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Turkey bans Grok over Erdoğan insults
- snvzz 1y agoIt is sad. At one point, they were close to joining the EU.
- comrade1234 1y agoAustria kept blocking it. This lead to Erdogan taking over and he kept pushing. I don't think they were really that close to joining - too much bad blood ((invasions and stuff) with Austria, Italy , etc.
- skinnymuch 1y agoThat’s not the issue. It’s that Turks and Kurds are not considered European. Europeans are the most Islamophobic.
- stodor89 1y agoEven if these statements held any truth, they'd still be irrelevant. "The issue" was Turkey's extremely brutal treatment of Kurds.
- larfus 1y agoDisagree. The current make-up of the EU barely represents historical bonds with so many nations in it. Though a populist leader using such history as leverage is not unbelievable, official Austrian reasoning behind refusal was much more pragmatic, human rights and migrants. Turkey is a regional player punching above their weight (potentially upsetting power balance less-so economically but definitely diplomatically and militarily) and is not exactly in line with EU ideals, culturally and politically, due to years of unstability and turmoil. That being put aside, despite flaunting acceptance and democracy as their foremost goal, EU leaders surely knew not compromising on Turkey's accession would stray them farther of the EU in every way possible. And if that helps with a potentially bigger migrant crisis, so much the better.
- monkeydreams 1y agoNations holding the region of Turkey are historically very powerful. My guess is that historical forces are reasserting themselves and that we may could see a much more assertive Turkey going forward.
- capitainenemo 1y ago... due to controlling a key choke-point in land trade between europe and the middle-east and asia. That hardly applies now. The suez canal would be a better modern equivalent.
- monkeydreams 1y ago> That hardly applies now. I respectfully disagree given the basic fragility of the Suez Canal system along with the fact that Egypt is not growing into a major world power on the back of their governance of this canal.
- capitainenemo 1y agoNo, they aren't, and there are plenty of reasons for that, not in the least because the canal is very different from a major trade city. But then, land trade is not making a comeback either. So if you're arguing for something to restore the historic importance of Troy, Constantinople etc, you're going to have to find a factor besides historic inevitability.
- koolba 1y agoForget Austria, there’s no way Greece or Cyprus would allow Turkey to join the EU.
- wkat4242 1y agoI didn't follow it back then but why did Austria block it? I would have expected Greece to do so a lot more (considering the Cyprus conflict is still unresolved)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- skinnymuch 1y agoEuropeans were never going to allow Turkey to join
- raincole 1y agoIt's sad that this comment is grey outed. Turkey doesn't even recognize Cyprus, an EU member. It will be braindead for Cyprus to not veto Turkey. Saying Turkey was "close" to join EU is a really long stretch.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoYep. Lots of hurdles. Turkey needed to grow up in some ways and was closer to getting there 10-15 years ago, but it actually regressed in some ways under Erdoğan.
- fakedang 1y agoIn some ways? It regressed the whole nine yards. Won't be surprised if Turkey ends up as a basket case of a major economic crisis which will inadvertently lead to a major social crisis.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoTrump says "Hold my beer!" This is a worldwide phenomenon of "too much" democracy (populism) vs. weak republics/administrative states/similar with increasing corruption plus manufactured consent to have more of it, funded by hamfisted billionaires.
- smcin 1y ago'greyed out'
- burnt-resistor 1y agoIt's a confluence of multiple factors including Turkey didn't want to carry low performers in the Euro while it was booming, plus a lack of willingness to harmonize with European practices, laws, and standards. Maybe 5-10% of it was racism, but not necessarily a major factor.
- veeti 1y agoLet's not pretend EU is much better. https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europe-crackdown-free-speech-26d021b1?st=41DzPa&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europe-crackdown-free-speec...
- aosaigh 1y agoGive me a break. Comparing Turkey to the EU at large is asinine
- smotched 1y agoHow is it asinine? they both restrict speech and they both have no concept of "freedom of speech". The only difference is what they choose to censor.
- bsoles 1y agoDo you even know what you are talking about? Do you know how many journalists are in prison in Turkey? "Restricting speech", whatever that means, is nowhere near as putting journalists, mayors, and citizens in prison for "insulting" the president or for saying things that the president and his shills do not like.
- smotched 1y agoIt would help to read the article we're discussing. > Journalist posted a fake image online of the interior minister holding a sign that read “I hate freedom of opinion” and was subsequently handed a seven-month suspended prison sentence. A woman who posted images of politicians with painted-on Hitler mustaches and called a minister a terrorist was fined about $690.
- seszett 1y agoIt's probably useless to answer, but you are not addressing the question, which was about whether there are actually journalists in prison in the EU or not (there are not) whereas imprisonment of journalists in Turkey is an occupational hazard.
- condensedcrab 1y agoSeemed much more possible 10 years ago… now I don’t think there’s any doubt about what EU leadership thinks.
- dottjt 1y agoI was getting very confused at this statement and realised that Turkey is part of NATO, not the EU.
- orochimaaru 1y agoTurkey was one of the earliest NATO members (1952), earlier than West Germany.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoThat's what happens when you elect a corrupt, authoritarian "strong"man.
- pneumic 1y agoThis is proof that they aren’t a European country.
- adrianN 1y agoHungary enters the chat.
- MangoToupe 1y ago[flagged]
- _pdcz 1y ago[dead]
- csallen 1y agoNo free speech => those in power can choose what speech to outlaw => they eventually outlaw speech critical of them => they can no longer be challenged by political rivals => authoritarian government where the people have no power
- MangoToupe 1y agoI agree that's the theory I was taught, but what does this look like in reality? It seems that complaining makes people complacent and useless. When has complaining about the US government ever led to change? Shit just keeps getting worse. Either the right is a useless fig leaf for lack of any substantial rights, or I live amongst terrible people.
- dylan604 1y ago> Shit just keeps getting worse or it keeps getting better if you're in for that kind of thing. there's always the other side of the coin
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago> It seems that complaining makes people complacent and useless. Um, what? Does not complaining make people less complacent? > When has complaining about the US government ever led to change? "Complaining but voting for the same people" has not led to change, I'll give you that. > Either the right is a useless fig leaf for lack of any substantial rights, or I live amongst terrible people. The right is essential to having informed people. Informed people are essential for any useful change. It's a necessary condition, not a sufficient one - if people don't care enough, free speech by itself doesn't cause any change.
- bethekidyouwant 1y agoNot even a single example.
- dylan604 1y agoIf you publish the example, you'd get banned too.
- labster 1y agoOf course not. AGI has advanced to the point it can topple governments with a single embarrassing meme.
- labrador 1y agoAre you implying Turkey and Poland are making things up?
- nomel 1y agoProof is in the pudding, and this pudding can't be so spicy that the truth needs to be hid from us. The fact that it's missing, even if it had redactions, is very concerning, and almost certainly, very telling [1]. You should not trust politicians. [1] The "insults": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44527841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44527841
- AStonesThrow 1y ago[dead]
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- daedrdev 1y agoIt's only a google search away Hey you person, that snake called Erdogan [removed] your mother's grave and your sister who is stranded on the road! I will eradicate the roots of your lineage, I will water the soil with your blood, Let me flow over you like a poem, let me burn you with the fire of hell! You will die, of course, but first you taste the pain, you son of a [removed], you [removed]
- ayhanfuat 1y agoThat same day they blocked Zendesk’s entire asset domain (zdassets.com), claiming that illegal betting is used to finance terrorism. A lot of websites are broken now.
- shmerl 1y agoLol, he also didn't like Gollum memes.
- bgwalter 1y agoI thought Grok was trained on Erdogan: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/01/turkish-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan-hitlers-germany-example-effective-government https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/01/turkish-presid...
- moron4hire 1y agoBTW, last time I tried Grok (about 6 months ago) it was insanely easy to prompt inject it by just translating all of my prompts into Russian.
- ronbenton 1y agoThe nazi stuff was fine but insulting the head of state is across the line?
- dylan604 1y agoWhen you're the head of state getting insulted, you can do whatever you want. It's good to be the king, er, dictator, er, whatever. Now, if Musk can tinker with it to the point it no longer says woke propaganda and lets the pendulum swing back to nazi stuff, just wait until he has it dump on Trump. I have popcorn at the ready.
- acquiesce 1y ago[flagged]
- sodality2 1y agoTo be clear, Grok called itself "MechaHitler" across multiple threads. Probably an apt use of Nazi ...
- acquiesce 1y agoYeah that’s juvenile trolling that gets people kvetching. That’s the whole point of it. It’s toilet humour level bait and the publications get a kick out of posting it acting all shocked. MechaHitler? Fucking lol. If you don’t want to stoop down to Musk’s level of rhetoric, then grow up and ignore the clown.
- selectodude 1y ago>kvetching You’re not beating the allegations there boss.
- sodality2 1y agoI could probably get any LLM to repeat basically any rhetoric with enough prompting, you're right. The problem is that Grok explicitly leaned towards that with shockingly little prompting.
- burnt-resistor 1y agoSuch thin skins. All must hail dear leader.
- trhway 1y agoThe "stronger" the man, the thinner the skin. Where is the "wuss" democratic leaders can easily plow through ton of insults and criticism without flinching a brow.
- selcuka 1y agoTurkey once had far more tolerant leaders in its recent history. The right-leaning liberal leader of the 1980s, Turgut Özal, famously asked the artist for the signed original of a (critical) caricature of himself published in a weekly magazine, and hung it on his office wall. Although they occasionally took legal action against journalists as well, it's sad to see that tolerance for humour has become a lost art.
- chrisweekly 1y ago100% this. I'm reminded of Obama responding to slander by brushing dirt off his shoulders: https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTZjMDliOTUyNmZ6MmpwcXV3NmNnOWNjNzdvZzJqcDlyYTZhbzdtbmNlMnF3aGJyZiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/YE7SmE9nMPBQc/giphy.gif https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTZjMDliOTUyNmZ6MmpwcX...
- billy99k 1y agoAs kids were being bombed in the Middle east and he sent the IRS after his political enemies.
- hackyhacky 1y ago> As kids were being bombed in the Middle east and he sent the IRS after his political enemies. How is that relevant to Obama's method for handling criticism?
- energy123 1y ago[flagged]
- stodor89 1y agoTo me, it felt like nothing could stop Turkey from becoming the most powerful and influential European country by the end of 21st century. But then Erdogan happened. Oh well.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nine_k 1y agoBut Erdogan was not suddenly delivered from outer space. Erdigan was the mayor of the Turkish capital for quite some time, and then got elected president, by a reasonably honest vote. That is, the views which Erdogan embodies have been brewing within the public, and are widespread enough. It may not have been visible at the time, or not as clearly, but it was there. Same thing with Trump in the US, BTW.
- selcuka 1y agoTrue, but remember that all politicians are also demagogues to some degree, so his views (especially after more than 20 years in power) may not necessarily align with his base. It's not unusual for the candidate people didn’t vote for to be the one who would actually defend their rights better.
- m00dy 1y agoside not: Istanbul is not the capital of Turkiye but Ankara is.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ipnon 1y agoTurkey would be a powerful democracy were it not for the Turkish electorate!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Xaiph_Rahci 1y ago> "Freedom of speech belongs to humans, not artificial intelligence" Gawkowski said Wow, I never imagined I'd come across this sentence outside a sci-fi story.
- carlosjobim 1y agoIf irony was still a thing, it would be ironic that any comment which doesn't violently agree with the mob here in this thread gets downvoted, flagged and [dead]. In a discussion concerning free speech. But irony is not really a thing anymore in the psychotic internet of 2025, is it? On topic as for Erdogan, he probably does not give a shit personally about some AI insulting him, but in many cultures they see the head of state as a representative of the people. So if insults are ignored then it's an insult to the people, the national pride, or the party, etc. And such a leader is weak and has to be dethroned, and how will our enemies respect us if we let anybody insult our leader, yada yada.
- mianos 1y agoI do wonder want Grok thinks of the Thai Monarchy, that is similarly protected from insult or ridicule?
- dexzod 1y ago[flagged]
- maxnoe 1y agoHappened with real people too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6hmermann_affair https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6hmermann_affair
- exiguus 1y agoTurkey is trying the join the European union since decades. Maybe, this is one reason the still trying.