6 ms·

Turkey cracking down on Internet usage

93 points by joyofdata 13y ago

joyofdata 13y ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1fwj66/u161719_tells_us_all_why_surveillance_is_not_ok/ http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1fwj66/u161719_t... This link has been just recently discussed here on HN and it seems like this will be the future of Turkey. Turkey never was a hotbed of freedom and justice - but when injustice is made legal by law, then the shit is about to hit the fan soon. Option if you have friends in Turkey like me - set up a VPN?
mahouse 13y ago
Wasn't this the country that wanted to be part of the European Union? When they said that, I thought they were going to take steps in the right direction. But years have passed and that's obviously not the case.
- royprins 13y ago
  Relation status: It's complicated. They pushed for EU membership when their economy was in shambles. It seemed like an economic necessity for which they were (sort of) willing to make changes. The opinions within the EU itself were always diverse, but what counted is that Turkey was a strategic and economic asset. Moreover it was a place where the EU could 'do good' with their superior moral values (sarcasm intended). The first contribution of the EU was to keep the AKP in power. Every previous Islamic party was either outlawed of removed from power by the military. Both the army and the supreme court decided against that, because that would mean Turkey would never join the EU (which they needed at that time). Turkey dragged its feet in making changes, likely because they were not so convinced the EU has superior morality. Meanwhile Turkey rebounded economically and the role within the region grew. It also saw Romania a Bulgaria admitted into the EU while these countries did not even live up to the economic demands of joining. When Erdogan took full control, several things happened. Corruption went rampant and civil liberties were restricted. The country is being islamized. These things led to the Gezi Park protests and a diminished confidence from investors. Funny thing is that the more progressive part of the population only now starts to realize that EU membership could result in better civil rights. Meanwhile the EU keeps broadcasting mixed signals. They criticized Erdogan but let him get away with attacking and lying to him own people. France and Sweden are among the strongest advocates of Turkish membership. Sweden has the strongest civil rights tradition and France has the strongest separation of church and state. The idea still seems to be: "when they come into contact with our superior standards, they will change accordingly". My opinion? That is an arrogant thought and it will not work. It did not work for immigration waves and it certainly won't work for 75 million Turks. The EU will not change Turkey, but Turkey will change the EU.
  - waps 13y ago
    The EU commission (which is the unelected organisation that actually decides) simply wants power, so if Turkey wants to join and play Trojan horse, they will certainly let them. Because of this, and regardless of the Turkey issue, can we please stop referrring to Europa, or the European Union as "democratic" ? It's not. Let's just stop pretending.
    - tomp 13y ago
      > The EU commission (which is the unelected organisation What are you talking about? It's elected, maybe not by the people directly, but by their (elected) representatives. That's the same as saying that the US president isn't elected, because s/he isn't elected directly by the population. > the European Union as "democratic" ? It's not. Care to substantiate that claim?
      - true_religion 13y ago
        In practice, the US president is directly elected by the population. Every state has a law declaring that their electors (the representatives that really 'elect' the president) will follow the majority vote counted within that state. Granted, if you look at wikipedia it'll say its an indirect system, but that's only a technicality.
        tomp 13y ago
        Ok, then I was wrong. I've previously heard that in theory, the electors could change their mind, so that's why the parties only nominated their most senior, most trusted members for electors.
        selectodude 13y ago
        You're technically right (the best kind of right) but in practice, that hasn't happened in probably 250 years.
      - waps 13y ago
- AnonTurk 13y ago
  What Turkey "the country" and Turkey "the government" wants is not exactly in sync right now. It is always good to make this distinction.
- aytekin 13y ago
  Travelled Europe (25 countries) by car two summers ago. There are many "European Union" countries way behind Turkey at pretty much everything. My conclusion was that it was very clear that the only reason Turkey was not included in EU was because it is not Christian. That's a perfectly fine choice if that's what EU chooses to be, but they should face the truth about themselves.
royprins 13y ago
I lived in Turkey (Istanbul) for one year, made some good friends and was active in the Gezi Park protests. While the country is now highly polarized, all sides have some things in common which help explain these measures. Turks typically have a feeling that everybody conspires against them. Not only against the country, but also against them personally. Americans and Jews are always among the prime suspects of any conspiracy. The kemalists have nurtured a strong national identity with flag, anthem, the infallibility of leaders, language and territory. Criticism is simply not welcome, but the internet is full of it. Istanbul, and let alone the rest of Turkey, despite the rich cultural past is not international or multi-cultural. It is a given that most people are inclined to distrust cultures they are not familiar with. None of these factors are exclusive to Erdogan. That helps explain why internet censorship is prevalent in Turkey and does not cause much uproar at all. Now the AKP movement is extra zealous in 'protecting' the people from sex and gambling. That does not help either. * disclaimer: I tired giving a generalizing brief on Turks, plz don't take it personally.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - royprins 13y ago
    >> I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's not very easy to criticize something/someone in Turkey without being called names (depending on your view), but Kemalists are usually cool with criticisms as long as you're not insulting Ataturk. You may cite the infamous Article 301, but Kemalists did not write that law (I agree that this is debatable). In my experience, there are more discussions that touch on the national psyche. Some things that are barely open to debate are the Kurdish language and territory, the treatment of Armenians (I am avoiding a specific word here), war crimes during the war of independence, a pogrom against Jews and Greeks in the 1950's, purifications in Hatay and Bozcaada. I think all countries have their taboos, but your strong identity does not make discussions easier. >> [Turkey not being multi-cultural] is wrong on so many levels. Turks are very welcoming people and I've never heard one bad thing from my foreign friends who had visited Turkey. Turkey is also known for being multi-cultural. It's even probably more diverse than the US, which is why there are so many problems within the country -- because there are so many voices. Please don't get me wrong on this one. Turks have been very welcoming to me and I loved my time there because of that. Still I wouldn't qualify Istanbul as a multi-cultural city. The Greeks, Jews and Armenians left a long time ago and Turkey never attracted big groups from far-away colonies. Most immigration have been Turks returning from other places. Istanbul is very Turkish. Food, language, (business-)culture. This struck me, coming from Amsterdam and Rotterdam. I am not saying it is good or bad, but definitely different from what I expected. >> This is also not true. In the context you used "uproar" is a relative word, but people did protest the new law and it was probably the biggest one since Gezi Park protests. (May want to read this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/01/2... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/01/2...) Some friends of me were there :) Still the internet (and press) censorship is not a new phenomenon and most people let it slide. In conclusion, I was trying my best to explain to a 'westerner' in what ways our standards do apply to Turkey. If I missed the mark, it is because I also see through western eyes. Don't get me wrong: the power, optimism, camaraderie and restraint that the protestors showed at Gezi was the most beautiful thing I ever experienced. Stay strong: Her yer Taksim, her yer direnis.
makmanalp 13y ago
This seems to be a calculated move by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in response to two things: - Widespread dissent that was not publicly expressed suddenly became public in the gezi park events, and the internet was a huge catalyst in expressing dissent and disseminating information, as well as organizing protests (Long topic, more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey) - There has recently been a fallout between AKP and their longtime allies, the Gulen Movement (weird religious cult-cum-political-power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement). This has resulted in the Gulen people uncovering a ton of dirt on AKP members, including mind-blowing corruption scandals that include millions in cash being kept in shoeboxes in the personal residence of the owner of a national bank and important people being complicit, including the PM Erdogan's sons. AKP's response was to shuffle around 350 police officers to replace them with their own men, and unsurprisingly the police refused to carry out the prosecutor's orders for arrest. The prosecutor was also fired. The cabinet was reshuffled. A "judiciary coup" took place where they tried to change the laws to have the head of the judiciary elect the prosecutors, so they could elect their own prosecutors, so they could find prosecutors which would not indict AKP (http://www.todayszaman.com/news-336883-erdogan-govt-rolls-back-judicial-reforms-in-violation-of-eu-coe-rules.html http://www.todayszaman.com/news-336883-erdogan-govt-rolls-ba...) Throughout this internal fallout, documentary evidence was often released anonymously on the internet (records of phone conversations, photos of documents, etc). AKP suddenly realized that it's not to their benefit to allow this. (Long topic, more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turk... and http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/opinion/the-filth-in-erdogans-closet.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/opinion/the-filth-in-erdog... and yet even more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/whose-turkey-is-it.html?hpw&rref=magazine&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/whose-turkey-is-i...) The new legislation was suggested by 27 members of AKP, and no other members from other parties. Surprise, surprise! (Source: http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/develop/owa/tasari_teklif_sd.onerge_bilgileri?kanunlar_sira_no=145376 http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/develop/owa/tasari_teklif_sd.onerge_b...) edit: More info on the new laws: - The Telecommunications Communications Directorate (yes, redundant name, TIB for short) head can immediately order content to be removed. - TIB can ask for any information they want and the hosting providers have to supply it, no due process needed (no DMCA safe harbour-ish clause) - You need permission from the TIB head to begin a questioning process about any TIB employee (i.e. abuse abounds) - Hosting providers must keep IP addresses for 1 year instead of 6 months - IP, DNS and URL blocking will be implemented (previously it was DNS only), but of course no one knows how they're going to acquire the hardware for deep packet inspection. - No hearing required for complaints about websites that allegedly involve a violation of personal rights. A decision is immediately made. - Hosting / Service providers must respond to requests in 24 hours. - The directorate has permission to "fight cyber war", which seems to be a patriot act-ish catchall phrase to do whatever they want. Ridiculous!
cateye 13y ago
Countries like China, Iran and now Turkey are just slightly ahead of the curve of what will come toward us. While the progressive part of the Turkish population looks for help and support from the "Western civilization", the "Western civilization" struggles with internet censorship and privacy themselves. The sense of superiority of this western society is really strange: when disapproving and rejecting this kind of developments in the Middle East, they pretend that is intolerable and they cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But in the meantime, they themselves trivialize their own actions and policies regarding censorship and privacy breach that is getting worse. Public opinion is just as schizophrenic. Such news is read with pity and denigration, without any realization that their own future is maybe not much better. But hey, we are just much better and things like this will never happen here!
- mikeash 13y ago
  "They" are cracking down on "dissidents", while "we" are cracking down on "terrorists".
  - cateye 13y ago
    This is exactly what I mean. With a simple terminology trick, both are doing the same. Do you really think that the domestic propaganda machine (of both) doesn't label these people as terrorists? How is Assange and Snowden treated? Were they terrorists?
GreeTheo 13y ago
That's nothing new in that country, before free-internet was a hot-trend, Turkey used to genocide and massacre thousands of Kurdish people just because they wanted to speak in their mother tongue, and west was OK with it, because we needed Turkeys support during the cold war, the same situation continued after the cold war in other forms, Turkey and Iran use these kind of acts as an old and continuing process mostly for racial purposes. We can't compare this to the paradigm that exists in the US or EU.
- utoku 13y ago
  And after the internet age, when the facts hit the people who were not even aware of it went "Oh shit, did our military really do this to those people?". If it wasn't for internet, most Turks would stay ignorant of the military power abuse in the Southeast, the way a regular US citizen didn't hear about Guantanamo Bay. So what is your point? Should Turkey degenerate more or should Turkey try to improve? If Turkey cannot improve, the few in power will abuse it, and this time even more people will suffer. Orwellian control of the internet will not make power abuse go away, it will increase it.
aurora72 13y ago
Many people here in Hacker News, Turkish and non Turkish tried to exploit this news as an oppurtunity to attack Turkish people by making some generalizations and talking about massacres, which are totally unrelated to the problem at hand. They fail to realize that the Internet restriction practices are not specific to any one particular country. Similar practices are emerging in Britain, Ukrain and even in the USA. If I was to talk about Internet restriction in the USA would I start talking about individuals in the USA or what kind of massacres took place in the past in America? How big a non-sense would that be! We are faced with serious problems here in Turkey and most of those problems are artifically created and one-sided. The Internet Restriction law was proposed by only 27 parliament members and law's passed wo asking others. It's sure to die soon because it's created in a one-sided manner by a small group of blind people.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
f4stjack 13y ago
The best analogy I can come up with is proverbial ostrich hiding his head when threatened. Long story short, the ostrich doesn't survive then again this is a myth purported by Pliny. But this does not hide the fact that this act is parallel to that.
muloka 13y ago
Curious if this will affect Put.io as they are based out of Istanbul.

93 points by joyofdata 13y ago

http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1fwj66/u161719_tells_us_all_why_surveillance_is_not_ok/ http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1fwj66/u161719_t... This link has been just recently discussed here on HN and it seems like this will be the future of Turkey. Turkey never was a hotbed of freedom and justice - but when injustice is made legal by law, then the shit is about to hit the fan soon. Option if you have friends in Turkey like me - set up a VPN?

mahouse 13y ago

Wasn't this the country that wanted to be part of the European Union? When they said that, I thought they were going to take steps in the right direction. But years have passed and that's obviously not the case.

royprins 13y ago
Relation status: It's complicated. They pushed for EU membership when their economy was in shambles. It seemed like an economic necessity for which they were (sort of) willing to make changes. The opinions within the EU itself were always diverse, but what counted is that Turkey was a strategic and economic asset. Moreover it was a place where the EU could 'do good' with their superior moral values (sarcasm intended). The first contribution of the EU was to keep the AKP in power. Every previous Islamic party was either outlawed of removed from power by the military. Both the army and the supreme court decided against that, because that would mean Turkey would never join the EU (which they needed at that time). Turkey dragged its feet in making changes, likely because they were not so convinced the EU has superior morality. Meanwhile Turkey rebounded economically and the role within the region grew. It also saw Romania a Bulgaria admitted into the EU while these countries did not even live up to the economic demands of joining. When Erdogan took full control, several things happened. Corruption went rampant and civil liberties were restricted. The country is being islamized. These things led to the Gezi Park protests and a diminished confidence from investors. Funny thing is that the more progressive part of the population only now starts to realize that EU membership could result in better civil rights. Meanwhile the EU keeps broadcasting mixed signals. They criticized Erdogan but let him get away with attacking and lying to him own people. France and Sweden are among the strongest advocates of Turkish membership. Sweden has the strongest civil rights tradition and France has the strongest separation of church and state. The idea still seems to be: "when they come into contact with our superior standards, they will change accordingly". My opinion? That is an arrogant thought and it will not work. It did not work for immigration waves and it certainly won't work for 75 million Turks. The EU will not change Turkey, but Turkey will change the EU.
- waps 13y ago
  The EU commission (which is the unelected organisation that actually decides) simply wants power, so if Turkey wants to join and play Trojan horse, they will certainly let them. Because of this, and regardless of the Turkey issue, can we please stop referrring to Europa, or the European Union as "democratic" ? It's not. Let's just stop pretending.
  - tomp 13y ago
    > The EU commission (which is the unelected organisation What are you talking about? It's elected, maybe not by the people directly, but by their (elected) representatives. That's the same as saying that the US president isn't elected, because s/he isn't elected directly by the population. > the European Union as "democratic" ? It's not. Care to substantiate that claim?
    - true_religion 13y ago
      In practice, the US president is directly elected by the population. Every state has a law declaring that their electors (the representatives that really 'elect' the president) will follow the majority vote counted within that state. Granted, if you look at wikipedia it'll say its an indirect system, but that's only a technicality.
      - tomp 13y ago
        Ok, then I was wrong. I've previously heard that in theory, the electors could change their mind, so that's why the parties only nominated their most senior, most trusted members for electors.
        selectodude 13y ago
        You're technically right (the best kind of right) but in practice, that hasn't happened in probably 250 years.
    - waps 13y ago
AnonTurk 13y ago
What Turkey "the country" and Turkey "the government" wants is not exactly in sync right now. It is always good to make this distinction.
aytekin 13y ago
Travelled Europe (25 countries) by car two summers ago. There are many "European Union" countries way behind Turkey at pretty much everything. My conclusion was that it was very clear that the only reason Turkey was not included in EU was because it is not Christian. That's a perfectly fine choice if that's what EU chooses to be, but they should face the truth about themselves.

royprins 13y ago

I lived in Turkey (Istanbul) for one year, made some good friends and was active in the Gezi Park protests. While the country is now highly polarized, all sides have some things in common which help explain these measures. Turks typically have a feeling that everybody conspires against them. Not only against the country, but also against them personally. Americans and Jews are always among the prime suspects of any conspiracy. The kemalists have nurtured a strong national identity with flag, anthem, the infallibility of leaders, language and territory. Criticism is simply not welcome, but the internet is full of it. Istanbul, and let alone the rest of Turkey, despite the rich cultural past is not international or multi-cultural. It is a given that most people are inclined to distrust cultures they are not familiar with. None of these factors are exclusive to Erdogan. That helps explain why internet censorship is prevalent in Turkey and does not cause much uproar at all. Now the AKP movement is extra zealous in 'protecting' the people from sex and gambling. That does not help either. * disclaimer: I tired giving a generalizing brief on Turks, plz don't take it personally.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- royprins 13y ago
  >> I'm not sure what you mean by that. It's not very easy to criticize something/someone in Turkey without being called names (depending on your view), but Kemalists are usually cool with criticisms as long as you're not insulting Ataturk. You may cite the infamous Article 301, but Kemalists did not write that law (I agree that this is debatable). In my experience, there are more discussions that touch on the national psyche. Some things that are barely open to debate are the Kurdish language and territory, the treatment of Armenians (I am avoiding a specific word here), war crimes during the war of independence, a pogrom against Jews and Greeks in the 1950's, purifications in Hatay and Bozcaada. I think all countries have their taboos, but your strong identity does not make discussions easier. >> [Turkey not being multi-cultural] is wrong on so many levels. Turks are very welcoming people and I've never heard one bad thing from my foreign friends who had visited Turkey. Turkey is also known for being multi-cultural. It's even probably more diverse than the US, which is why there are so many problems within the country -- because there are so many voices. Please don't get me wrong on this one. Turks have been very welcoming to me and I loved my time there because of that. Still I wouldn't qualify Istanbul as a multi-cultural city. The Greeks, Jews and Armenians left a long time ago and Turkey never attracted big groups from far-away colonies. Most immigration have been Turks returning from other places. Istanbul is very Turkish. Food, language, (business-)culture. This struck me, coming from Amsterdam and Rotterdam. I am not saying it is good or bad, but definitely different from what I expected. >> This is also not true. In the context you used "uproar" is a relative word, but people did protest the new law and it was probably the biggest one since Gezi Park protests. (May want to read this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/01/2... http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/01/2...) Some friends of me were there :) Still the internet (and press) censorship is not a new phenomenon and most people let it slide. In conclusion, I was trying my best to explain to a 'westerner' in what ways our standards do apply to Turkey. If I missed the mark, it is because I also see through western eyes. Don't get me wrong: the power, optimism, camaraderie and restraint that the protestors showed at Gezi was the most beautiful thing I ever experienced. Stay strong: Her yer Taksim, her yer direnis.

makmanalp 13y ago

This seems to be a calculated move by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in response to two things: - Widespread dissent that was not publicly expressed suddenly became public in the gezi park events, and the internet was a huge catalyst in expressing dissent and disseminating information, as well as organizing protests (Long topic, more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey) - There has recently been a fallout between AKP and their longtime allies, the Gulen Movement (weird religious cult-cum-political-power http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement). This has resulted in the Gulen people uncovering a ton of dirt on AKP members, including mind-blowing corruption scandals that include millions in cash being kept in shoeboxes in the personal residence of the owner of a national bank and important people being complicit, including the PM Erdogan's sons. AKP's response was to shuffle around 350 police officers to replace them with their own men, and unsurprisingly the police refused to carry out the prosecutor's orders for arrest. The prosecutor was also fired. The cabinet was reshuffled. A "judiciary coup" took place where they tried to change the laws to have the head of the judiciary elect the prosecutors, so they could elect their own prosecutors, so they could find prosecutors which would not indict AKP (http://www.todayszaman.com/news-336883-erdogan-govt-rolls-back-judicial-reforms-in-violation-of-eu-coe-rules.html http://www.todayszaman.com/news-336883-erdogan-govt-rolls-ba...) Throughout this internal fallout, documentary evidence was often released anonymously on the internet (records of phone conversations, photos of documents, etc). AKP suddenly realized that it's not to their benefit to allow this. (Long topic, more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turkey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turk... and http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/opinion/the-filth-in-erdogans-closet.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/opinion/the-filth-in-erdog... and yet even more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/whose-turkey-is-it.html?hpw&rref=magazine&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/whose-turkey-is-i...) The new legislation was suggested by 27 members of AKP, and no other members from other parties. Surprise, surprise! (Source: http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/develop/owa/tasari_teklif_sd.onerge_bilgileri?kanunlar_sira_no=145376 http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/develop/owa/tasari_teklif_sd.onerge_b...) edit: More info on the new laws: - The Telecommunications Communications Directorate (yes, redundant name, TIB for short) head can immediately order content to be removed. - TIB can ask for any information they want and the hosting providers have to supply it, no due process needed (no DMCA safe harbour-ish clause) - You need permission from the TIB head to begin a questioning process about any TIB employee (i.e. abuse abounds) - Hosting providers must keep IP addresses for 1 year instead of 6 months - IP, DNS and URL blocking will be implemented (previously it was DNS only), but of course no one knows how they're going to acquire the hardware for deep packet inspection. - No hearing required for complaints about websites that allegedly involve a violation of personal rights. A decision is immediately made. - Hosting / Service providers must respond to requests in 24 hours. - The directorate has permission to "fight cyber war", which seems to be a patriot act-ish catchall phrase to do whatever they want. Ridiculous!

cateye 13y ago

Countries like China, Iran and now Turkey are just slightly ahead of the curve of what will come toward us. While the progressive part of the Turkish population looks for help and support from the "Western civilization", the "Western civilization" struggles with internet censorship and privacy themselves. The sense of superiority of this western society is really strange: when disapproving and rejecting this kind of developments in the Middle East, they pretend that is intolerable and they cite the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But in the meantime, they themselves trivialize their own actions and policies regarding censorship and privacy breach that is getting worse. Public opinion is just as schizophrenic. Such news is read with pity and denigration, without any realization that their own future is maybe not much better. But hey, we are just much better and things like this will never happen here!

mikeash 13y ago
"They" are cracking down on "dissidents", while "we" are cracking down on "terrorists".
- cateye 13y ago
  This is exactly what I mean. With a simple terminology trick, both are doing the same. Do you really think that the domestic propaganda machine (of both) doesn't label these people as terrorists? How is Assange and Snowden treated? Were they terrorists?

GreeTheo 13y ago

That's nothing new in that country, before free-internet was a hot-trend, Turkey used to genocide and massacre thousands of Kurdish people just because they wanted to speak in their mother tongue, and west was OK with it, because we needed Turkeys support during the cold war, the same situation continued after the cold war in other forms, Turkey and Iran use these kind of acts as an old and continuing process mostly for racial purposes. We can't compare this to the paradigm that exists in the US or EU.

utoku 13y ago
And after the internet age, when the facts hit the people who were not even aware of it went "Oh shit, did our military really do this to those people?". If it wasn't for internet, most Turks would stay ignorant of the military power abuse in the Southeast, the way a regular US citizen didn't hear about Guantanamo Bay. So what is your point? Should Turkey degenerate more or should Turkey try to improve? If Turkey cannot improve, the few in power will abuse it, and this time even more people will suffer. Orwellian control of the internet will not make power abuse go away, it will increase it.

aurora72 13y ago

Many people here in Hacker News, Turkish and non Turkish tried to exploit this news as an oppurtunity to attack Turkish people by making some generalizations and talking about massacres, which are totally unrelated to the problem at hand. They fail to realize that the Internet restriction practices are not specific to any one particular country. Similar practices are emerging in Britain, Ukrain and even in the USA. If I was to talk about Internet restriction in the USA would I start talking about individuals in the USA or what kind of massacres took place in the past in America? How big a non-sense would that be! We are faced with serious problems here in Turkey and most of those problems are artifically created and one-sided. The Internet Restriction law was proposed by only 27 parliament members and law's passed wo asking others. It's sure to die soon because it's created in a one-sided manner by a small group of blind people.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

f4stjack 13y ago

The best analogy I can come up with is proverbial ostrich hiding his head when threatened. Long story short, the ostrich doesn't survive then again this is a myth purported by Pliny. But this does not hide the fact that this act is parallel to that.

muloka 13y ago

Curious if this will affect Put.io as they are based out of Istanbul.