[HN Gopher] Twitter succumbs to Erdogan's pressure, silences key...
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       Twitter succumbs to Erdogan's pressure, silences key voices on
       election eve
        
       Author : b0sk
       Score  : 52 points
       Date   : 2023-05-13 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.turkishminute.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.turkishminute.com)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | dotcoma wrote:
       | "free speech absolutist".
       | 
       | ROTFL
        
         | detaro wrote:
         | free speech for people that should be absolute leaders, like
         | himself. totally makes sense. /s
        
           | unflxw wrote:
           | (free (speech absolutist)), not ((free speech) absolutist)
        
         | b0sk wrote:
         | https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/13/23722574/welcome-to-hell
         | 
         | The previous regime at Twitter actually stood up to Erdogan.
        
       | mrtksn wrote:
       | Meanwhile, Turkey's oldest and most popular social media "Eksi
       | Sozluk" was blocked again today.
       | 
       | Previously, the original domain eksisozluk.com was blocked and
       | the reason given was "the site has unnaturally large number of
       | critics". Once the appeals to the court failed, they switched to
       | eksisozluk2023.com and it was fine for a while but tonight they
       | blocked that domain too. Now the new domain is eksisozluk42.com
       | 
       | An interesting fact is, the website is run by a legal entity
       | registered in Turkey, with physical offices in central Istanbul.
       | They are known to run the website by the book and removing any
       | content the court demands but the core principle is "anything
       | legal goes". So it's quite a free speech platform, despite some
       | controversies over they years.
       | 
       | It's ridiculous to have them blocked since they are %100 legal.
       | The government literally just said "fuck it, just block it".
        
       | rainytuesday wrote:
       | So just like the 2020 election, then? De-platform political
       | opponents and mock them by saying "build you own platform, its a
       | private company"?
        
       | fwlr wrote:
       | Seems like the choice was between "Turkey blocks all of Twitter
       | for all Turkish citizens" and "Twitter blocks certain tweets or
       | accounts for all Turkish citizens"[1], and in addition Twitter
       | will release information on what specifically the Turkish
       | government requested to be blocked[2].
       | 
       | I know Elon has endlessly declared himself a free speech
       | absolutist, but to me this seems like a perfect test case of
       | "free speech maximalist" vs "free speech absolutist" - in
       | general, the maximalist preference is 100% > 99% > 98% > ... > 1%
       | > 0%, while the absolutist preference is 100% > 0% > 1-99%. If he
       | thinks his decision here is obviously correct then he's actually
       | a maximalist, not an absolutist like he so often claimed.
       | 
       | (Personally, I think this is a surprisingly sensible approach.
       | I've long thought maximalism to be superior to absolutism, almost
       | everywhere. In the case of free speech on the internet in
       | particular, I take it as axiomatic that "The internet interprets
       | censorship as damage and routes around it", and consider it an
       | obvious corollary that minimizing the amount of damage results in
       | the most efficient and rapid re-routing.)
       | 
       | 1: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657422401754259461 2:
       | https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1657428707995181058
        
         | dmatech wrote:
         | This happened before back in 2014[1] and also involved Twitter
         | blocking access to certain posts or accounts under the threat
         | of a total block. What exactly are their alternatives?
         | 
         | I suppose they could drag their feet a day or two until after
         | the election, but after that, they'd be subject to fines,
         | complete blocks of the site (like what happened to Wikipedia[2]
         | for almost three years), and who knows what else. They could
         | attempt to fight this in Turkish courts, but that might be
         | futile.
         | 
         | 1.
         | https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/a/2014/challenging-t...
         | 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_of_Wikipedia_in_Turkey
        
         | timeon wrote:
         | > free speech maximalist
         | 
         | the term is: hypocrisy
        
       | cbeach wrote:
       | Unfortunately in a country like Turkey, if Twitter doesn't comply
       | with the regime, the regime simply blocks Twitter for everyone in
       | the country.
       | 
       | Erdogan meddles (with only partial success, hopefully) or Erdogan
       | blocks? What's worse?
        
         | andrewflnr wrote:
         | Meddling is worse. If Twitter is blocked, everyone there knows
         | exactly what's going on. If some people are silenced, it's much
         | easier for that to go unnoticed.
        
           | esafak wrote:
           | They could just insert a banner saying they blocked certain
           | accounts to appease Erdogan and people would still know. His
           | voters don't mind meddling; they are not free speech
           | absolutists.
        
             | andrewflnr wrote:
             | Oh please, do you think Erdogan would think that's funny?
             | That'll just get Twitter blocked harder, even after you
             | decide to bend over for him.
        
               | esafak wrote:
               | It's not a secret whose accounts are blocked or why, so
               | what's the joke?
        
         | hgsgm wrote:
         | Twitter should pretend to comply while rerouting information.
        
       | h2odragon wrote:
       | Which governments should Twitter obey, then?
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-13 23:02 UTC)