theocracy like Iran.

Historically, the issue has been that it was economically weak compared with Western Europe, but with the likes of Greece and Romania in the EU there is no longer such a clear divide.

Cyprus is a relatively minor point of contention in the scheme of things.

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is interesting precedent: Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death because of killing Kurds. Shouldn't the current Turkish leader receive the same sentence?

However, current Turkish leader is killing Kurds with US support...

Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled?

[rch7]

Few people in Eastern Europe want to become slaves of Russian Empire again. And they are free to go and do whatever they want now, I would suggest you to look up dictionary, what is the meaning of word "slavery" if you don't know. Greece has an option to leave eurozone and use whatever currency they want and manage their economy whatever way they want, and it was German politicians who suggested leaving eurozone now. They don't want to leave no matter what.

how to get Facebook to change its unfair policies

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave.
Delete your Account.

Technically yes, but...

[beschra]

Facebook has allowed the repressive Turkish government to set the censorship rules for billions of their users all around the globe

1.5 billion +/- is technically billions, but this statement is inflammatory.

Re:Technically yes, but...

[nnet]

So is ur mom, but you don't see us splitting her hairs....

Re:Technically yes, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

In his defense.... we are splitting her legs.

Are they sure?

[IamTheRealMike]

I didn't actually see any evidence of Facebook censoring content because it's insulting to Ataturk on the linked page. The "evidence" appears to be a document that doesn't mention Facebook anywhere, but, let's take it as read that this really is a list of Facebook content abuse standards.

Even with that assumption, things related to Turkey are not listed as always banned. They are under a section labelled "escalate", meaning, if it gets hot, send it to management.

It may well be that Facebook has decided to enforce Turkish laws about this in order to get themselves unbanned there. But it may also be that upper management just wants more precise control over this hot potato. Once I see a clear message from Facebook saying a group was suspended for violating Turkish censorship laws, then I'll agree.

"for billions of their users"

[Anonymous Coward]

The Turks have "billions of users"? Huh?

Re:"for billions of their users"

[r-diddly]

I get your point, and if the Turkish government has that many users now, just imagine how many it could have if it fixed that "Repressive Bullshit" bug that's been plaguing it since v.1.0

Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Government censorship is nothing new and I seriously doubt Turkish government censorship is aimed specifically at "Kurdish material". We have seen numerous posts with actual content here on /. on Turkish government censorship of the internet. I for one am appalled that this self victimizing "comment" made it to the front page as a "story".

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

Government censorship is nothing new and I seriously doubt Turkish government censorship is aimed specifically at "Kurdish material". We have seen numerous posts with actual content here on /. on Turkish government censorship of the internet. I for one am appalled that this self victimizing "comment" made it to the front page as a "story".

The Turkish AKP is the same as conservatives elsewhere in Europe and the US and their efforts at censorship boil down to the same thing as everywhere else and the fact that they are muslim rather than christians like their brethren in the US and EU is of marginal importance.

Re:Seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

'I seriously doubt Turkish government censorship is aimed specifically at "Kurdish material".'

I'd be really surprised if their priority was anything else. Nothing threatens the Turkish state more.

Facebook will do what is best for its stock price.

[Snufu]

Period.

Re: how to get Facebook to change its unfair polic

[sims 2]

I can't seem to login to my account anymore.

Apparently they don't believe my name really is Ikate Facebork.

Why do so many sites require facebook for login? Why can't they setup their own login system?

You do NOT! have to use Facebook!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why people think they must use Facebook or any other similar site set up by for profit enterprise?
If you do not like it, use something else, preferably not controlled by a corporation form the fucking USA.

Re:Facebook will do what is best for its stock pri

[gstoddart]

Honestly, there is not article to read here ... a link to a previous article on Slashdot, and a group on Facebook.

Is the claim that if I post something on Facebook critical of Ataturk that I will get censored?

Because if Facebook is going to censor the whole world for a single country, then that would pretty much be the worst thing they can do for their stock price.

Re:Facebook will do what is best for its stock pri

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is the entire point in writing an article like this.

Tragically

[loonycyborg]

I didn't read the link because it requires a facebook account which I don't have and never will have. Maybe it's mirrored in free access somewhere?

Re:Tragically

[darniil]

I'll help out.

Here's the group description:

If you have been blocked or banned from FB for posting Kurdish or anti-Turkish material, please screenshot the image that FB sent when notifying you and post it here (you can black out your name if you want).

This group is solely for material dealing with how FB censors Kurds on behalf of Turkey and to show the world how unjust this policy is. Posts are also welcome that discuss FB censorship policy as it relates to Kurds, and discussions on how to get FB to change this unfair and discriminatory policy.

The most recent post after that is someone saying, "My submission is on the frontpage of one of the largest sites on the Internet!", followed by a link to this /. story.

It seems like slightly more than half of the posts in that group are people complaining about what's alleged in this article, and slightly less than half are people actually posting screenshots of FB moderation.

Re:Tragically

[loonycyborg]

Thank you.

Simply don't use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think using Facebook is like being a religious zealot: A sign of lesser intelligence.

Re:Simply don't use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you think that is itself a sign of lesser intelligence.

And that's coming from an atheist who hates Facebook.

Re:Turkey is for cows.

[cyberchondriac]

Mooo! Turkey and cows? What about the chicken? Tursteaken?


That sounds better than turducken.

Facebook overlords

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our free speech abolishing, profit driven facebook overlords!

Re:Turkey is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are all cows. Cows say moo. MOOOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOO! Moo cows MOOOOOOO! Moo say the cows. YOU COWS!!

Can someone enlighten me what is the above?
I see it my threads and I yet to LMAO

Free spech is an ideal and set of laws

[MikeRT]

Hey, if you don't like it, just go start a competitor to Facebook. That's what all the pedantic school marms who come onto Slashdot say when you assert that freedom of speech is equal parts a cultural value and that businesses have no business weighing in on speech most of the time.

Re:Free spech is an ideal and set of laws

[gstoddart]

Well, if Facebook is provably censoring outside of Turkey, instead of inside of Turkey to comply with Turkish laws ... then, yes, this is a big deal.

I see no evidence they are, but if Facebook starts applying this censorship globally then this is a scary precedent. Because next they'll ban blasphemy, ban criticizing the Thai PM, and basically start banning anything which is banned anywhere.

Of course, the problem is there is nothing to support this except the group which claims it is true.

But if it is true, then the fallout for Facebook should be swift and severe for them. Because you can't start censoring the whole world based on whims of one idiotic government.

Turkey is free to have their own laws, but the (unsubstantiated) claim they're globally censoring is an entirely different thing.

Re:Free spech is an ideal and set of laws

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what all the pedantic school marms who come onto Slashdot say

Not all of them say that. Others like pointing out that freedom of speech goes all ways. Facebook is free to police their site as they see fit, I am free to bitch about their policies, you are free to bitch about my bitching about their policies, and so on. Where it gets in to a gray area is when someone invokes freedom of speech, because the implication is you are trying to make the other person shut up, and you end up coming across as a hypocrite

"But Mr AC, isn't that what you are doing to me?"

Not at all. I am having a conversation with you about it. I wouldn't dream of making you shut up, because then I couldn't couldn't have this conversation.

Re:Free spech is an ideal and set of laws

[Anonymous Coward]

And then, once you are popular and the Kurdish people begin to use your site to express their views, you too will get a visit from the State department.

This is about overfly rights from a democratic islamic client state and little else.

Re:Free spech is an ideal and set of laws

[St.Creed]

They've *always* applied US censorship rules worldwide. Now they just added a few more.

For example: breastfeeding pictures, nudes in paintings of classical masters, your own naked photo's - all banned. None of it illegal in the EU. So don't complain when the chickens come home to roost - censorship was built in from the start.

Re:Free spech is an ideal and set of laws

[Anonymous Coward]

None of it is illegal in the US either, so what the fuck is your point?

Re:Free spech is an ideal and set of laws

[tehcyder]

None of it is illegal in the US either, so what the fuck is your point?

The point is that Facebook operates according to US moral standards, and therefore it bans topless pictures even though they're not illegal in the US, in the same way it bans hard core pornography (which is also not illegal in the US).

You can censor things on other grounds than their legality.

Facebook Embraces Turkish Censorship

[feylikurds]

The 17-page manual outlines especially strict policies when it comes to Turkey, its founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Kurds, and imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan. No other country enjoys such censorship privileges. Gawker.com recently posted the document leaked by a former employee of oDesk, the firm contracted to police the content shared by Facebook users. Once a specific post is reported by a Facebook user, moderators are instructed to “confirm,” “unconfirm,” “escalate,” or “ignore” materials that might be considered offensive. The manual defines “confirmed” as “a decision which implies that there is a violation on a piece of content, as reported by the user.” Once confirmed, the material is deleted. If the post does not constitute a violation, the moderator “unconfirms” the material. “Escalate,” on the other hand, sends the content to Facebook’s internal review team “for further action.” http://armenianweekly.com/2012...

Re:Facebook Embraces Turkish Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically Zuckerberg is sucking the cock of a wannabe dictator

Re:Facebook Embraces Turkish Censorship

[messymerry]

Zuckerberg is sitting in the corner drooling and playing with his very very expensive toys while his NSA handlers are fielding the questions. Don't talk about anything but doilies, kittens, and puppies on FB...

Re:Facebook will do what is best for its stock pri

[Anonymous Coward]

While this is true in theory, they really only do what they _think_ will help their stock price. Moves like this could very much have the opposite effect.

Re:Turkey is for cows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trollbot contests. Don't respond to them again.

Ataturk was a punk

[PopeRatzo]

I was only in Istanbul once, and only long enough to have dinner, fall asleep and run to the airport. But my Serbian monther-in-law has some very strong opinions about Turks. She's usually such a sweet little old lady, but don't get her started on the Turks. I mean, the Ottoman Empire was gone before she was born, but damn, she's still mad about something.

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[Tough Love]

The Turks have always been big on genocide and what is currently going on in southeast Turkey pretty much continues the tradition (see burning forests to depopulate villages - can you tell the difference between that an ethnic cleansing?)

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post has been escalated and you will be bent.

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[jstuxx]

African colonialism and US slavery were gone before most of todays black kids were born however they still go on and on about colonialism and justify for everything that is wrong in their lives so why shouldn't Serbian people have the same attitude towards Turks I mean nobody would dare say Black people shouldn't be pissed about Colonialism. Ooops this comment is likely to get censored due to "racism" but then again nobody will care, "OMG CENSORSHIP ON SLASHDOT. Racism ohh okay no problem then."

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[PopeRatzo]

I mean nobody would dare say Black people shouldn't be pissed about Colonialism. Ooops this comment is likely to get censored due to "racism" but then again nobody will care, "OMG CENSORSHIP ON SLASHDOT. Racism ohh okay no problem then."

Geez, man. What are you so upset about? You better take care you don't have a stroke worrying about all that.

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[jstuxx]

Nothing didn't you get the irony? The above comment was ridiculing Serbs for hating Turks however change the perspective a little, replace Serbs with Black people and Turks with White people and Ottoman empire with colonialism and suddenly it is now a big serious issue unlike the joke above, his comment would be deleted and we wouldn't even care, in-fact all of us would be in full support suddenly forgetting our anti-censorship stance whereas if a comment insulting Ataturk or a comment against the Chinese gets deleted we would be up in arms about the censorship of our precious free for all Internet.

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[PopeRatzo]

I was being ironic too.

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[CompMD]

I'm of Greek descent, and when my grandmother developed Alzheimer's about 18 years ago, we found that she would take knives from the kitchen and hide them in her bedroom and in her purse. We put them all back and this happened a few times before we found her purse just full of knives. When we confronted her about it, she scowled and said she needed them in case any Turks came by. Thankfully she never hurt herself or anyone else. But yeah man, I get where you're coming from.

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[tehcyder]

Ataturk was certainly no saint by Western standards, but he did manage to create a secular country out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

Re:Ataturk was a punk

[KGIII]

Comments do not get deleted here. Well, unless they are that one comment - do not threaten the president and you should be all set. You can say anything you want. There is no censorship here. We'd notice and we would be very, very angry. To see all comments browse at -1.

Re: how to get Facebook to change its unfair polic

[Ash-Fox]

Why do so many sites require facebook for login? Why can't they setup their own login system?

It reduces risk from compromise. If their site is compromised, user credentials can't be stolen.

Next

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook will ban all criticism of hitler, stalin and lenin.

Zuckerberg Dog

[monkeyxpress]

Once the infrastructure is in place for censorship, that infrastructure will be used.

Sadly the average person really doesn't care. They could probably just announce that they are selling all your data to North Korea, and then release some photos of the dog posing with Kim Jong Un and everyone would be fine with it.

Nothing to do with Facebook policy

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything to do with US foreign policy.

Turkey is _important_, and they get away with plenty of things to do with the kurdish independence movement simply because they are important.

This will not be something Facebook chose to do lightly; it'll have been diplomatic-level pressure and then very serious state department pressure.

This bullshit has little to do with Facebook or the internet.

Not merely censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Spend ten minutes looking into Turkey's treatment of its Kurdish population. This is not "democracy vs. terrorists." Facebook is assisting in a century-long oppression of a minority group by old school nationalism bent on monoculture. I hesitate to call this what it is because /. will freak out over the melodrama attached to the word.

Understanding Facebook policy is difficult since the only related link is to Facebook login, and I have no account. Is Facebook blocking the Kurdish language?

Re:Not merely censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a Kurdish terrorist organization (it doesn't matter which definition you are looking at, bombing shopping malls, killing innocent people including babies, attacking schools IS terrorism).

This appears to be bogus

[wogsland]

My attempt to get myself censored or banned was unsuccessful: https://www.facebook.com/wogsl...

Re:This appears to be bogus

[aristotle-dude]

My attempt to get myself censored or banned was unsuccessful: https://www.facebook.com/wogsl...

At work so I am not going to follow your link but I have noticed a double standard if you identify as a democrat, leftist or a member of the LGBT community. They allow those people to say a bunch of hateful bigoted things about Jews and Christians. Every report, no matter how blatant, receives a "we found that it does not violate the community standards blah blah blah". But if I were to call a gay person a coward for hiding behind a fake community page to attack christians on christian stories, I get banned for several days. Just for calling them a coward for abusing the system. You see, you cannot block individual accounts from appearing even in comments on other people's stories but not "community" accounts.

Re:This appears to be bogus

[jstuxx]

Glad I'm not the only one who sees it for what it is. Black racists can post as much hate speech as they want and its always excused with history, colonialism, slavery and always it's justified because Black people are somehow more discriminated than white people in America even though the president of the USA is Black and Blacks have largely equal rights as white people, in-fact Blacks are more equal than whites, It's always excused with "that's not really racism" which translate only white people can be racist, yet comments such as this one (one I'm writing) get deleted due to "hate speech". I've noticed that Facebook is a particularly bad case, they actually promote Black racists, Feminist hate speech, hate speech coming from the LGBT community, supporting Islam, promoting hate speech from the muslim community against everybody else, hate speech against the Greeks, Eastern Europeans, Russians, Serbs, it's Facebook's entire business model: propaganda which serves the interests of the current powers that be.

Re:This appears to be bogus

[david_thornley]

There's plenty of Christians in this country who seem to think that not allowing them to discriminate against non-Christians and not allowing them to tailor the laws according to their personal preference is hateful and bigoted. I'm not sure how many of them there are (I don't know any) but they exist and are pretty loud. Therefore, I don't accept a Christian's claim that somebody is maligning them. I like to see what the people are saying before passing judgment.

Christians are not alone in their oversensitivity, of course, but your comment was about them.

Also, are you claiming that calling someone a coward is not a personal attack, or that Facebook should tolerate personal attacks from the right people?

Wait a sec, even Mohammed?

[foreverdisillusioned]

You can insult any single historical figure that you like on Facebook except one: Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal 'Ataturk'

I would think that Turkey has something to say about Mohammed as well, considering they seized copies of Charlie Hebdo's survival issue due to the horribly, horribly offensive image of a crying prophet holding up a sign saying "All is Forgiven". (Aside: This really goes to show how deluded a lot of people are on these issues. If your scale is calibrated such that Turkey is deemed "secular" then a place like Texas is going to come out as "ultra-secular / atheistic")

Also, is this censorship happening on only Turkey's localized Facebook or is it on English Facebook as well? TFS doesn't make this clear, and although it's impossible to say it without coming off as a little smug ("I don't own a TV!"), I don't actually have a Facebook account so I can't read TFA.

Circular Logic

[Roger W Moore]

Just curious but how do you post such pictures to a group which requires a Facebook login if you have been blocked or banned from Facebook?

Re:Circular Logic

[darniil]

I imagine you can always just make a new account. It's not like email addresses are in short supply, or that a person is limited to one Facebook account per lifetime.

Sometimes the bans or blocks may be at the post-level, rather than the account-level. That would allow the account with the "sanctioned" content to continue to post in other areas.

Turkey vs. China?

[Rick in China]

If Facebook is so willing to bend completely to the Turkish government's demands for censorship, I wonder why, then, it remains banned in China - being that the key (publicly accepted) reason circled around censorship.

I know that the Chinese government isn't so keen on allowing Facebook to operate in China at all, given that they are in support of local competitors, but in order to legitimately prevent Facebook from competing if they wanted to - they'd need to essentially abide by the same rules as the local competitors. They'll bend over for Turkey, but not China? Surely China is far more profitable if they had bent earlier while it was still available and making headway in the market.

Re:Turkey vs. China?

[jstuxx]

The reason is that Facebook in China would allow a back door to the USA. It would essentially allow the USA to pull an Arab Spring in China, wasn't the Arab Spring started on Twitter? That's the main purpose of social networks, why do you think they are free?

Re:Turkey vs. China?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The Arab Spring was started in Langley, VA.

Re:Turkey vs. China?

[Swave An deBwoner]

Nope. New Zealand. https://plus.google.com/106104557432351161774

Behavioral Retargeting

[BrookHarty]

Anyone who uses facebook will notice how it picks and chooses what to show you. Even if you jump through their overly complicated grouping methods, it will only limit what to show you. The only way to get a good stream is to view each person/group independently, which is over kill. You cant add secret groups to lists, so you have to view each secret group directly. RSS feeds no longer work, and stories are limited to 20 at a time.

They even scan for posts that relate to what you post, including categories and tag them. You post lots of political, food, cats, notice how the the feeds show you "likewise" posts from people. Think about that, your posts are tagged by its content.

This is a scary trend, they choose what you can see on the largest "social site". Its not social when facebook picks and chooses for you.

Facebook has already been banning content they seem offensive for political reasons. Lets not kid ourselves, the hate for anything non-progressive, left leaning gets a hammer on facebook. If enough people brigade vote on someone as offensive, it gets removed quicker than left leaning views. The stories of right wing groups getting their pages removed, or anti-feminist groups being removed is happening way to often. I've seen 2 people i follow had their page removed due to an inflammatory comment made against some popular social movements. While the censorship is really all over a sliding scale on what is acceptable, the side of safety is only for leftist views.

So, we have automated processes on what you content is shown, broken content reader, administrators removing content due to personal values, governments adding blacklists, facebook remove functionality and apis, and you being used as a lab animal in their testing.

Facebook is indeed a deal with the devil for its thought controlled social networking experience.

Re:Behavioral Retargeting

[drinkypoo]

Lets not kid ourselves, the hate for anything non-progressive, left leaning gets a hammer on facebook.

Bullshit. The hate for anything non-centrist is what you mean. I've posted truly left-of-left stuff on fb and had it disappear, or the URL content (and preview) get stripped but the post remains so it looks like I'm just ranting and frothing about nothing, so before I stopped sharing important things on fb I started putting the URLs into my text every time. And I'd go look and the website would still be there, and there would be no notices from fb about canning my content, just stripped. Stuff I'd posted before and after would still be fine.

If you imagine that facebook is a liberal bastion, think again. It's centrist-statist.

Re:Behavioral Retargeting

[jstuxx]

What's worse Facebook does not outright censor all hate speech for example it permits and outright pushes hate speech coming from Black racists, Feminists, gay men to your newsfeed, it's a trend everywhere and its probably why Facebook even exists and makes money. Ask yourself why else would a costly service allowing people to store HUGE amounts of photos, each photo is a couple of Megabytes, each person who actively uses Facebook has Gigabytes worth of photos, now total it all up it probably numbers in the zettabytes and yottabytes, this is a costly service, server computer do not come cheap and maintaining a network and cloud of such size is incredibly costly. Yes sure ads make up for some of it, but ads cannot possibly make up for all of it considering nobody clicks on FB ads and companies know that nobody clicks on them and nobody cares about them. FB probably makes money from selling data to the NSA and propaganda, promoting leftist agenda, etc. If that weren't the case they would be charging us through the roof for their service.

Re: how to get Facebook to change its unfair polic

[Cro Magnon]

I've heard of an Asian who is having trouble with his name on FB. They don't like "Foo Kew".

Racism.

[jstuxx]

I don't understand how this creates such an outcry yet censoring posts which are perceived to be racist (racism is only considered such if the perpetrators white and the victim is not white) is not a problem in fact everyone supports the banning of "hate speech" yet this Turkish thing has everyone screaming censorship.

I understand the argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

But. Would everyone feel the same if the title of this article read "Facebook censors al queda" the Kurds and PKK are terrorists, and have been for many many years. I don't like the man (he's a wanna be dictator) but I don't disagree with this decision. Turkey is a democratic modern Muslim ally and can still be saved, both from within and without.

Re:I understand the argument...

[Anonymous Coward]

This.
Not all the Kurds are terrorists of course (just like not all Arabs in US are terrorists), but there *is* a Kurdish terrorist organization, and they are pushing separatist anti-government propaganda.

Imagine Indian-Americans start bombing shopping malls and schools to carve themselves a new nation in US. Would we call it genocide or terrorism?

Re: how to get Facebook to change its unfair polic

[sims 2]

Having a single login for 30 websites is somehow better?

I rather take my chances with a unique combo for each site.

I Always figured it just meant they were just too lazy to set something up in house and or secure it.

That does sound plausible although I think it protects the company more so than the user.

Old news?

[matunos]

This is pretty much old news, going back to the leaked document that gawker got in 2012 (http://gawker.com/5885714/inside-facebooks-outsourced-anti-porn-and-gore-brigade-where-camel-toes-are-more-offensive-than-crushed-heads).

What I can't tell for sure, and as someone not particularly affiliated with the Kurdish or Turkish causes, haven't experienced directly, is Facebook applying all of these standards (e.g. denigration of Ataturk) to all Facebook users, or does it only affect users from Turkey?

That is, if I post something denigrating Ataturk, will they potentially block it entirely or just block it in Turkey? If it's the latter, well, that's unfortunate, but that's Turkey's anti-free speech laws. If it's the former, that's especially repulsive, and basically pushes Facebook to the least-common denominator of free speech.

At any rate, the Turkish government's sensitivity to "insults" against Ataturk are somewhat ironic, since Erdogan is doing everything he can to spit on Ataturk's policy of strict secularism.

Re: how to get Facebook to change its unfair polic

[Ash-Fox]

Having a single login for 30 websites is somehow better?

Most logins are e-mails these days and many people use the same password across numerous sites. I'd say it happens regardless for many.

I know why Facebook is doing this...

[Applehu Akbar]

They're testing this set of censorship techniques in case they are one day required to use them in the US and Europe.

diffusion or censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Some countries, such as USA, can afford to control social media thought diffusion (creating a lot of genuine-like posts and information that enforces their point of view, slowly making the adversary point of view look unattractive and a minority). Other countries, such as Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, simply do not have the technology to do that and have to try censorship as it is easier to achieve. All countries try to control the Internet with whatever means they have, some are just more obvious that the rest.

PKK = innocent Kurds - WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook issue aside, there is a spread of misinformation here.
There is a Kurdish terrorist organization (it doesn't matter which definition you are looking at, bombing shopping malls, killing innocent people including babies, attacking schools IS terrorism). This doesn't mean Kurdish citizens are terrorist.

As for the way they're handling the separatist anti-government propaganda, I don't know what is the correct answer, but doing nothing won't do any good.