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Good thing that free speech advocate Elon Musk is in charge at Twitter, so that that platform can offer the people of Turkey an unvarnished look at Erdogan's fl

Good thing that free speech advocate Elon Musk is in charge at Twitter, so that that platform can offer the people of Turkey an unvarnished look at Erdogan's flaws /s https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1657411486380093442 https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1657411486380093442

somenameforme 3y ago
Some interesting context here: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058 Turkey is presumably making a legal demand. So Twitter's choices are censor a handful of individuals in Turkey or have Turkey block Twitter for everybody. The thing that will be interesting is Twitter posting the demand from Turkey. If this is normalized, it would be another great step forward in transparency for Twitter. It'd be similar to how Google publishes DMCA takedown requests to LumenDatabase.org.
- aaronbrethorst 3y ago
  'I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend until it may have monetary consequences for me your right to say it.' - Elon, presumably
- trompetenaccoun 3y ago
  They choose to do that a lot when it comes to foreign governments. North Korea could in theory send such "legal" demands if they allowed Twitter in the country. Actually a big reason for why Musk & co claimed they had to rescue Twitter was because the US government too made such demands to the previous owners and they censored American citizens under very questionable circumstances, including scientists. So at what point does it turn into complicity? And why should censorship of Turks be more acceptable than that of others? If Erdogan wants to go full dictator let him shut down Twitter. Whose side is Musk on?
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    You're absolutely right that North Korea could make the exact same demands if they allowed Twitter, and Twitter would find itself in the same situation. In fact this has already happened with the EU leadership as well, who have plentiful censorship laws to exploit, and were being publicly flexed. Some deal was eventually made there; it's quite unfortunate it was not publicly elaborated upon. But in any case, this is nothing at all like what happened with the US. The US government did not make legal demands, as doing so which would have run into the First Amendment, but instead made 'suggestions' in back channels, which Twitter voluntarily chose to both abide and keep secret, even when they fully recognized it was being abused. There would have been no legal justification for doing anything to Twitter had these 'suggestions' been completely ignored. So Twitter's behavior was entirely on them. As for "sides", after Twitter's decision 99.999% (or whatever absurd decimal it ends up as) of Turkey will retain full direct access to Twitter, instead of 0%. I doubt many of them will be thrilled about these events, and can now freely express that, Streisand effect and all. I don't think he's on the side of the people nor the government of Turkey, but rather he's simply doing what he can to enable the most people to be able to express themselves.
    - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
      Fair point as to the legality in the US. I'm not sure if there are good arguments for complying with blackmail though, since that's exactly what governments like Turkey (and also the EU) are doing. They threaten them to either take down certain speech or the entire site gets blocked. By complying, the companies give legitimacy to those bullying tactics as well as strengthening the rule of the likes of Erdogan. They blocked Twitter a few weeks ago already, after the earthquake and following criticism of AKP. Unless it's a tactical decision before the election, it's not a good look. I personally know people who have been censored on Twitter at the demand of foreign authoritarian governments. It doesn't only affect foreigners but also dissident immigrants living in the US as a common example.
      - somenameforme 3y ago
        The one thing I'd hit on here is the notion of bullying. What Turkey, the EU, and other nations are doing is not bullying. Whether we like those laws or not, those are their laws - and they have every legal right to enforce them. This not only gives the people of those countries clear targets to look for change in, but also a more transparent understanding of what their government is doing. This is only further enhanced if Twitter makes the decision to start regularly publishing these demands, as they ought. But in the US we have constitutional protections against imperiling freedom of speech, and a government determined to imperil freedom of speech. So this results in something much more akin to bullying. The Twitter Files made the leadership at Twitter look both better and worse. It made them look much better in that they often realized what they were being asked to do was wrong. They even realized they (Twitter) were being used in a government sponsored misinformation campaign - in Twitter's own words, they were "feeding congressional trolls." However the files also made them look much worse, because they also invariably went along with these 'suggestions' anyhow. Describing that as bullying would not be inaccurate.

somenameforme 3y ago

Some interesting context here: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058 Turkey is presumably making a legal demand. So Twitter's choices are censor a handful of individuals in Turkey or have Turkey block Twitter for everybody. The thing that will be interesting is Twitter posting the demand from Turkey. If this is normalized, it would be another great step forward in transparency for Twitter. It'd be similar to how Google publishes DMCA takedown requests to LumenDatabase.org.

aaronbrethorst 3y ago
'I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend until it may have monetary consequences for me your right to say it.' - Elon, presumably
trompetenaccoun 3y ago
They choose to do that a lot when it comes to foreign governments. North Korea could in theory send such "legal" demands if they allowed Twitter in the country. Actually a big reason for why Musk & co claimed they had to rescue Twitter was because the US government too made such demands to the previous owners and they censored American citizens under very questionable circumstances, including scientists. So at what point does it turn into complicity? And why should censorship of Turks be more acceptable than that of others? If Erdogan wants to go full dictator let him shut down Twitter. Whose side is Musk on?
- somenameforme 3y ago
  You're absolutely right that North Korea could make the exact same demands if they allowed Twitter, and Twitter would find itself in the same situation. In fact this has already happened with the EU leadership as well, who have plentiful censorship laws to exploit, and were being publicly flexed. Some deal was eventually made there; it's quite unfortunate it was not publicly elaborated upon. But in any case, this is nothing at all like what happened with the US. The US government did not make legal demands, as doing so which would have run into the First Amendment, but instead made 'suggestions' in back channels, which Twitter voluntarily chose to both abide and keep secret, even when they fully recognized it was being abused. There would have been no legal justification for doing anything to Twitter had these 'suggestions' been completely ignored. So Twitter's behavior was entirely on them. As for "sides", after Twitter's decision 99.999% (or whatever absurd decimal it ends up as) of Turkey will retain full direct access to Twitter, instead of 0%. I doubt many of them will be thrilled about these events, and can now freely express that, Streisand effect and all. I don't think he's on the side of the people nor the government of Turkey, but rather he's simply doing what he can to enable the most people to be able to express themselves.
  - trompetenaccoun 3y ago
    Fair point as to the legality in the US. I'm not sure if there are good arguments for complying with blackmail though, since that's exactly what governments like Turkey (and also the EU) are doing. They threaten them to either take down certain speech or the entire site gets blocked. By complying, the companies give legitimacy to those bullying tactics as well as strengthening the rule of the likes of Erdogan. They blocked Twitter a few weeks ago already, after the earthquake and following criticism of AKP. Unless it's a tactical decision before the election, it's not a good look. I personally know people who have been censored on Twitter at the demand of foreign authoritarian governments. It doesn't only affect foreigners but also dissident immigrants living in the US as a common example.
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      The one thing I'd hit on here is the notion of bullying. What Turkey, the EU, and other nations are doing is not bullying. Whether we like those laws or not, those are their laws - and they have every legal right to enforce them. This not only gives the people of those countries clear targets to look for change in, but also a more transparent understanding of what their government is doing. This is only further enhanced if Twitter makes the decision to start regularly publishing these demands, as they ought. But in the US we have constitutional protections against imperiling freedom of speech, and a government determined to imperil freedom of speech. So this results in something much more akin to bullying. The Twitter Files made the leadership at Twitter look both better and worse. It made them look much better in that they often realized what they were being asked to do was wrong. They even realized they (Twitter) were being used in a government sponsored misinformation campaign - in Twitter's own words, they were "feeding congressional trolls." However the files also made them look much worse, because they also invariably went along with these 'suggestions' anyhow. Describing that as bullying would not be inaccurate.