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Facebook blocked posts by a militia group opposed to the Turkish government

347 points by maltalex 6y ago

thih9 6y ago
To elaborate on the title, “silenced” means: > [YPG’s page] can’t be viewed by Facebook users inside Turkey > The page is still available on Facebook to people who view the site through U.S. internet providers. And “enemy of Turkey”: > Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization, although neither the U.S. nor Facebook do.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Yeah, "terrorist" is kind of a floating designator. The YPG should be distinguished from the PKK in this instance. The UK takes occasional erratic action against the YPG: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/terrorism-policing-ypgypj-ally-abroad-but-danger-at-home/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/terroris...
  - fishnchips 6y ago
    “Floating signifier” I believe is the exact scientific term. That is, if you consider semiotics a science.
  - arlk 6y ago
    YPG is actually run by the same PKK elements, Mazloum Abdi as an example. And both are under the same KCK umbrella of far leftist Kurdish organizations; Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey, Democratic Union Party (PYD under which YPG operates) in Syria, Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) in Iran, and Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (PÇDK) in Iraq. I'm not saying it is terrorist organization or not, but it's inconsistent to have one of these organizations on the terrorists list and others not, since they all share the same ideology, goals, and tactics.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  This is a good approach. Country must be able to control content served to their citizens. And that ruling should not be extended to other countries. Citizens can either elect different president or use VPN.
  - postingawayonhn 6y ago
    Freedom of speech/expression is a right of every individual on this planet. Any regime that does not support that should face pushback from its citizens, businesses, and other countries.
    - anovikov 6y ago
      Why? If we are certain that values of free speech are important for national success, then if others suppress them, fine! It only provides us competitive advantage, let them suffer from their mistakes.
      - throwaway316943 6y ago
        Yeah, fuck em. Who cares what other countries do, let them exterminate their minorities too it just means less competition for resources. /s
        anovikov 6y ago
        I'd say, only option for caring about that is if we actually suspect that values of free speech and personal freedoms in general are NOT important for development: rather, those are the luxuries which we simply can afford because we're rich. And it's wise to press values onto poor countries to prevent them from becoming richer and thus a threat to us. The experiment of helping countries to become rich so they become friendly, failed on China and Russia examples: becoming rich they got only more hostile just because they could, so assumption that it's good to separate countries into friendly or hostile regardless of how is their economy going, and simply suppress growth of the latter, seems a wise one.
    - 6y ago
discobot1 6y ago
Facebook is following laws of countries it operates in, truly shocking
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  Not very uplifting if you account for who's ruling Turkey and establishing these laws, is it?
  - carmen_sandiego 6y ago
    So... Zuckerberg should fund a coup in Turkey? There's an easy common argument for these things: restricted mass information/communication is better than none, or better than the lower amount you'd get with a home-grown platform. Seems a pretty good argument to me.
    - aranelsurion 6y ago
      One could look for good arguments to frame this in a better way, though I believe there might be a simpler way to explain: follow the money. Companies and people in the West don't care what happens elsewhere, they're just in for the money. There's money to be made in Turkey as well, and Facebook doesn't care about specifics of how. For the common people this all sounds fair and strategic on the surface level, though I'm skeptical of its sustainability. Just like how it's hard to be rich in a poor and sketchy neighbourhood, it could be hard to remain a free state in a planet where many of your neighbours aren't.
      - carmen_sandiego 6y ago
        It's possible that the choice that enriches Facebook is also good for other parties. Whether they even care about the latter or not.
      - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
        Do you realize that Facebook started off blocking and removing "terrorist" content in the US first and foremost? There are many groups and parties that only the US considers terrorists (maybe along with it's weaker allies only), especially various groups affiliated with Iran. And Facebook needs to block the speech of those groups in the US as well to comply with US law.
komahirrimbuke 6y ago
I'll leave this here in case anyone wants to argue YPG is not PKK. YPG is a literal terrorist organization. Imagine ISIS had a Facebook page. "Senior US general explains rebranding YPG away from terror group PKK" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpaIO-Pj10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpaIO-Pj10
- sneak 6y ago
  If ISIS had a facebook page, I would be angry at facebook if they censored it. Related: People claimed Cloudflare used to protect ISIS sites. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/19/cloudflare-accused-by-anonymous-helping-isis https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/19/cloudflar...
  - marshmallow_12 6y ago
    if someone set up a facebook page to promote killing you and everyone you love, and making your life hell, i think you would think differently.
    - sneak 6y ago
      That's not accurate.
      - marshmallow_12 6y ago
        why not? The only difference is that ISIS makes life hell for a larger group of people. Does that lessen its impact on an individual?
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  depends on the pov. What's a terrorist to one side is a freedom fighter to the other. from this month: > ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday his ruling AK Party and its nationalist allies may start work on drafting a new constitution, less than four years after overhauling the previous constitution to grant his office sweeping powers. the coup was justified and it's a tragedy Erdogan hasn't been removed from power. The AKP/Erdogan is no longer serving its people. Erdogan/AKP are the real "terrorists".
dalbasal 6y ago
There are no good solutions here. Should Facebook ignore Turkish law? Should they go by the US' terror organisation list instead? Should they maintain their own "terrorist list" alongside Turkey & the US'? Separate classifications of illegal or immoral content for in every jurisdiction? You think there are political biases in American FB or Twitter? ... Try FB in a language or political context that no FB executive even speaks. Meanwhile, there's chance (grumblings in europe, atm) that FB/Twitter will be subject to positive pressures as well. IE, making it illegal to exclude (eg) a political party from a platform. It doesn't take long before the same content is illegal in one jurisdiction and illegal to restrict in another. The Armenian Genocide comes to mind as a likely example. Zuck is like a case study in "no morals" corporate culture. OOH, saying yes to revenue streams worked out really well. FB "retargeting" and creepy personalized advertising won. The effectiveness of the ads, and revenue soared. Being "cutting edge" really, really paid off. It was creepy, but people got used to it. Scandals like Cambridge Analytica also passed. Other platforms (adwords) did it too, and FB doesn't stand out too much. On the other hand, having no morals makes it very hard to navigate issues like censorship & moderation in multiple jurisdictions. This is exactly the kind of work morals were invented for.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  The only good solution is for social media to be a neutral service provider open to all. It would destroy Facebook’s business model but that’s a good thing.
  - dalbasal 6y ago
    Or put another way, the problem isn't what facebook (or twitter) chooses to do... it's what they are. The problem is "neutral service provider" means something very different to nerds than it does to policy wonks that can actually do something about it. To us, FB should be a protocol like email, rss or www. That means there is no FB, no $1trn market cap, no $90bn revenue stream. To them, it means something like "common carrier." That means keeping fb, but regulating it so they can't exclude anyone. The whole thing will be written with an eye to keeping revenue streams intact. FB are already making the argument that such things will make it impossible for them to "compete with China." That already smells of too big to fail. The absurd thing here is that FB's service is not scarce at all. No matter what happens with fb, there will be no shortages of social media. FB can exist. It can be a $5trn company. It can cease to exist. It can shrink 1000X. The quantity and quality of online social media is not more or less because of those things. All those books about "abundance" 10-15 years ago were (in typical internet fashion) 10-15 years too early. FB is the real life example of abundance economics at work.
gurtyui 6y ago
Good. Nice to see they don't have double standards, since they also silenced for example an enemy of US - Donald Trump.
- spacemanmatt 6y ago
  Counterpoint: They let him use FB and Twitter for his perpetual disinformation campaigns and continue to let seditionist groups organize on their platforms. The recent bans amount to nothing after giving him platform pretty much the entire duration of his term.
mountainb 6y ago
Hey man, but what if the CIA needs YPG to recruit more so it can put terrorist pressure on Turkey to, uh, defend NATO or something? Someone should check on the spooks to make sure that they're all OK and not suffering from some kind of collective degenerative brain disease.
- the_why_of_y 6y ago
  Good to remind us that YPG has defended NATO quite valiantly from Daesh advancing on its borders in the past. And what happened next? NATO threw them to the wolves. The Afrin district that used to be the most peaceful place in Syria is now occupied by mercenaries and ethnically cleansed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrin_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrin_District
Barrin92 6y ago
It's the correct decision (although Facebook likely only cares about its bottom line). the YPG is designated as a terrorist organisation by the Turkish state and it's quite obvious that Turkey will want to exercise sovereignty over its communication channels rather than letting an opposing military force broadcast freely to its citizens. It's not really the job of a private company to undermine nations in this way for simple reasons of sovereignty, and because even if Facebook were to somehow win in the short term, the five to ten year consequence would probably be that nations like Turkey decouple entirely and take control over communications back a la Russia or China.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  It’s the wrong decision but no private company should be in a position to make it. The power that we have granted to centralized extralegal entities is obscene and we’re going to pay for it in blood if we don’t walk this back quickly by breaking up these orgs and building technologies that decentralize that power.
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    What would breaking up Facebook.com look like in a way that successfully prevents what you're describing? It's not an oil conglomerate. It's a social network. That's irreducible by definition. Most people seem to throw out suggestions like forcing them to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp. That clearly wouldn't fix what youre saying is the issue. IG and WhatsApp would still be run by the same people, still owned in part by Zuckerberg, and still have the same incentives and goals. Essentially the only difference is that the employer name on the W-2s would change.
    - throwaway316943 6y ago
      A death knell legislation would be better. Like making social networks entirely responsible for the content posted by their users so that it’s impossible to grow beyond a certain scale and still be functional. Or maybe enforcing interoperability so that users can take their data and friends elsewhere.
icare_1er 6y ago
Well, isn't it ironic that many people here appaled by this kind of censorship were backing the same GAFAs when they kicked Trump of their platforms ? Oh yes i know, "it's not comparable because...", well, yes, it IS perfectly comparable and it is in fact the same.
- echelon 6y ago
  It seems to me like proponents of censorship want to enforce their world view in some way or another. It doesn't matter which pole they're on, if they think censorship is a good policy, then they're arguing from a perspective where their views aren't the ones that are censored.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  > Well, isn't it ironic that many people here appaled by this kind of censorship were backing the same GAFAs when they kicked Trump of their platforms People need to stop saying stuff like this. It's not like you looked through people's account histories or remember how specific accounts speaking today came down on that issue in the past.
  - ttt0 6y ago
    From one of the flagged comments in this thread: > Good. > Nice to see they don't have double standards, since they also silenced for example an enemy of US - Donald Trump.
Ahmed90 6y ago
It's an obvious "following the local law" thingy, Facebook doesn't give a s*t, I personally reported 3 posts on different FB pages 1st was a religion extremist guy who says to Iraqi people that they should protest and fight the "other side" of the religion (aka start a new civil war) instead of protesting against the corrupted government. 2nd was a post that was praising the guy who murdered the Danish (Or was he Norwegian?) teacher who mocked Islam, and calling him a hero. and the 3rd was a post that says "Women education is satanic, women's purpose is marriage". all of these 3 reports was "The post was reviewed, and though it doesn't go against one of our specific Community Standards" and then it explains how to block blablabla... I don't report things anymore lol
- JIBitator 6y ago
  I don't see anything wrong with these posts. Perhaps you should stay on grindr instead.
- laurent92 6y ago
  Facebook has so much power with censoring only one side of the extremists. A good experiment would be if you could find a Christian priest to report, and check whether their response is weighted differently.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    A good experiment would be ... That would be an anecdote just as Ahmed's findings were anecdotal. It you want to check for bias you need data.
    - ethanwillis 6y ago
      Data that Facebook is fighting hard to make sure people can't collect. Just like how they were poisoning the well while suing academic teams just trying to get information on ads data.
      - throwaway1777 6y ago
jacquesm 6y ago
An enemy of Erdogan, not necessarily an enemy of Turkey.
- jmacjmac 6y ago
  Around %90 of the population in Turkey would call that group an enemy. So, it is not another "Erdogan wants to silence his enemy" case.
  - kalia35 6y ago
    source?
    - jmacjmac 6y ago
      It's not easy to find an English poll result but : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_general_election Here, HDP is (in purple) PKK affiliated legal party in Turkey. You can see their support among people in Turkey. All other parties call PKK as terrorist and they are strongly against it.
- kingofpandora 6y ago
  I'd argue that Turkey is much more an enemy of YPG than the YPG is an enemy of Turkey.
- m00dy 6y ago
  it is a state policy not erdogan's
  - KDJohnBrown 6y ago
    Tayipp is the state. Türkiye is very much a single man ruled nation.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  The old-school Ataturkists who are the opposite flank of Turkish politics from Erdoğan’s party, were the very people who started this denial of Kurdish identity and territorial autonomy or independence. It isn’t just Erdoğan who has a problem with those Kurdish groups, it is Turkish society overall.
nyerp 6y ago
Facebook has been working on a clever solution to this kind of dispute: they have been installing a global network of indestructible monoliths with control panels which provide local governments complete authority to take down controversial content within a particular geographic location. Facebook no longer has to make a judgement call regarding whether a requester has a monopoly on violence within a particular region; control over the monolith implies genuine authority over the relevant area. (jk... I think.)
TLightful 6y ago
Obligatory: do people still use Facebook?
- hmate9 6y ago
  Only 1.5 billion people.
  - mamon 6y ago
    So down from the 2 billion peak?
notum 6y ago
You know what I find really scary about this? The fact I no longer react strongly to these kinds of news.
- creddit 6y ago
  Seems like you do react to it by being scared and then posting about that reaction on HN.
  - notum 6y ago
    You caught me in a loop.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Most Americans don’t care if elected leaders get silenced. Why would they care about this?
cblconfederate 6y ago
Topic being overrun by expat turks who are Erdogan apologizers. Not the first, not the last, but thankfully the truth is not subject to upvotes
- alienalp 6y ago
  Actually being exposed to western media and attitude what makes Turkish immigrant pro-gov. Simply you are taking sides of terrorists from the point of a Turk. Thankfully truth is not subject to you.
- egeozcan 6y ago
  As a Turkish immigrant in Germany, I really find the word "expat" irritating. Why should I make it explicitly clear that my immigration happened on my own terms? Apart from that, the sheer amount of Turkish immigrants who left the country in the last decade (including me) are not Erdoğan supporters. However, many of us refrain from heavy criticism as we occasionally go to Turkey to visit our relatives and we don't want some specific person having a bad day destroying our lives. So you usually hear the other side and may mistakenly think that "expat Turks" support Erdoğan big time. The majority of votes he gets from Turkish immigrants are the Turks who left the country more than a couple of decades ago and partly, their children. The "why" has a complicated answer that touches religion, demographic dynamics and acceptance in society.
  - cblconfederate 6y ago
    > many of us refrain from heavy criticism If the people who can speak up don't speak up then how is change ever to be expected? This is btw not what usually happens in such situations (immigrants fleeing authoritarianism are generally vocal against it)
    - waheoo 6y ago
      An American making statements about standing up and speaking out against oppression and free speech is fucking laughable these days. You're all stuck in a bubble and can't even see that your entire tech industry is pulling a fast one over liberty and democracy.
l8again 6y ago
I think it is demonstrably proven that Facebook has no qualms about aiding and abetting government campaigns of crushing dissent across the world, despite its claims of "cherishing free speech". Facebook (and Twitter) has been doing the same in India [1]. [1] https://theintercept.com/2021/02/27/india-climate-activists-twitter-google-facebook/ https://theintercept.com/2021/02/27/india-climate-activists-...
- timinghero 6y ago
  Facebook, like any other entity, is not above the law. Now, you can criticize the law, but not Facebook for simply following it. Disclaimer: Turkish living abroad since few years. Throwaway account. Upset with some having respect for their _superior_ rule of law only.
- unityByFreedom 6y ago
  I always thought it was interesting that the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam allowed Facebook where the media is tightly controlled. Cambodia used to have a couple independent papers. The Post became state-controlled-by-proxy [1] and the Daily was shut down by the government [2]. The existence and popularity of Facebook basically allowed them to shut down the older independent outlets without significant outcry from the public. Maybe there is some calculus that shows it's better to get people online through access to Facebook, I just hope there's more journalistic competition and/or transparency in the future. Giving in to autocrats seems dangerous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phnom_Penh_Post#cite_ref-3:~:text=In%20May%202018%20the%20newspaper%20was,senior%20writers%20to%20leave%20its%20newsroom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phnom_Penh_Post#cite_ref-3... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambodia_Daily#cite_ref-1:~:text=According%20to%20the%20owners%2C%20the%202017,the%20newspaper's%20ownership%20as%20politically%20motivated.%5B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambodia_Daily#cite_ref-1:...
  - tim333 6y ago
    I guess facebook tends to be cat pics and wackiness rather than deep analysis of government corruption. Also in Vietnam they lock up the individual blogger if you go to far. eg https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1947372/vietnam-jails-facebook-user-for-8-years-over-anti-state-posts https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1947372/vietnam-jails-face...
alienalp 6y ago
YPG is Terrorist organization according to Turkey and 90% of its citizens. So nothing anormal here. It is not up to US or you to decide who is terrorist or not. Actually US, even though actively supporting YPG, does not deny that YPG is terrorist organization. This kind of attitude simply disgust any Turk who see this topic. Especially like platform like this it is frustrating.
atomicson 6y ago
Facebook is like a frog in a well. Facebook doesn't have enough deep knowledge about customs and political situations in a country. They just want to make revenue. They don't care who is right or wrong. They create chaos in the name of free speech. Facebook is the dumbest company. They have to find out what's happening and make a deep investigation about a report from a user. Mark should take a deep study of information paradox. Free speech is not a simple thing. It needs regulation so the bad guys out there not abuse it's power.
jokoon 6y ago
This change of president will pull out a lot of stuff from under the rug. This is going to be epic.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dannyr 6y ago
Facebook is indeed a tool for authoritarians. Facebook becomes the major, if not the only, online channel for citizens of a country. Facebook adheres to orders of an authoritarian leader. Authoritarian leaders easily shuts out opposition to his/her regime. Authoritarian leaders didn't have to spend much money and resources to do this. Facebook did it for them!
umvi 6y ago
So basically all world governments are locked in to their current state forever from the perspective of big tech, even if they are tyrannical regimes? Basically any group trying to invoke change will be labeled terrorists and will be censored and suppressed.
- botverse 6y ago
  This is IMO the most valuable reflection of the whole thread. It can be seen as morals are conditional for big tech companies and depend of arbitrary circumstances like location
supergirl 6y ago
and? isn't FB doing the same everywhere, especially recently in the US? pretty sure they block whatever even smells like a pro Trump militia in the US.
andred14 6y ago
This censorship is wrong and alarming. Time to move from this platform with haste.
caseysoftware 6y ago
"Private company, can do what they want" loses meaning when they're acting on behalf of and in the interests of a given government. Is there a point where we call that the boundary between government and "private industry" is mostly paperwork and not reality?

347 points by maltalex 6y ago

To elaborate on the title, “silenced” means: > [YPG’s page] can’t be viewed by Facebook users inside Turkey > The page is still available on Facebook to people who view the site through U.S. internet providers. And “enemy of Turkey”: > Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization, although neither the U.S. nor Facebook do.

pjc50 6y ago
Yeah, "terrorist" is kind of a floating designator. The YPG should be distinguished from the PKK in this instance. The UK takes occasional erratic action against the YPG: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/terrorism-policing-ypgypj-ally-abroad-but-danger-at-home/ https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/terroris...
- fishnchips 6y ago
  “Floating signifier” I believe is the exact scientific term. That is, if you consider semiotics a science.
- arlk 6y ago
  YPG is actually run by the same PKK elements, Mazloum Abdi as an example. And both are under the same KCK umbrella of far leftist Kurdish organizations; Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey, Democratic Union Party (PYD under which YPG operates) in Syria, Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) in Iran, and Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (PÇDK) in Iraq. I'm not saying it is terrorist organization or not, but it's inconsistent to have one of these organizations on the terrorists list and others not, since they all share the same ideology, goals, and tactics.
vbezhenar 6y ago
This is a good approach. Country must be able to control content served to their citizens. And that ruling should not be extended to other countries. Citizens can either elect different president or use VPN.
- postingawayonhn 6y ago
  Freedom of speech/expression is a right of every individual on this planet. Any regime that does not support that should face pushback from its citizens, businesses, and other countries.
  - anovikov 6y ago
    Why? If we are certain that values of free speech are important for national success, then if others suppress them, fine! It only provides us competitive advantage, let them suffer from their mistakes.
    - throwaway316943 6y ago
      Yeah, fuck em. Who cares what other countries do, let them exterminate their minorities too it just means less competition for resources. /s
      - anovikov 6y ago
        I'd say, only option for caring about that is if we actually suspect that values of free speech and personal freedoms in general are NOT important for development: rather, those are the luxuries which we simply can afford because we're rich. And it's wise to press values onto poor countries to prevent them from becoming richer and thus a threat to us. The experiment of helping countries to become rich so they become friendly, failed on China and Russia examples: becoming rich they got only more hostile just because they could, so assumption that it's good to separate countries into friendly or hostile regardless of how is their economy going, and simply suppress growth of the latter, seems a wise one.
  - 6y ago

discobot1 6y ago

Facebook is following laws of countries it operates in, truly shocking

bitcharmer 6y ago
Not very uplifting if you account for who's ruling Turkey and establishing these laws, is it?
- carmen_sandiego 6y ago
  So... Zuckerberg should fund a coup in Turkey? There's an easy common argument for these things: restricted mass information/communication is better than none, or better than the lower amount you'd get with a home-grown platform. Seems a pretty good argument to me.
  - aranelsurion 6y ago
    One could look for good arguments to frame this in a better way, though I believe there might be a simpler way to explain: follow the money. Companies and people in the West don't care what happens elsewhere, they're just in for the money. There's money to be made in Turkey as well, and Facebook doesn't care about specifics of how. For the common people this all sounds fair and strategic on the surface level, though I'm skeptical of its sustainability. Just like how it's hard to be rich in a poor and sketchy neighbourhood, it could be hard to remain a free state in a planet where many of your neighbours aren't.
    - carmen_sandiego 6y ago
      It's possible that the choice that enriches Facebook is also good for other parties. Whether they even care about the latter or not.
    - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
      Do you realize that Facebook started off blocking and removing "terrorist" content in the US first and foremost? There are many groups and parties that only the US considers terrorists (maybe along with it's weaker allies only), especially various groups affiliated with Iran. And Facebook needs to block the speech of those groups in the US as well to comply with US law.

komahirrimbuke 6y ago

I'll leave this here in case anyone wants to argue YPG is not PKK. YPG is a literal terrorist organization. Imagine ISIS had a Facebook page. "Senior US general explains rebranding YPG away from terror group PKK" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpaIO-Pj10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpaIO-Pj10

sneak 6y ago
If ISIS had a facebook page, I would be angry at facebook if they censored it. Related: People claimed Cloudflare used to protect ISIS sites. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/19/cloudflare-accused-by-anonymous-helping-isis https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/19/cloudflar...
- marshmallow_12 6y ago
  if someone set up a facebook page to promote killing you and everyone you love, and making your life hell, i think you would think differently.
  - sneak 6y ago
    That's not accurate.
    - marshmallow_12 6y ago
      why not? The only difference is that ISIS makes life hell for a larger group of people. Does that lessen its impact on an individual?
DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
depends on the pov. What's a terrorist to one side is a freedom fighter to the other. from this month: > ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday his ruling AK Party and its nationalist allies may start work on drafting a new constitution, less than four years after overhauling the previous constitution to grant his office sweeping powers. the coup was justified and it's a tragedy Erdogan hasn't been removed from power. The AKP/Erdogan is no longer serving its people. Erdogan/AKP are the real "terrorists".

dalbasal 6y ago

There are no good solutions here. Should Facebook ignore Turkish law? Should they go by the US' terror organisation list instead? Should they maintain their own "terrorist list" alongside Turkey & the US'? Separate classifications of illegal or immoral content for in every jurisdiction? You think there are political biases in American FB or Twitter? ... Try FB in a language or political context that no FB executive even speaks. Meanwhile, there's chance (grumblings in europe, atm) that FB/Twitter will be subject to positive pressures as well. IE, making it illegal to exclude (eg) a political party from a platform. It doesn't take long before the same content is illegal in one jurisdiction and illegal to restrict in another. The Armenian Genocide comes to mind as a likely example. Zuck is like a case study in "no morals" corporate culture. OOH, saying yes to revenue streams worked out really well. FB "retargeting" and creepy personalized advertising won. The effectiveness of the ads, and revenue soared. Being "cutting edge" really, really paid off. It was creepy, but people got used to it. Scandals like Cambridge Analytica also passed. Other platforms (adwords) did it too, and FB doesn't stand out too much. On the other hand, having no morals makes it very hard to navigate issues like censorship & moderation in multiple jurisdictions. This is exactly the kind of work morals were invented for.

throwaway316943 6y ago
The only good solution is for social media to be a neutral service provider open to all. It would destroy Facebook’s business model but that’s a good thing.
- dalbasal 6y ago
  Or put another way, the problem isn't what facebook (or twitter) chooses to do... it's what they are. The problem is "neutral service provider" means something very different to nerds than it does to policy wonks that can actually do something about it. To us, FB should be a protocol like email, rss or www. That means there is no FB, no $1trn market cap, no $90bn revenue stream. To them, it means something like "common carrier." That means keeping fb, but regulating it so they can't exclude anyone. The whole thing will be written with an eye to keeping revenue streams intact. FB are already making the argument that such things will make it impossible for them to "compete with China." That already smells of too big to fail. The absurd thing here is that FB's service is not scarce at all. No matter what happens with fb, there will be no shortages of social media. FB can exist. It can be a $5trn company. It can cease to exist. It can shrink 1000X. The quantity and quality of online social media is not more or less because of those things. All those books about "abundance" 10-15 years ago were (in typical internet fashion) 10-15 years too early. FB is the real life example of abundance economics at work.

gurtyui 6y ago

Good. Nice to see they don't have double standards, since they also silenced for example an enemy of US - Donald Trump.

spacemanmatt 6y ago
Counterpoint: They let him use FB and Twitter for his perpetual disinformation campaigns and continue to let seditionist groups organize on their platforms. The recent bans amount to nothing after giving him platform pretty much the entire duration of his term.

mountainb 6y ago

Hey man, but what if the CIA needs YPG to recruit more so it can put terrorist pressure on Turkey to, uh, defend NATO or something? Someone should check on the spooks to make sure that they're all OK and not suffering from some kind of collective degenerative brain disease.

the_why_of_y 6y ago
Good to remind us that YPG has defended NATO quite valiantly from Daesh advancing on its borders in the past. And what happened next? NATO threw them to the wolves. The Afrin district that used to be the most peaceful place in Syria is now occupied by mercenaries and ethnically cleansed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrin_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrin_District

Barrin92 6y ago

It's the correct decision (although Facebook likely only cares about its bottom line). the YPG is designated as a terrorist organisation by the Turkish state and it's quite obvious that Turkey will want to exercise sovereignty over its communication channels rather than letting an opposing military force broadcast freely to its citizens. It's not really the job of a private company to undermine nations in this way for simple reasons of sovereignty, and because even if Facebook were to somehow win in the short term, the five to ten year consequence would probably be that nations like Turkey decouple entirely and take control over communications back a la Russia or China.

throwaway316943 6y ago
It’s the wrong decision but no private company should be in a position to make it. The power that we have granted to centralized extralegal entities is obscene and we’re going to pay for it in blood if we don’t walk this back quickly by breaking up these orgs and building technologies that decentralize that power.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  What would breaking up Facebook.com look like in a way that successfully prevents what you're describing? It's not an oil conglomerate. It's a social network. That's irreducible by definition. Most people seem to throw out suggestions like forcing them to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp. That clearly wouldn't fix what youre saying is the issue. IG and WhatsApp would still be run by the same people, still owned in part by Zuckerberg, and still have the same incentives and goals. Essentially the only difference is that the employer name on the W-2s would change.
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    A death knell legislation would be better. Like making social networks entirely responsible for the content posted by their users so that it’s impossible to grow beyond a certain scale and still be functional. Or maybe enforcing interoperability so that users can take their data and friends elsewhere.

icare_1er 6y ago

Well, isn't it ironic that many people here appaled by this kind of censorship were backing the same GAFAs when they kicked Trump of their platforms ? Oh yes i know, "it's not comparable because...", well, yes, it IS perfectly comparable and it is in fact the same.

echelon 6y ago
It seems to me like proponents of censorship want to enforce their world view in some way or another. It doesn't matter which pole they're on, if they think censorship is a good policy, then they're arguing from a perspective where their views aren't the ones that are censored.
guerrilla 6y ago
> Well, isn't it ironic that many people here appaled by this kind of censorship were backing the same GAFAs when they kicked Trump of their platforms People need to stop saying stuff like this. It's not like you looked through people's account histories or remember how specific accounts speaking today came down on that issue in the past.
- ttt0 6y ago
  From one of the flagged comments in this thread: > Good. > Nice to see they don't have double standards, since they also silenced for example an enemy of US - Donald Trump.

Ahmed90 6y ago

It's an obvious "following the local law" thingy, Facebook doesn't give a s*t, I personally reported 3 posts on different FB pages 1st was a religion extremist guy who says to Iraqi people that they should protest and fight the "other side" of the religion (aka start a new civil war) instead of protesting against the corrupted government. 2nd was a post that was praising the guy who murdered the Danish (Or was he Norwegian?) teacher who mocked Islam, and calling him a hero. and the 3rd was a post that says "Women education is satanic, women's purpose is marriage". all of these 3 reports was "The post was reviewed, and though it doesn't go against one of our specific Community Standards" and then it explains how to block blablabla... I don't report things anymore lol

JIBitator 6y ago
I don't see anything wrong with these posts. Perhaps you should stay on grindr instead.
laurent92 6y ago
Facebook has so much power with censoring only one side of the extremists. A good experiment would be if you could find a Christian priest to report, and check whether their response is weighted differently.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  A good experiment would be ... That would be an anecdote just as Ahmed's findings were anecdotal. It you want to check for bias you need data.
  - ethanwillis 6y ago
    Data that Facebook is fighting hard to make sure people can't collect. Just like how they were poisoning the well while suing academic teams just trying to get information on ads data.
    - throwaway1777 6y ago

jacquesm 6y ago

An enemy of Erdogan, not necessarily an enemy of Turkey.

jmacjmac 6y ago
Around %90 of the population in Turkey would call that group an enemy. So, it is not another "Erdogan wants to silence his enemy" case.
- kalia35 6y ago
  source?
  - jmacjmac 6y ago
    It's not easy to find an English poll result but : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Turkish_general_election Here, HDP is (in purple) PKK affiliated legal party in Turkey. You can see their support among people in Turkey. All other parties call PKK as terrorist and they are strongly against it.
kingofpandora 6y ago
I'd argue that Turkey is much more an enemy of YPG than the YPG is an enemy of Turkey.
m00dy 6y ago
it is a state policy not erdogan's
- KDJohnBrown 6y ago
  Tayipp is the state. Türkiye is very much a single man ruled nation.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
The old-school Ataturkists who are the opposite flank of Turkish politics from Erdoğan’s party, were the very people who started this denial of Kurdish identity and territorial autonomy or independence. It isn’t just Erdoğan who has a problem with those Kurdish groups, it is Turkish society overall.

nyerp 6y ago

Facebook has been working on a clever solution to this kind of dispute: they have been installing a global network of indestructible monoliths with control panels which provide local governments complete authority to take down controversial content within a particular geographic location. Facebook no longer has to make a judgement call regarding whether a requester has a monopoly on violence within a particular region; control over the monolith implies genuine authority over the relevant area. (jk... I think.)

TLightful 6y ago

Obligatory: do people still use Facebook?

hmate9 6y ago
Only 1.5 billion people.
- mamon 6y ago
  So down from the 2 billion peak?

notum 6y ago

You know what I find really scary about this? The fact I no longer react strongly to these kinds of news.

creddit 6y ago
Seems like you do react to it by being scared and then posting about that reaction on HN.
- notum 6y ago
  You caught me in a loop.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Most Americans don’t care if elected leaders get silenced. Why would they care about this?

cblconfederate 6y ago

Topic being overrun by expat turks who are Erdogan apologizers. Not the first, not the last, but thankfully the truth is not subject to upvotes

alienalp 6y ago
Actually being exposed to western media and attitude what makes Turkish immigrant pro-gov. Simply you are taking sides of terrorists from the point of a Turk. Thankfully truth is not subject to you.
egeozcan 6y ago
As a Turkish immigrant in Germany, I really find the word "expat" irritating. Why should I make it explicitly clear that my immigration happened on my own terms? Apart from that, the sheer amount of Turkish immigrants who left the country in the last decade (including me) are not Erdoğan supporters. However, many of us refrain from heavy criticism as we occasionally go to Turkey to visit our relatives and we don't want some specific person having a bad day destroying our lives. So you usually hear the other side and may mistakenly think that "expat Turks" support Erdoğan big time. The majority of votes he gets from Turkish immigrants are the Turks who left the country more than a couple of decades ago and partly, their children. The "why" has a complicated answer that touches religion, demographic dynamics and acceptance in society.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  > many of us refrain from heavy criticism If the people who can speak up don't speak up then how is change ever to be expected? This is btw not what usually happens in such situations (immigrants fleeing authoritarianism are generally vocal against it)
  - waheoo 6y ago
    An American making statements about standing up and speaking out against oppression and free speech is fucking laughable these days. You're all stuck in a bubble and can't even see that your entire tech industry is pulling a fast one over liberty and democracy.

l8again 6y ago

I think it is demonstrably proven that Facebook has no qualms about aiding and abetting government campaigns of crushing dissent across the world, despite its claims of "cherishing free speech". Facebook (and Twitter) has been doing the same in India [1]. [1] https://theintercept.com/2021/02/27/india-climate-activists-twitter-google-facebook/ https://theintercept.com/2021/02/27/india-climate-activists-...

timinghero 6y ago
Facebook, like any other entity, is not above the law. Now, you can criticize the law, but not Facebook for simply following it. Disclaimer: Turkish living abroad since few years. Throwaway account. Upset with some having respect for their _superior_ rule of law only.
unityByFreedom 6y ago
I always thought it was interesting that the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam allowed Facebook where the media is tightly controlled. Cambodia used to have a couple independent papers. The Post became state-controlled-by-proxy [1] and the Daily was shut down by the government [2]. The existence and popularity of Facebook basically allowed them to shut down the older independent outlets without significant outcry from the public. Maybe there is some calculus that shows it's better to get people online through access to Facebook, I just hope there's more journalistic competition and/or transparency in the future. Giving in to autocrats seems dangerous. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phnom_Penh_Post#cite_ref-3:~:text=In%20May%202018%20the%20newspaper%20was,senior%20writers%20to%20leave%20its%20newsroom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phnom_Penh_Post#cite_ref-3... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambodia_Daily#cite_ref-1:~:text=According%20to%20the%20owners%2C%20the%202017,the%20newspaper's%20ownership%20as%20politically%20motivated.%5B https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cambodia_Daily#cite_ref-1:...
- tim333 6y ago
  I guess facebook tends to be cat pics and wackiness rather than deep analysis of government corruption. Also in Vietnam they lock up the individual blogger if you go to far. eg https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1947372/vietnam-jails-facebook-user-for-8-years-over-anti-state-posts https://www.bangkokpost.com/world/1947372/vietnam-jails-face...

alienalp 6y ago

YPG is Terrorist organization according to Turkey and 90% of its citizens. So nothing anormal here. It is not up to US or you to decide who is terrorist or not. Actually US, even though actively supporting YPG, does not deny that YPG is terrorist organization. This kind of attitude simply disgust any Turk who see this topic. Especially like platform like this it is frustrating.

atomicson 6y ago

Facebook is like a frog in a well. Facebook doesn't have enough deep knowledge about customs and political situations in a country. They just want to make revenue. They don't care who is right or wrong. They create chaos in the name of free speech. Facebook is the dumbest company. They have to find out what's happening and make a deep investigation about a report from a user. Mark should take a deep study of information paradox. Free speech is not a simple thing. It needs regulation so the bad guys out there not abuse it's power.

jokoon 6y ago

This change of president will pull out a lot of stuff from under the rug. This is going to be epic.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dannyr 6y ago

Facebook is indeed a tool for authoritarians. Facebook becomes the major, if not the only, online channel for citizens of a country. Facebook adheres to orders of an authoritarian leader. Authoritarian leaders easily shuts out opposition to his/her regime. Authoritarian leaders didn't have to spend much money and resources to do this. Facebook did it for them!

umvi 6y ago

So basically all world governments are locked in to their current state forever from the perspective of big tech, even if they are tyrannical regimes? Basically any group trying to invoke change will be labeled terrorists and will be censored and suppressed.

botverse 6y ago
This is IMO the most valuable reflection of the whole thread. It can be seen as morals are conditional for big tech companies and depend of arbitrary circumstances like location

supergirl 6y ago

and? isn't FB doing the same everywhere, especially recently in the US? pretty sure they block whatever even smells like a pro Trump militia in the US.

andred14 6y ago

This censorship is wrong and alarming. Time to move from this platform with haste.

caseysoftware 6y ago

"Private company, can do what they want" loses meaning when they're acting on behalf of and in the interests of a given government. Is there a point where we call that the boundary between government and "private industry" is mostly paperwork and not reality?