18 ms·

Turkey adopts media law jailing for spreading ‘disinformation’

105 points by bubblehack3r 4y ago

nashashmi 4y ago
If countries and companies are not going to have anti disinformation protocols, they might as well outright implement dictatorship. Deterrence is a good thing.
- Philorandroid 4y ago
  That sounds exceptionally beneficial to whoever gets to define what is and isn't "misinformation," and you're kidding yourself if you think that it'll only ever be used in benevolence and not to the benefit of whatever picotyrant is in charge at a given moment.
  - zaroth 4y ago
    It’s the people using it “purely for benevolence” that you have to be the most worried about!
    - Philorandroid 4y ago
      Indeed. "It's for your own good" is a terrifying thing to hear from authority.
  - nashashmi 4y ago
    Bad laws are beneficial to anyone who can use them well enough for their advantage. That is why we try to come up with good laws. But having no laws are worse.
    - Philorandroid 4y ago
      I can say without a reasonable doubt that misinformation laws are not "good" laws. At absolute best they're as shortsighted as they are misguided, opening the door for a ruling party to arbitrarily declare what reality is and isn't, and take punitive action against anyone who disagrees.
      - nashashmi 4y ago
        We agree to disagree.
    - xboxnolifes 4y ago
      Before this law, Turkey wasn't a lawless land.
- DFHippie 4y ago
  The problem is that if you already have a dictatorship, or something approaching it, "disinformation" means, in the eyes of the law as it is applied, information counter to the ruling party's interest. I agree that disinformation, real disinformation, is being used as a tool to spread authoritarianism and we need better means to combat it. This law, I am afraid, is double speak. It purports to oppose disinformation but in fact strengthens it, and this is by design.
  - nashashmi 4y ago
    Everything is in the eyes of the law. Porn is in the eyes of the law too. As is violent speech and terrorism. We steer clear of laws that are dubious and ambiguous because they can be leveraged whimsically or loopholed. But ignoring threats to full democracy (disinformation) is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous.
    - potatototoo99 4y ago
      Full democracy needs allowing people to think for themselves and spread their ideas freely to whoever will listen. Full democracy is not compatible with telling people what to think.
      - nashashmi 4y ago
        anti disinformation laws do not prevent people from thinking, nor stop people from spreading ideas.
    - DFHippie 4y ago
      I agree about the danger of disinformation. But writing a law and claiming it combats disinformation is not the same as combatting disinformation. In Russia today you can go to jail for up to 15 years for stating that Russia is at war. Why? According to the ruling powers this is disinformation. It doesn't matter that they are lying and you are telling the truth. What matters is that they decide. My point isn't that there can be no law combatting disinformation but that you cannot take the authorities' claims about their law at face value.
rdevsrex 4y ago
Sigh. Yet more censorship. Just what the world needs.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
Hold on.. not false statements, not defamation, not calls for violence… but “disinformation.” Except that we find out that many things were disinformation every day. My family is increasingly paranoid after the Pfizer executive said they never tested whether their vaccine prevented transmission to the EU a few days ago. Apparently that is not new information technically speaking, but it is so counter-narrative it boggles the mind (what the hell was “protect Grandma” then? A hopeful wish?). Would I have risked jail for saying that in Turkey, had this law been in place, a year ago?
- Tarsul 4y ago
  the idea of the vaccine was always to prevent bad effects of infection, not infection as such. However, it usually helps with the latter as well but whatever. However, what the big social media sites really need (instead of laws against disinformation) is downvotes. If the metric is only engagement then enragement is good, but actually it shouldnt (necessarily) be.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    I don’t disagree… but like, when the news media (I can quote many politicians and executives when speaking about mandates) says it was necessary for the sake of stopping the spread, why couldn’t Pfizer have sent out a notification saying, “hey, it reduces the effects, stopping transmission is hoped for but not tested, thanks!” It seems very much like they didn’t care that misinformation about how awesome their product is was being spread but I don’t know for certain. It’s especially ugly when so many media stories have “brought to you by Pfizer” on them. I’m not into conspiracy theories but I increasingly get the paranoia. I have no doubt that I would have been prosecuted in Turkey, or possibly even Australia, a year ago.
  - Jayschwa 4y ago
    > the idea of the vaccine was always to prevent bad effects of infection, not infection as such. This is false historical revisionism. Biden[1], Fauci[2], and the media sold the public on the vaccine and justified mandates by saying it would stop the spread. Early skeptics were labeled as misinformed conspiracy theorists. It later became self-evident that the vaccine was less effective than originally thought (e.g. everyone I know who got vaccinated, including myself, still got infected). Only then did the goalposts move to "it makes infections less bad". But that is not how it was originally presented. [1]: https://www.whio.com/news/local/exclusive-news-center-7-sits-down-one-on-one-with-president-joe-biden/I4DCECFX4JDDTOC2BMWMB6XTAE/ https://www.whio.com/news/local/exclusive-news-center-7-sits... [2]: https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-vaccinated-people-become-dead-ends-for-the-coronavirus/ https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-...
animitronix 4y ago
Time to remove Turkey from NATO
- 4gotunameagain 4y ago
- seydor 4y ago
  Turkey would go to war with greece immediately, and be attacked by iran , russia or a number of countries. It's better to reign in their behavior while in NAto.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    Why is this NATO’s responsibility? Is NATO the global democracy enforcer?
    - seydor 4y ago
      Greece is a nato country Nato, in its webpage, does in fact state it has political purpose too https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html
      - remarkEon 4y ago
        Sorry, I meant policing Turkey's internal behavior. If they attacked another NATO country then obviously it would mean Article 5 gets invoked. The "political purpose" of NATO, as written, has to do with cooperating on defense related matters. I don't know where one would get the idea that it gives NATO the authority to tell other members how to run their internal domestic affairs.
        seydor 4y ago
        > NATO promotes democratic values
Ekaros 4y ago
Isn't this what people want through the world? Control and ban fake news. Defined as what those currently in power think. Also, only three years? Isn't that very soft thinking how destructive fake news can be?
- wincy 4y ago
- FridayoLeary 4y ago
  I mean look at the twin fiascos of covid and Trump. People are all in favour of censorship when it suits them.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    Letting your democracy and a large number of lives be taken away by easily disprovable lies isn't great either. I can't see a good way out of this; the libel suit against Alex Jones is just a tiny start at unwinding the problem. It's much more profitable, easier, and an effective route to power to lie.
    - rhino369 4y ago
      Banning political dissent to save democracy is "destroy[ing] the village in order to save it."
      - Nevermark 4y ago
        Dissent is not the same as lying. In the worst case, people conflate the two to rationalize tolerance for having no repercussions for promoting damaging lies And there can be wide gray areas where people’s perspectives, literacy of facts, or motives are too different to make a clear judgement between disagreement and reckless or intentional faslehoods. But they are not the same
        rhino369 4y ago
osigurdson 4y ago
Erdoğan has seen how well government sponsored misinformation has worked in Russia and is a little jealous. Much easier to win elections when you control the message. Then, eventually just stop having elections.
seydor 4y ago
OK but the accurate information about turkey lately is not particularly flattering, so what gives? They'll jail their own propagandists?
boredumb 4y ago
Wow, how progressive of Turkey!
ccn0p 4y ago
I see a lot of people critical of Turkey... and I agree. But the US is not too far away. See AB-2098 in California just signed by governor / likely presidential nominee Gavin Newson [1] which basically gives the state the ability to revoke medical licenses for spreading "false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific contrary to the standard of care" (in other words, go against the CDC or other state-funded agencies, get punished by the state). [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2098 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
- CodeSgt 4y ago
  Yeah, this is especially an issue as certain forms of medical care gets politicized. If a doctor is obviously telling people that cigarettes are healthy and alcohol abuse if the key to a long life then of course they probably should have their license revoked. If a doctor isn't certain of the literature or has moral objections to prescribing hormones to trans teenagers, well that one is up for debate. Similarly see Alex Jones, I disagree entirely with his politics and virtually everything he's ever said, but ultimately he was just fined approximately $1 billion USD for no more than speaking. Honestly seeing that happen to a private entity is more concerning than it happening to a demographic that already requires government approval to legally operate (medical professional, in this case).
  - lesuorac 4y ago
    Alex Jones isn't the story you think it is. There are procedures to follow in a lawsuit such as discovery. If you intentionally do not follow them then you get in trouble. He may have been able to muster a "I only said things"/ free speech defense if he actually was trying to defend himself in court. Instead he didn't participate in the lawsuit and the other party that did is assumed to be correct. > [1] In both the Texas and Connecticut lawsuits, judges found the company liable for damages by default after Jones failed to cooperate with court rules on sharing evidence, including failing to turn over records that might have showed whether Infowars had profited from knowingly spreading misinformation about mass killings. > Because he was already found liable, Jones was barred from mentioning free speech rights and other topics during his testimony. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/shootings-school-connecticut-conspiracy-alex-jones-3f579380515fdd6eb59f5bf0e3e1c08f https://apnews.com/article/shootings-school-connecticut-cons...
swayvil 4y ago
So this is ludicrous and hazardous for the obvious reasons. And mirrors recent trends in media, social and otherwise, here in USA. Control of information by a crew of rich guys is bad. Control by the vast mob of malleable munchkins is worse. I actually think that, on the whole-society scale, less control is the desirable course here. Let individuals do their own filtering. Or not. Give chaos a chance.
- Nevermark 4y ago
  We could do the same with physical violence. Stop judging and let individuals make their own choices. The problem in both cases is obvious. When people can take actions that benefit themselves despite (and often because of) negative repercussions to others, many people are not going to “filter” themselves
  - swayvil 4y ago
    I see two defects in your reasoning. First, our understanding of what constitutes physical violence is relatively reliable. Whereas our understanding of what constitutes misinformation is relatively unreliable. Therefore any comprehensive dictatorship of information would be relatively extremely more disastrous. Second, misinformation is self-limiting in its effects. If it is misinformation then those who consume and communicate it will be relatively weak and disorganized. Whereas those who consume and communicate good information will be relatively strong and organized. The present state of the mob versus the corporation is a clear example of that. The mob has the numbers but nevertheless, the corporation wins. Because the corporation is organized and the mob is disorganized.
    - Nevermark 4y ago
      I appreciate your response. But while there are more gray areas in misinformation or harmful coordination or reinforcement of bad behavior (bullying, racism, fraud, libel, etc), relative to violence, that is far from a case where large quantities of harmful speech can’t be identified with openly discussed principles. Wisdom is never perfect, but it can be openly discussed and codified. That is a huge improvement over simply throwing up hands and watching people be crushed by underserved social persecution and manipulation. Also, any behavior that extracts value can expend resources for its own self-preservation. So fraud and rabble rousing, etc do not weed themselves out. Parasitical strategies work. Finally, I agree that organization of corporations and other close knit groups trumps the disorganized. Removing a judicial component would only make those powerful organizations more effective at bending society to their will. The answer is an organized government with publically created and adapted laws, with norms that reduce opportunities for corruption It’s far from perfect. Our systems could be “easily” improved by simple anti-corruption improvements - if entrenched interests could be overcome. But despite obvious flaws, they are vastly better than the mafia power structures that a vacuum of open legal systems reining in harmful dishonest or malevolent communication would ensure
rayiner 4y ago
Think about the power you want the government to have. And then imagine what your political opponents will do with it the next time they win the election.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  There are several governments with the ability to commit world destruction in a couple hours via nuclear fire. The era of small government is long over.
- lesuorac 4y ago
  Your point doesn't work they way you seem to think it does. Any power you enable/disable can also be enabled/disabled in the future. Let's say you want to enshrine the rights to free speech so you put it into the constitution. Any future government can just take it out, just completely ignore its existence, say it doesn't apply in this situation, or work around it but requiring some civil agreement. --- To put things more concretely with a different example. US Democrats never modified the filibuster to allow supreme court judges to be confirmed by 50/50+1 votes. One may think that they didn't want their political opponents to have this power (IIRC they enabled it for non-supreme court judges so this seems like a valid argument to make). However, if that was the case then it was pointless as their political opponents enabled that power.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > US Democrats never modified the filibuster to allow supreme court judges to be confirmed by 50/50+1 votes. That’s true but not the whole story. The parties had filibustered (or threatened to filibuster) each other’s judicial appointments for decades. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/estrada-caught-in-poisonous-war-based-on-ideology https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/estrada-caught-in-poisono.... That’s how we got Kennedy among others. But Democrats, under Harry Reid, eliminated the filibuster for all federal judgeships below the Supreme Court back in 2013. That was back in the euphoria of Obama’s 2012 reelection, when Democrats became convinced that they were favored by “demographic destiny” and republicans would never win another national election.
  - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
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JakDrako 4y ago
Will the Ministry of Truth also tell the good people what is the correct information they may spread?
popilewiz 4y ago
soheil 4y ago
> The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. - The argument against Free Speech and shouting fire in a crowded theater. Is this Turkey's justification too?
_3u10 4y ago
That’s super progressive of them, California just passed a similar law for doctors
robomartin 4y ago
The world would, without a doubt, be a better place if politicians, news organizations, influencers/celebrities, etc. did not lie to the masses. It would also likely be a much quieter place, in that some of these entities would not be able to produce so much content due to the need to corroborate before posting, printing or opening their mouths. Some would be silent, because a lot of these people are truly ignorant about a wide range of subjects and are in the business of disseminating outrage for clicks and eyeballs rather than informing their audience. In the US in particular, freedom of speech and freedom of the press have devolved into being able to go as far as mounting massive campaigns, based on lies, used to destroy people. This has happened to people from all walks of life, from politicians to random people targeted by the mobs. The media, politicians and people with enough followers on social media have done this; examples abound. This is objectively wrong. I cannot imagine anyone with a modicum of decency and moral standards actually believing it is OK to have these elements in society behave in such ways. This is objectively detrimental for society. Of course, the difficulties come in when we try to define truth. In some cases there is no such thing as an absolute truth. Do we not speak about such matters? Or do we require a strong disclaimer to be issued with as much visibility and impact as the statements being made? De we add an "open source" requirement for news organizations? In other words, they would be legally required to publish the research and sources used in order to confirm the veracity of a story. Is that sensible? I don't know. In the US politicians are legally protected when they lie to the masses. A politician can say anything they want about the economy, crime, education, war and peace and their opponents, lie about all of it and have no legal exposure to the consequences of such lies. A politician can say that a proposed bill is about X when, in reality, it is about Y. This, again, is objectively wrong, and yet we don't seem interested in doing anything about it. It goes without saying that social media is a deep dark hole full of lies and manipulative content. Again, objectively terrible for society. Sadly, fixing this problem is nearly impossible. As easy as it might be to state what kinds of behaviors are objectively wrong, designing an equitable solution that protects the important aspects of free speech isn't as easy as it may sound. When it comes to the press, it is my opinion that they should not be allowed to print anything that they have not confirmed to be truthful within a reasonable margin of error. As an example everyone would be familiar with, if a news organization is going to, day after day, claim that the US president is a foreign agent, they would have to be able to corroborate this with solid evidence and research or suffer severe consequences. If they are going to point to an individual and claim them to be racist or a member of a cult, etc., same thing. There ought to be a reasonable threshold --which can be somewhat fuzzy-- for mass media organizations to engage in some of the carpet bombing campaigns that have become all too familiar these days. The latest one is against Tulsi Gabbard, who, after announcing she is leaving her political party, is now the target of all manner of attacks from multiple angles, including such things as saying she is a member of a cult. I use this example because it is very fresh, quite literally the last few days. However one might feel about her and her political views, here's what reveals this event as a politically-motivated smear campaign: If the things being said about her were true and the motivation behind the dissemination was an honest effort to inform the public, these stories would have been newsworthy before she left her political party. If she is, in fact, a member of a cult, this would have been important for voters to know two years ago. Yet, that's not the case. The attacks are politically motivated and likely lies and fabrications. They are deployed en-masse when a person goes from being silent or a member of the club to being viewed as a political enemy. That, in a nutshell, is what's wrong. These things are legally-protected smear and destruction campaign. They should not be allowed by law. Which is, of course, easier said than done.
gmargari 4y ago
Meanwhile in Greece (2021): New Greek law against disinformation endangers press freedom https://rsf.org/en/new-greek-law-against-disinformation-endangers-press-freedom https://rsf.org/en/new-greek-law-against-disinformation-enda...
addingadimensio 4y ago
If we could all come together and boost harder this wont need to happen here
Kukumber 4y ago
They don't want the US/Israel to plot a 2nd coup [1], just like with China/Russia they want to split Turkey since it's too big Erdogan knows that very well, hence he tried to play double face with NATO/Russia (BRICS) [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt#Allegations_of_CIA_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
- dmix 4y ago
  Foreign boogiemen tend to be behind a lot of bad laws. The coup failed without having to jail people for arbitrary wrongthink and I doubt this will be useful for anything but crushing domestic opposition and silencing whistleblowers.
  - Kukumber 4y ago
    I don't care what's good what's bad, i'm just making an observation and i share my knowledge The "one sided" mindset in the west is tasteless and boring
    - dmix 4y ago
      One side of what?
      - Kukumber 4y ago
        dmix 4y ago
        Nothing is lamer than telling someone to read a book in order to understand their internet comment (let alone a religious text). But obviously you’re just dodging, stating an opinionated piece of information while pretending you’re just stating facts. Just be honest and say what you mean. I have a feeling it can be reduced to the usual “US is also bad” misdirection which is a favourite of Turkey (and China and Iran and Venezuela and Russia) whenever they do anything abusive. That’s never an excuse.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
A Western authoritarian's wet dream.

105 points by bubblehack3r 4y ago

If countries and companies are not going to have anti disinformation protocols, they might as well outright implement dictatorship. Deterrence is a good thing.

Philorandroid 4y ago
That sounds exceptionally beneficial to whoever gets to define what is and isn't "misinformation," and you're kidding yourself if you think that it'll only ever be used in benevolence and not to the benefit of whatever picotyrant is in charge at a given moment.
- zaroth 4y ago
  It’s the people using it “purely for benevolence” that you have to be the most worried about!
  - Philorandroid 4y ago
    Indeed. "It's for your own good" is a terrifying thing to hear from authority.
- nashashmi 4y ago
  Bad laws are beneficial to anyone who can use them well enough for their advantage. That is why we try to come up with good laws. But having no laws are worse.
  - Philorandroid 4y ago
    I can say without a reasonable doubt that misinformation laws are not "good" laws. At absolute best they're as shortsighted as they are misguided, opening the door for a ruling party to arbitrarily declare what reality is and isn't, and take punitive action against anyone who disagrees.
    - nashashmi 4y ago
      We agree to disagree.
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    Before this law, Turkey wasn't a lawless land.
DFHippie 4y ago
The problem is that if you already have a dictatorship, or something approaching it, "disinformation" means, in the eyes of the law as it is applied, information counter to the ruling party's interest. I agree that disinformation, real disinformation, is being used as a tool to spread authoritarianism and we need better means to combat it. This law, I am afraid, is double speak. It purports to oppose disinformation but in fact strengthens it, and this is by design.
- nashashmi 4y ago
  Everything is in the eyes of the law. Porn is in the eyes of the law too. As is violent speech and terrorism. We steer clear of laws that are dubious and ambiguous because they can be leveraged whimsically or loopholed. But ignoring threats to full democracy (disinformation) is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous.
  - potatototoo99 4y ago
    Full democracy needs allowing people to think for themselves and spread their ideas freely to whoever will listen. Full democracy is not compatible with telling people what to think.
    - nashashmi 4y ago
      anti disinformation laws do not prevent people from thinking, nor stop people from spreading ideas.
  - DFHippie 4y ago
    I agree about the danger of disinformation. But writing a law and claiming it combats disinformation is not the same as combatting disinformation. In Russia today you can go to jail for up to 15 years for stating that Russia is at war. Why? According to the ruling powers this is disinformation. It doesn't matter that they are lying and you are telling the truth. What matters is that they decide. My point isn't that there can be no law combatting disinformation but that you cannot take the authorities' claims about their law at face value.

rdevsrex 4y ago

Sigh. Yet more censorship. Just what the world needs.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

Hold on.. not false statements, not defamation, not calls for violence… but “disinformation.” Except that we find out that many things were disinformation every day. My family is increasingly paranoid after the Pfizer executive said they never tested whether their vaccine prevented transmission to the EU a few days ago. Apparently that is not new information technically speaking, but it is so counter-narrative it boggles the mind (what the hell was “protect Grandma” then? A hopeful wish?). Would I have risked jail for saying that in Turkey, had this law been in place, a year ago?

Tarsul 4y ago
the idea of the vaccine was always to prevent bad effects of infection, not infection as such. However, it usually helps with the latter as well but whatever. However, what the big social media sites really need (instead of laws against disinformation) is downvotes. If the metric is only engagement then enragement is good, but actually it shouldnt (necessarily) be.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  I don’t disagree… but like, when the news media (I can quote many politicians and executives when speaking about mandates) says it was necessary for the sake of stopping the spread, why couldn’t Pfizer have sent out a notification saying, “hey, it reduces the effects, stopping transmission is hoped for but not tested, thanks!” It seems very much like they didn’t care that misinformation about how awesome their product is was being spread but I don’t know for certain. It’s especially ugly when so many media stories have “brought to you by Pfizer” on them. I’m not into conspiracy theories but I increasingly get the paranoia. I have no doubt that I would have been prosecuted in Turkey, or possibly even Australia, a year ago.
- Jayschwa 4y ago
  > the idea of the vaccine was always to prevent bad effects of infection, not infection as such. This is false historical revisionism. Biden[1], Fauci[2], and the media sold the public on the vaccine and justified mandates by saying it would stop the spread. Early skeptics were labeled as misinformed conspiracy theorists. It later became self-evident that the vaccine was less effective than originally thought (e.g. everyone I know who got vaccinated, including myself, still got infected). Only then did the goalposts move to "it makes infections less bad". But that is not how it was originally presented. [1]: https://www.whio.com/news/local/exclusive-news-center-7-sits-down-one-on-one-with-president-joe-biden/I4DCECFX4JDDTOC2BMWMB6XTAE/ https://www.whio.com/news/local/exclusive-news-center-7-sits... [2]: https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-vaccinated-people-become-dead-ends-for-the-coronavirus/ https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-...

animitronix 4y ago

Time to remove Turkey from NATO

4gotunameagain 4y ago
seydor 4y ago
Turkey would go to war with greece immediately, and be attacked by iran , russia or a number of countries. It's better to reign in their behavior while in NAto.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  Why is this NATO’s responsibility? Is NATO the global democracy enforcer?
  - seydor 4y ago
    Greece is a nato country Nato, in its webpage, does in fact state it has political purpose too https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html
    - remarkEon 4y ago
      Sorry, I meant policing Turkey's internal behavior. If they attacked another NATO country then obviously it would mean Article 5 gets invoked. The "political purpose" of NATO, as written, has to do with cooperating on defense related matters. I don't know where one would get the idea that it gives NATO the authority to tell other members how to run their internal domestic affairs.
      - seydor 4y ago
        > NATO promotes democratic values

Ekaros 4y ago

Isn't this what people want through the world? Control and ban fake news. Defined as what those currently in power think. Also, only three years? Isn't that very soft thinking how destructive fake news can be?

wincy 4y ago
FridayoLeary 4y ago
I mean look at the twin fiascos of covid and Trump. People are all in favour of censorship when it suits them.
- pjc50 4y ago
  Letting your democracy and a large number of lives be taken away by easily disprovable lies isn't great either. I can't see a good way out of this; the libel suit against Alex Jones is just a tiny start at unwinding the problem. It's much more profitable, easier, and an effective route to power to lie.
  - rhino369 4y ago
    Banning political dissent to save democracy is "destroy[ing] the village in order to save it."
    - Nevermark 4y ago
      Dissent is not the same as lying. In the worst case, people conflate the two to rationalize tolerance for having no repercussions for promoting damaging lies And there can be wide gray areas where people’s perspectives, literacy of facts, or motives are too different to make a clear judgement between disagreement and reckless or intentional faslehoods. But they are not the same
      - rhino369 4y ago

osigurdson 4y ago

Erdoğan has seen how well government sponsored misinformation has worked in Russia and is a little jealous. Much easier to win elections when you control the message. Then, eventually just stop having elections.

seydor 4y ago

OK but the accurate information about turkey lately is not particularly flattering, so what gives? They'll jail their own propagandists?

boredumb 4y ago

Wow, how progressive of Turkey!

ccn0p 4y ago

I see a lot of people critical of Turkey... and I agree. But the US is not too far away. See AB-2098 in California just signed by governor / likely presidential nominee Gavin Newson [1] which basically gives the state the ability to revoke medical licenses for spreading "false information that is contradicted by contemporary scientific contrary to the standard of care" (in other words, go against the CDC or other state-funded agencies, get punished by the state). [1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2098 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

CodeSgt 4y ago
Yeah, this is especially an issue as certain forms of medical care gets politicized. If a doctor is obviously telling people that cigarettes are healthy and alcohol abuse if the key to a long life then of course they probably should have their license revoked. If a doctor isn't certain of the literature or has moral objections to prescribing hormones to trans teenagers, well that one is up for debate. Similarly see Alex Jones, I disagree entirely with his politics and virtually everything he's ever said, but ultimately he was just fined approximately $1 billion USD for no more than speaking. Honestly seeing that happen to a private entity is more concerning than it happening to a demographic that already requires government approval to legally operate (medical professional, in this case).
- lesuorac 4y ago
  Alex Jones isn't the story you think it is. There are procedures to follow in a lawsuit such as discovery. If you intentionally do not follow them then you get in trouble. He may have been able to muster a "I only said things"/ free speech defense if he actually was trying to defend himself in court. Instead he didn't participate in the lawsuit and the other party that did is assumed to be correct. > [1] In both the Texas and Connecticut lawsuits, judges found the company liable for damages by default after Jones failed to cooperate with court rules on sharing evidence, including failing to turn over records that might have showed whether Infowars had profited from knowingly spreading misinformation about mass killings. > Because he was already found liable, Jones was barred from mentioning free speech rights and other topics during his testimony. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/shootings-school-connecticut-conspiracy-alex-jones-3f579380515fdd6eb59f5bf0e3e1c08f https://apnews.com/article/shootings-school-connecticut-cons...

swayvil 4y ago

So this is ludicrous and hazardous for the obvious reasons. And mirrors recent trends in media, social and otherwise, here in USA. Control of information by a crew of rich guys is bad. Control by the vast mob of malleable munchkins is worse. I actually think that, on the whole-society scale, less control is the desirable course here. Let individuals do their own filtering. Or not. Give chaos a chance.

Nevermark 4y ago
We could do the same with physical violence. Stop judging and let individuals make their own choices. The problem in both cases is obvious. When people can take actions that benefit themselves despite (and often because of) negative repercussions to others, many people are not going to “filter” themselves
- swayvil 4y ago
  I see two defects in your reasoning. First, our understanding of what constitutes physical violence is relatively reliable. Whereas our understanding of what constitutes misinformation is relatively unreliable. Therefore any comprehensive dictatorship of information would be relatively extremely more disastrous. Second, misinformation is self-limiting in its effects. If it is misinformation then those who consume and communicate it will be relatively weak and disorganized. Whereas those who consume and communicate good information will be relatively strong and organized. The present state of the mob versus the corporation is a clear example of that. The mob has the numbers but nevertheless, the corporation wins. Because the corporation is organized and the mob is disorganized.
  - Nevermark 4y ago
    I appreciate your response. But while there are more gray areas in misinformation or harmful coordination or reinforcement of bad behavior (bullying, racism, fraud, libel, etc), relative to violence, that is far from a case where large quantities of harmful speech can’t be identified with openly discussed principles. Wisdom is never perfect, but it can be openly discussed and codified. That is a huge improvement over simply throwing up hands and watching people be crushed by underserved social persecution and manipulation. Also, any behavior that extracts value can expend resources for its own self-preservation. So fraud and rabble rousing, etc do not weed themselves out. Parasitical strategies work. Finally, I agree that organization of corporations and other close knit groups trumps the disorganized. Removing a judicial component would only make those powerful organizations more effective at bending society to their will. The answer is an organized government with publically created and adapted laws, with norms that reduce opportunities for corruption It’s far from perfect. Our systems could be “easily” improved by simple anti-corruption improvements - if entrenched interests could be overcome. But despite obvious flaws, they are vastly better than the mafia power structures that a vacuum of open legal systems reining in harmful dishonest or malevolent communication would ensure

rayiner 4y ago

Think about the power you want the government to have. And then imagine what your political opponents will do with it the next time they win the election.

hotpotamus 4y ago
There are several governments with the ability to commit world destruction in a couple hours via nuclear fire. The era of small government is long over.
lesuorac 4y ago
Your point doesn't work they way you seem to think it does. Any power you enable/disable can also be enabled/disabled in the future. Let's say you want to enshrine the rights to free speech so you put it into the constitution. Any future government can just take it out, just completely ignore its existence, say it doesn't apply in this situation, or work around it but requiring some civil agreement. --- To put things more concretely with a different example. US Democrats never modified the filibuster to allow supreme court judges to be confirmed by 50/50+1 votes. One may think that they didn't want their political opponents to have this power (IIRC they enabled it for non-supreme court judges so this seems like a valid argument to make). However, if that was the case then it was pointless as their political opponents enabled that power.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > US Democrats never modified the filibuster to allow supreme court judges to be confirmed by 50/50+1 votes. That’s true but not the whole story. The parties had filibustered (or threatened to filibuster) each other’s judicial appointments for decades. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/estrada-caught-in-poisonous-war-based-on-ideology https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/estrada-caught-in-poisono.... That’s how we got Kennedy among others. But Democrats, under Harry Reid, eliminated the filibuster for all federal judgeships below the Supreme Court back in 2013. That was back in the euphoria of Obama’s 2012 reelection, when Democrats became convinced that they were favored by “demographic destiny” and republicans would never win another national election.
- 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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JakDrako 4y ago

Will the Ministry of Truth also tell the good people what is the correct information they may spread?

popilewiz 4y ago

soheil 4y ago

> The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. - The argument against Free Speech and shouting fire in a crowded theater. Is this Turkey's justification too?

_3u10 4y ago

That’s super progressive of them, California just passed a similar law for doctors

robomartin 4y ago

The world would, without a doubt, be a better place if politicians, news organizations, influencers/celebrities, etc. did not lie to the masses. It would also likely be a much quieter place, in that some of these entities would not be able to produce so much content due to the need to corroborate before posting, printing or opening their mouths. Some would be silent, because a lot of these people are truly ignorant about a wide range of subjects and are in the business of disseminating outrage for clicks and eyeballs rather than informing their audience. In the US in particular, freedom of speech and freedom of the press have devolved into being able to go as far as mounting massive campaigns, based on lies, used to destroy people. This has happened to people from all walks of life, from politicians to random people targeted by the mobs. The media, politicians and people with enough followers on social media have done this; examples abound. This is objectively wrong. I cannot imagine anyone with a modicum of decency and moral standards actually believing it is OK to have these elements in society behave in such ways. This is objectively detrimental for society. Of course, the difficulties come in when we try to define truth. In some cases there is no such thing as an absolute truth. Do we not speak about such matters? Or do we require a strong disclaimer to be issued with as much visibility and impact as the statements being made? De we add an "open source" requirement for news organizations? In other words, they would be legally required to publish the research and sources used in order to confirm the veracity of a story. Is that sensible? I don't know. In the US politicians are legally protected when they lie to the masses. A politician can say anything they want about the economy, crime, education, war and peace and their opponents, lie about all of it and have no legal exposure to the consequences of such lies. A politician can say that a proposed bill is about X when, in reality, it is about Y. This, again, is objectively wrong, and yet we don't seem interested in doing anything about it. It goes without saying that social media is a deep dark hole full of lies and manipulative content. Again, objectively terrible for society. Sadly, fixing this problem is nearly impossible. As easy as it might be to state what kinds of behaviors are objectively wrong, designing an equitable solution that protects the important aspects of free speech isn't as easy as it may sound. When it comes to the press, it is my opinion that they should not be allowed to print anything that they have not confirmed to be truthful within a reasonable margin of error. As an example everyone would be familiar with, if a news organization is going to, day after day, claim that the US president is a foreign agent, they would have to be able to corroborate this with solid evidence and research or suffer severe consequences. If they are going to point to an individual and claim them to be racist or a member of a cult, etc., same thing. There ought to be a reasonable threshold --which can be somewhat fuzzy-- for mass media organizations to engage in some of the carpet bombing campaigns that have become all too familiar these days. The latest one is against Tulsi Gabbard, who, after announcing she is leaving her political party, is now the target of all manner of attacks from multiple angles, including such things as saying she is a member of a cult. I use this example because it is very fresh, quite literally the last few days. However one might feel about her and her political views, here's what reveals this event as a politically-motivated smear campaign: If the things being said about her were true and the motivation behind the dissemination was an honest effort to inform the public, these stories would have been newsworthy before she left her political party. If she is, in fact, a member of a cult, this would have been important for voters to know two years ago. Yet, that's not the case. The attacks are politically motivated and likely lies and fabrications. They are deployed en-masse when a person goes from being silent or a member of the club to being viewed as a political enemy. That, in a nutshell, is what's wrong. These things are legally-protected smear and destruction campaign. They should not be allowed by law. Which is, of course, easier said than done.

gmargari 4y ago

Meanwhile in Greece (2021): New Greek law against disinformation endangers press freedom https://rsf.org/en/new-greek-law-against-disinformation-endangers-press-freedom https://rsf.org/en/new-greek-law-against-disinformation-enda...

addingadimensio 4y ago

If we could all come together and boost harder this wont need to happen here

Kukumber 4y ago

They don't want the US/Israel to plot a 2nd coup [1], just like with China/Russia they want to split Turkey since it's too big Erdogan knows that very well, hence he tried to play double face with NATO/Russia (BRICS) [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt#Allegations_of_CIA_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

dmix 4y ago
Foreign boogiemen tend to be behind a lot of bad laws. The coup failed without having to jail people for arbitrary wrongthink and I doubt this will be useful for anything but crushing domestic opposition and silencing whistleblowers.
- Kukumber 4y ago
  I don't care what's good what's bad, i'm just making an observation and i share my knowledge The "one sided" mindset in the west is tasteless and boring
  - dmix 4y ago
    One side of what?
    - Kukumber 4y ago
      - dmix 4y ago
        Nothing is lamer than telling someone to read a book in order to understand their internet comment (let alone a religious text). But obviously you’re just dodging, stating an opinionated piece of information while pretending you’re just stating facts. Just be honest and say what you mean. I have a feeling it can be reduced to the usual “US is also bad” misdirection which is a favourite of Turkey (and China and Iran and Venezuela and Russia) whenever they do anything abusive. That’s never an excuse.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

A Western authoritarian's wet dream.