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Erdogan says social media 'danger to society'
- pinars 13y agoHis actual quote about news spreading through social media is near the middle of the article. "There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society."
- swombat 13y ago"Anyone who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic." Right, well, how can we debate the voice of reason? He's right! The world is black and white. I hereby invoke Godwin's law to declare that anyone who orders police brutality against largely peaceful protesters is Hitler reincarnated.
- venomsnake 13y agoIn the case of Erdogan you may not be that far off. Turkey is interesting country - the army there was the guardian of the secularism inherited from Kemal Ataturk. That is almost dismantled by now with the involuntarily help of the EU. Erdogan came after free elections and after that Turkey is moving in some very dangerous waters. Add instability in Syria into the mix and the semi civil war with the Kurdish minority.
- fixxer 13y agoVery troubled waters indeed... I spent quite a bit of time there in the late 90s; absolutely love the country and the people, despite almost getting blown up by the PKK. After Erdogan came to power, I was wondering how long it would take the military to put him in check. They got pretty close a couple years back.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoHe's certainly not Hitler. He is certainly, in some sense, a fascist.
- grannyg00se 13y agoTrue for some definitions of "society". Like "entrenched group of ruling fascists", for example.
- shmerl 13y agoTo Erdogan and co.: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VmffgIqlAYA https://youtube.com/watch?v=VmffgIqlAYA
- cynwoody 13y agoLOL! Caroline Glick is the best!
- shmerl 13y agoYes, she's great.
- bilbo0s 13y agoPretty funny... but it kind of got the politics all mixed up. Erdogan is supporting the Syrian rebels against Assad, for instance. And, of course, Iran is supporting Assad against the rebels. It would have been better with Putin, Assad, and Achmed.
- shmerl 13y agoThe fact that they can be opposed to each other doesn't diminish their dictatorial aspirations.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoThat's trashy, nasty, cynical comedy for trashy, nasty, cynical yemanim. Don't post it in here.
- shmerl 13y agoHehe, can't stand the satire? Satire is not forbidden here, you'll live with it. Where is this sick notion coming from, that left-winged are supposed to be big fans of dictators? Go learn some wisdom, left-winged friend. Preferably from Kropotkin. I find nothing trashy or nasty in making fun of fascists/dictators like these. And there is nothing right-winged in making fun of them.
- mindcrime 13y agoThe actual "biggest threat to society" is politicians.
- Sven7 13y agoThis is very easy to say. Politicians are just reflections of who we all are. And imho they have the hardest jobs on the planet today. There isn't a course on Khan Academy, that they can take, which tells them what to do when uncontrolled chain reactions are set off by Social networks. The results will always be messy. And to then say if they just did the "right thing" all will be well, isn't being very realistic. When the "right thing" for different sections of society is so different.
- egeozcan 13y agoWell, yes and no. It must true that they are the reflections of the society but this is no reason for them to become populists and sway away from their actual job: Protecting the rights of the people, regardless of their vote, religion or anything that can be used to discriminate them. Yes there are always some people who become evil with their jobs but the percentage of wrongdoers among the politicians tends to be much higher than the society average in every community. I have a few theories on why this is the case but I have no evidence so I think I'll keep them to myself.
- Sven7 13y ago> this is no reason for them to become populists and sway away from their actual job Protecting rights is not as easy as just giving a speech or writing a blog post. It is about engaging with the other side (not just calling them idiots). It is about building social capital. Over decades. So that when the time comes, to take a stand on something, you can cash it in even it is highly unpopular. That is the power great leaders have had throughout history and you cannot accumulate it(nonviolently) without being populist.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoOnly Americans actually believe that the job of politicians is "protecting the rights of the people", and even then, most non-Libertarian voters in America don't actually believe that's the only job of politicians. There's a fundamental trade-off: power attracts the corruptible, but a certain amount is necessary to get important jobs done.
- lutze 13y ago"There is now a menace called the printing press. The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, movable type is the worst menace to society." -- some fucking Pope or other.
- iuguy 13y agoTo be fair an Ottoman Sultan banned Ottoman script from being printed, effectively banning the printing press across the Ottoman empire and pretty ending the Ottoman golden age, starting it's descent. The irony of Tayyip Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanist dreams is not lost on me with this statement.
- iuguy 13y agoAnyone who feels like menacing Turkish society by helping provide unfiltered Internet access could do a lot worse than set up a Lahana[1] node. Discussion here[2]. [1] - http://lahana.dreamcats.org/ http://lahana.dreamcats.org/ [2] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5810091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5810091
- muyuu 13y agoCheers for that.
- OzzyB 13y agoWhat is this? The Isreal bash Turkey thread?
- simonh 13y agoWhenever two factions within a Muslim state clash, one or both will eventually accuse the other of being Israeli stooges. The same charge is also commonly levelled at any external criticism of a Muslim state or faction. It's the Muslim world's equivalent of Godwin's Law.
- tsotha 13y agoI have to wonder how effective that accusation is. It's so commonplace... like accusing someone of racism in the US.
- makomk 13y agoTo be fair, someone did post a link to ynetnews, an Israeli news website which appears to have a rather pro-Israeli-government slant with all that entails. (It was quite entertaining when Turkey got a new government that was no longer friendly to Israel and suddenly all the Israeli politicians and news websites went from pretending the Armenian genocide didn't exist to making a big fuss about it.)
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoGod forbid there be any Israelis on Hacker News.
- Jun8 13y agoThis quote is from his lengthy one-on-one interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cfNKKUDcV4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cfNKKUDcV4) with the Turkish journalist Fatih Altayli on June 2nd. The purpose of this program was to explain Erdogan's ways to people and promote/show his side, it produced just the reverse reaction due to his callous comments. The one-sidedness of the Turkish TV stations is appalling: Altayli characterizes the protests as "mostly vandalism" and gives the PM a platform to explain his side, without providing that to the other side. While CNN International was transmitting live from Taksim, CNN Turkey had a documentary about penguins! Currently there's a petition (http://www.change.org/petitions/cnn-international-must-pull-its-name-franchise-from-cnn-turk http://www.change.org/petitions/cnn-international-must-pull-...) on change.org to ask CNN to revoke its naming agreement with CNN Turkey, it has reached 40k signatures.
- nettdata 13y agoSaw this pic on Reddit that kind of sums it up. http://i.imgur.com/DkdgGnQ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/DkdgGnQ.jpg
- doktrin 13y agoDoes this sort of sad-yet-comical media censorship work in a country like Turkey? I'm baffled that anyone in a decision making position at CNN Turk would think this is somehow a good idea.
- pinars 13y agoIf you don't have access to Internet, unfortunately, it does. I called my mom who lives in Eskisehir Saturday morning TST, and asked her about the protests. Her reaction was, "What protests?" If you get your news from TV, and if none of them broadcast the protests, then how would you know?
- eatitraw 13y agoSadly, when there is internet connection, the problem doesn't simply go away. In Russia, internet media are heavily censored too - so internet user has to make effort to obtain the information not biased in favour of Putin's government: there are only several "unbiased" regular online media(not counting social media like big social networks like facebook or twitter). It is much simpler to just turn on TV especially if you don't care much about politics. The described reaction is extremely familiar to me. There were major protests in Russia during winter 2011/2012. The first protest event happened the next day after federal parliament elections(quite important event). So, after another 2 days I call my mother(she lives about 3000 km away from Moscow) and ask her if she heared about protests, and get the same reaction "What protests?". Five days after the initial event, there was another: ~50 000 - 100 000 people gathered in the center of Moscow. Did the federal governmental media mention it? This time did, but very briefly, and understating the number of participants by order of magnitude.
- jongraehl 13y agoIf Twitter is a menace to your society, then it's time to start looking for a new society.
- eatitraw 13y agoOh, this is so typical: call something a "danger to society" when actually it is a danger to you and your government. Not only they think that "government == society", but also they think that "their government == society".
- skylan_q 13y agoAnyone care to say why he's wrong? I'd like a bit more elaboration from his argument, but it's possible that he's right.
- Jare 13y agoFor some definitions of "society", he's not wrong. The wrong is in wanting one such kind of society for his country.
- skylan_q 13y agoThe wrong is in wanting one such kind of society for his country. Who decides that it's wrong or right?
- derleth 13y agoLet's bash your head in. Would that be wrong? Who's to decide? You? You'll have a bashed-in head soon enough; people whose heads no longer contain neural matter don't have opinions. Does your necessarily brief opposition really count?
- Jare 13y agoHopefully, people who have educated themselves via history, philosophy, political science, etc. and look for the well being of a majority of the population.
- smegel 13y agoI somehow don't think he was referring to Facebook addiction and social alienation resulting from "virtual friends", which is about the only time I would agree with someone who says social media is "hurting society".
- derleth 13y agoAre pen pals "virtual friends"?
- late2part 13y agoYes, a danger to the old ways!!!
- oddshocks 13y agoWhat a screwball.
- cboppert 13y agoSounds like Erdogan is a danger to society.
- blendergasket 13y agoSocial media is a danger to top down society unless the platforms reside in said top down society then they're more of a danger to the people using them to try to change that society, as China seems to understand.
- Uchikoma 13y agoAnd then, only some days later, HN has forgotten the Reddit Boston witchhunts. (If you want to make this into defending Erdogan, just don't)
- flyinRyan 13y agoShame, I actually do believe some social media (hi, Facebook!) are a danger to society. In this specific case, it's not social media specifically but large scale communication in general that is a problem for him.