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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.

21 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: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      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 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.
    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.
    4. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    5. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      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.

    6. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by jstuxx · · Score: 2

      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.

    7. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by X10 · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      no, I don't have a sig
    8. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    9. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2

      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.

    10. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

      Just how complex is genocide?

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

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    11. Re:Remember when the Internet was uncontrolled? by jandersen · · Score: 2

      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.

  3. Are they sure? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  4. Facebook will do what is best for its stock price. by Snufu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Period.

  5. 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.
  6. 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?

    1. Re:Tragically by darniil · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  7. Ataturk was a punk by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  8. Zuckerberg Dog by monkeyxpress · · Score: 2

    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.

  9. Wait a sec, even Mohammed? by foreverdisillusioned · · Score: 2

    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.