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Facebook Allows Turkish Government To Set the Censorship Rules

Posted by timothy on from the but-everyone-loves-the-king-of-thailand dept.

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.

8 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Slippery slope... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  2. Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Shakrai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    1. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    2. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Shakrai · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  3. Facebook will do what is best for its stock price. by Snufu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Period.

  4. Re:Facebook will do what is best for its stock pri by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. Tragically by loonycyborg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?