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Wikipedia Is Being Blocked In Turkey (turkeyblocks.org)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the revision-history dept.

Nine hours ago, Ilgaz wrote: The Turkey Blocks monitoring network has verified restrictions affecting the Wikipedia online encyclopedia in Turkey. A block affecting all language editions of the website [was] detected at 8:00AM local time Saturday 29 April. The loss of availability is consistent with internet filters used to censor content in the country.
stikves added Access to Wikipedia has been blocked in Turkey as a result of "a provisional administrative order" imposed by the Turkish Telecommunications Authority (BTK)... Turkey Blocks said an administrative blocking order is usually expected to precede a full court blocking order in coming days. While the reason for the order was unknown early on Saturday, a statement on the BTK's website said: "After technical analysis and legal consideration based on the Law Nr. 5651, ADMINISTRATION MEASURE has been taken for this website (wikipedia.org) according to Decision Nr. 490.05.01.2017.-182198 dated 29/04/2017 implemented by Information and Communication Technologies Authority."
The BBC adds reports from Turkish media that authorities "had asked Wikipedia to remove content by writers 'supporting terror.'"

43 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Donald Trump congratulates Turkey's dictator by bit+trollent · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Donald Trump has been instructed by Vladamir Putin to congratulate Turkey's dictator on his recent elimination of democracy in his country.

    As a known secret agent working for Turkey on behalf of Russia, Michael Flynn said in an op-ed "Our ally Turkey is in crisis and needs our support"

    Michael Flynn was working as a secret foreign agent when he wrote that op-ed, and Donald Trump knew he had found his new National Security Adviser.

    It might not make sense to pick a secret foreign agent to be national security advisor, but you have to remember, Vladimir Putin picked our national security adviser, and it makes perfect sense to him.

    1. Re:Donald Trump congratulates Turkey's dictator by ItsJustAPseudonym · · Score: 1

      Our ally Turkey is in crisis and needs our support

      Reference here, since I looked it up:
      Article in The Hill, By Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn (R), contributor - 11/08/16

  2. The signs are there by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The signs are in place that Turkey is moving to a totalitarian regime. And they have come pretty far in that movement.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    1. Re:The signs are there by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If even ten percent of the people arrested really were involved in the coup it would have succeeded.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:The signs are there by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      And yet, the EU is still in talks to have them join. Unbelievable.

    3. Re:The signs are there by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      And yet, the EU is still in talks to have them join. Unbelievable.

      Turkey's application to join the EU has not yet been formally rejected, but there are no "talks". Turkey is preparing to reinstate the death penalty, and the EU has already said that will result in their accession being formally rejected.

    4. Re: The signs are there by Frankzy · · Score: 1

      That's a lie, after the purge the negotiations was halted citing Turkeys descent into autocracy.

    5. Re:The signs are there by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      https://www.ft.com/content/9b6...

    6. Re:The signs are there by Megol · · Score: 3, Informative

      No. Stop spreading bullshit you have no fucking idea about. There's no chance in hell that Turkey will be able to join the EU and the chance is decreasing rapidly.

      Even when there were talks (a long time ago) Turkey would have to change their system a lot to even be able to ask for a membership. Examples:
      It is forbidden to insult Ataturk.
      It is forbidden to talk about the internationally recognized and well documented Armenian genocide.
      Human rights violations. Too many to list.
      Trying to control media including the freedom of the press.
      Multiple instances of trying to influence Turks living abroad in illegal ways, threats, spionage etc.

    7. Re:The signs are there by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Slim as you think the chances may be, they're still talking. https://www.dailysabah.com/eu-...

    8. Re:The signs are there by religionofpeas · · Score: 1

      Thank you for linking to a paywall.

      It was free to read when I first clicked on it. But in any case, you can copy paste the article title in Google and get plenty of other news sources saying the same thing.

    9. Re:The signs are there by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      False attribution. 100% of the people arrested were involved. It's just that it wasn't a coup as much as it was a stunt to arrest those people.

    10. Re:The signs are there by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      And yet, the EU is still in talks to have them join. Unbelievable.

      No they aren't. The process for the Turkish ascension has been stonewalled for years. In the 14 years since the Turkish ascension started they have completed only one of the 33 required chapters of the acquis and are showing promise of completing only two others. By comparison Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, etc all managed their complete ascension in less time than it has taken Turkey to get this far.

      In order to join the EU you must have a compatible legal system with the EU. You may have also missed the vote which passed the EU parliament last year that effectively suspended any talks of Turkey joining the EU due to their recent backwards movements in this regard. Regardless of what Turkey does, legally only 16 chapters are opened to them right now, and they've got sweet fuck all chance of getting another at this stage.

    11. Re:The signs are there by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Clearly, freedom of speech is not valued in the US either. You can't tell lies to a judge, or spread falsehoods about people, etc.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    12. Re:The signs are there by Dogtanian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's no chance in hell that Turkey will be able to join the EU and the chance is decreasing rapidly.

      Exactly. Turkey has been pushing to join the EU for decades now, and it has (of its own- or rather of Erdogan's- own volition) been moving further away from meeting the requirements to join.

      Even a few years ago, before things got this bad, it was generally seen as clear that Erdogan was not interested in joining the EU- let alone meeting the conditions for membership- but only in exploiting it for political capital... particularly when they were rejected so he could blame them for anti-Muslim bias, say they had no intention of letting them in in the first place, and use it as an excuse to bolster his own autocratic regime.

      It'll also be noted how Erdogan exploited the Syrian refugee crisis in an attempt to extort concessions from the EU by threatening non-cooperation and effectively swamping the EU with refugees coming via Turkey. With freedom of speech- let alone expression- being cracked down on to the current extent, with the state shamelessly exploiting its power to push its own message while persecuting and suppressing any opposition, Turkey has- like Russia- become a mockery of a democracy.

      Erdogan got his way- regardless of whether the Turks themselves are decent people, this is not a country- in anything like its current state- it would be acceptable or remotely workable to have within the EU. But then, there was never a cat's chance in hell of this happening anyway (and now it's more like a snowman's chance).

      If I'd thought there was *anything* like a realistic prospect of Erdogan's Turkey being allowed to join the EU, there's no way I'd have voted "Remain". (Spoiler; I voted "Remain".)

      Of course, that didn't stop self-serving scum like Boris Johnson- the guy who shifted his allegiance to improve his own prospects of becoming Prime Minister- using this as a scaremongering tactic to promote the Leave case, and in an utterly shameless display of hypocrisy, once they'd won, saying they were going to help Turkey join the EU. What a piece of shit.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    13. Re:The signs are there by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      The big irony here is that Boris is of Turkish descent. Perhaps we should have pulled up the drawbridge a bit earlier.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    14. Re:The signs are there by Xest · · Score: 1

      It doesn't really matter if they have talks or not - Turkey cannot join the EU in it's current state, because to join you have to legally fulfil certain conditions and that's enshrined in the very treaties that underly the existence of the EU in the first place.

      The EU's hope is that by continuing talks it'll force Erdogan to backtrack, because he simply has to to join, there's no way to achieve movement on that without getting agreement to change the fundamental treaties that underpin the EU, and that requires referendums in some member states. Getting 27 member states to agree to change the founding legal requirements of the EU to allow a dictatorship in would be hard enough at the best of times, much less when you have to get the people of some countries to agree too when there's so much anti-Turkish sentiment at the moment in the EU anyway since Erdogan decided to declare entire EU states to be nazis.

      So long story short, talks or not doesn't matter - the point is that Turkey simply cannot join the EU without sorting itself out, therefore the EU is probably in a better place to try and convince Turkey to change track by keeping that on the table, than by taking it off the table which will give Erdogan all the excuse he needs to carry on Turkey's descent into authoritarianism.

      So the GP might not be entirely correct but his point remains all the same - contrary to the OP's implication that the EU is about to let a dictatorship in, that simply cannot happen without every nation and a majority of citizens in some nations agreeing to it and if that happens then the EU is basically fucked regardless, because something weird would've had to have happened for a majority of say, Belgians, to accept free movement of citizens from a middle eastern Islamic dictatorship.

    15. Re:The signs are there by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      So certain lies are not allowed, then? Just like in Germany?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    16. Re:The signs are there by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Why do people downvote this ? He said a truism.

      lol you sound smart. Your views are what you'd expect from someone who comes out with "he said a truism"

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    17. Re:The signs are there by Maritz · · Score: 1

      And yet, the EU is still in talks to have them join. Unbelievable.

      Unbelievable as in not actually happening? That's right. You'll have to find something else to clutch your pearls about. Everybody knows Turkey isn't joining the EU. Make sure you keep saying it is though, spin is more important than reality.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  3. Meh. by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    No loose for the Turks, except for those that play Trivial Pursuit...

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  4. Way to go, Turkey! by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Soon you will attain the status of an Islamic theocracy, that you seem to be so keen on.

    1. Re:Way to go, Turkey! by ItsJustAPseudonym · · Score: 1

      It seems not to bode well, for the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Attaturk.

  5. Ssshhh! by sky_khan72 · · Score: 2

    Keep it quiet or slashdot will be next!

  6. Re:And the US website block? by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    US citizens are not blocked from reading the same information on other sites.

  7. Re:And the US website block? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That is ridiculous. Removing or changing your own content is not the same as preventing access to somebody else's. Please think a little.

  8. Sad they voted for it. Twitter is next - he said. by Elixon · · Score: 2

    I must say: Turkey will get what they voted for. Unfortunately recovering from this will be much more pricey then getting into this s*t.

    This shows the problem with democracy. Average people are dumb. As the result the dictator can be democratically elected.

    According to what Erdogan already advertised the Twitter will be next and Facebook will follow. Not sure if I should be sympathetic with that country if majority is getting what they voted for. Although I am sympathetic with that smarter minority because history shows us that this smarter minority will sacrifice the most in the future when trying to fix mistakes of dumb majority.

    --
    Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
  9. Re:Good old Turkey and friends by johanw · · Score: 2

    They only call it safe because most countries don't want any more muslims in but are too yellow to state that openly.

  10. Re:Not the EU, but it is NATO ... by johanw · · Score: 1

    At least the economy is tanking now that the tourists stay away.

  11. Re:Sad they voted for it. Twitter is next - he sai by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

    Twitter and Facebook wouldn't be a loss to me if they disappeared.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  12. Re: And the US website block? by Jesus+H+Rolle · · Score: 2

    People in power are blocking access to information for political reasons. It is blatant censorship, regardless of the mechanics, and especially disturbing because the US government is nominally owned by the USican public, who ought to have access to their publicly funded data. Likewise the Turquese public ought to have access to public domain content.

  13. Re: Not news by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Yea because the US Government is blocking websites they don't like all the time.

    The US Government doesn't 'block' anything. They just seize the domain. Now the whole world is locked out.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  14. The mass migration to Europe from Syria is nothing by c8663 · · Score: 2

    The mass migration to Europe from Syria is nothing compared to the mass migration from Turkey that will happen in a few years.

  15. Re:And the US website block? by thegarbz · · Score: 2

    That's because you don't seem to understand the difference:

    Turkey:
    Block access to third party published information.

    USA:
    Hasn't blocked anything. Simply removed a government website that contained content that wasn't inline with the current government's thinking. The content of this website has been copied elsewhere, and no attempt has been made to block people from viewing it.

    These require a different response because they are very different cases. Claiming they are similar and should be met with the same outrage is just asinine.

  16. It gets better. Those Turks are actually Russians. by denzacar · · Score: 2

    Those "pro Turkey" lobbyists who paid him are actually Russians.
    http://www.politico.com/story/...

    The Turkish man who gave Mike Flynn a $600,000 lobbying deal just before President Donald Trump picked him to be national security adviser has business ties to Russia, including a 2009 aviation financing deal negotiated with Vladimir Putin, according to court records.
    The man, Ekim Alptekin, has in recent years helped to coordinate Turkish lobbying in Washington with Dmitri "David" Zaikin, a Soviet-born former executive in Russian energy and mining companies who also has had dealings with Putin's government, according to three people with direct knowledge of the activities.
    ...
    Alptekin, in an interview, said he hired Flynn with his own money and did not coordinate any lobbying for the Turkish government. He also denied knowing Zaikin.

    But Alptekin acknowledged that he has attended events and met with leaders of the Turkish Heritage Organization, a Washington-based group of Turkish-Americans loyal to Erdogan.
    The organization was started when Zaikin asked a Washington-based international political consultant named John Moreira to help set it up, Moreira told POLITICO.

    "Surprisingly", both Zaikin and Alptekin also had business deals with Putin.

    In the 2000s, Zaikin was an executive in Russia's oil industry at a time when Putin was consolidating control over the country's mineral wealth to the financial benefit of himself and the circle of oligarchs who are his key supporters and associates.
    ...
    In 2008, Zaikin made a deal with an ex-KGB oligarch involved in the giant state oil company Gazprom. Zaikin's company sold the oligarch a 2.5 percent stake in a subsidiary, known as KNG, for shares worth $10, equivalent to valuing the entire subsidiary at $400, according to SEC disclosures.
    That came less than two years after Zaikin's company bought KNG for the equivalent of $2.7 million.
    ...
    Alptekin has had his own business dealings in Russia.

    As a partner in an investment group called ETIRC as early as 2006, Alptekin bought a stake in a New Mexico jet manufacturer called Eclipse Aviation.
    In September 2008, Eclipse announced plans to build a $205 million factory in Russia financed by Russian state bank Vnesheconombank, whose board was chaired by Putin, then prime minister.
    A photo in the trade press showed Putin personally inspecting one of Eclipse's jets.

    And there's more...

    It's almost as if it all connects back to Putin. Funny that.

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
  17. Re:Sad they voted for it. Twitter is next - he sai by ras · · Score: 1

    Errr, it's very likely they didn't vote for this. You can read about the irregularities on Wikipedia:

    On the referendum day, while the voting was underway, the Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey lifted a rule that required each ballot to have an official stamp. Instead, it ruled that ballots with no stamp would be considered valid, unless there was proof that they were fraudulent. The opposition parties claim that as many as 1.5 million ballots without a stamp were accepted. Opposition parties CHP and HDP have said they will contest the results. CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said that lifting the rule violated Turkish law. According to Meral Akener, "No" won by 52 percent. The Peoples' Democratic Party contested the election results announced by pro-government Anadolu Agency and insisted that 1.5 million votes without valid stamps should be cancelled.

    Now an organisation controlled by the people who Wikipedia says rigged the election are banning Wikipedia.

    Sigh. My heart bleeds for you Turkey. But you have to understand compared to kings, tyrants, and military junta's democracy is very weak. A mere majority voting it for is nowhere near enough when the reward for destroying it is being able to skim entire countries economy for personal gain. With a reward like that on offer there is plenty of money around to promise, bribe, cajole, beat, and imprison some of that majority. You need so many people supporting democracy no one can afford to buy enough of them to make a difference. Sadly Turkey, you never adopted democracy, an open society and rule of law as your primary religion. Without that sort of devotion from most citizens democracy will be overturned, because while it is undeniably the human glue that produces the strongest countries, the glue is itself very fragile.

  18. Re:It gets better. Those Turks are actually Russia by rtb61 · · Score: 1

    The only thing I can come with Turkey blocking Wikipedia is millions of students crying out in agony at the thought of having to go to the library instead of just using Wikipedia to do their homework, the horror. Russia being behind Turkey blocking Wikipedia, why does Russia all of a sudden hate Turkish school children?

    US corruption, that's down to the highest bidder at any particular time, your choice of corporations or countries, beware the once bought they definitely do not stay bought unless extremely incriminating evidence of deviant acts is maintained and ready to be released. This is why the US fails so often nowadays corruption pulling in so many different directions, with one groups corruption often bringing down another groups corruption, not so much on purpose but to redirect financing to their corruption, just stupid chaos.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  19. Re:The mass migration to Europe from Syria is noth by chthon · · Score: 1

    I also imagine that the Turks coming here from Turkey, will be in cahoots with the Turks who already lived here for years, in better circumstances, and more free than in Turkey, but who voted for Erdogan.

  20. Re:Sad they voted for it. Twitter is next - he sai by Pascal+Sartoretti · · Score: 1

    I must say: Turkey will get what they voted for.

    51.41% is a very small majority, especially in a country which has very limited freedom of press, where opponents are sent to jail and where ballot stuffing is practiced (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...).

  21. Re:Not news by Maritz · · Score: 1

    You can't differentiate between a privately-owned forum moderating comments, and government censorship. That makes you stupid. Sorry. Go play with the worms in the garden, this is grown-up talk.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  22. Re:And the US website block? by Maritz · · Score: 1

    This guy presumably voted yes to making Erdogan emperor in perpetuity, and you can see why. Dumb as fuck.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  23. Re:And nothing of value was lost... by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Wikipedia is relevant, you're not.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  24. Re:Sad they voted for it. Twitter is next - he sai by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Twitter and Facebook wouldn't be a loss to me if they disappeared.

    I wish I was cool enough to dis social networks like a badass.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.