Musk silences Turkish opposition at Erdogan’s request
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@Horace said in Musk silences Turkish opposition at Erdogan’s request:
I can believe Wikipedia handled the situation better.
The difference is that Wikipedia is a slow-moving platform, and they had the luxury of appealing to the courts for this. How long would it take Twitter to get to the Supreme Court of Turkey for an appeal?
Seems to me the choice was
(1) Shut down in turkey if necessary while fighting it, or
(2) Set the precedent that any authoritarian government has the ability to censor its opposition.
When you think of it that way, it seems like this was very shortsighted.
Only non-witches get due process.
- Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
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Seems to me the choice was
(1) Shut down in turkey if necessary while fighting it, or
(2) Set the precedent that any authoritarian government has the ability to censor its opposition.
When you think of it that way, it seems like this was very shortsighted.
@jon-nyc said in Musk silences Turkish opposition at Erdogan’s request:
Seems to me the choice was
(1) Shut down in turkey if necessary while fighting it, or
(2) Set the precedent that any authoritarian government has the ability to censor its opposition.
When you think of it that way, it seems like this was very shortsighted.My impression, from what Musk tweeted, was that he'd have to throttle the entire system, which he wasn't willing to do. I don't pretend to understand enough of what he claims, but he wasn't willing to compromise everyone else.
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@jon-nyc said in Musk silences Turkish opposition at Erdogan’s request:
Seems to me the choice was
(1) Shut down in turkey if necessary while fighting it, or
(2) Set the precedent that any authoritarian government has the ability to censor its opposition.
When you think of it that way, it seems like this was very shortsighted.My impression, from what Musk tweeted, was that he'd have to throttle the entire system, which he wasn't willing to do. I don't pretend to understand enough of what he claims, but he wasn't willing to compromise everyone else.
@George-K said in Musk silences Turkish opposition at Erdogan’s request:
@jon-nyc said in Musk silences Turkish opposition at Erdogan’s request:
Seems to me the choice was
(1) Shut down in turkey if necessary while fighting it, or
(2) Set the precedent that any authoritarian government has the ability to censor its opposition.
When you think of it that way, it seems like this was very shortsighted.My impression, from what Musk tweeted, was that he'd have to throttle the entire system, which he wasn't willing to do. I don't pretend to understand enough of what he claims, but he wasn't willing to compromise everyone else.
Yep there are certainly complexities. Wales' tweet sniffs of a cheap shot.
My other takeaway was that Twitter was transparent about this censorship action and why it occurred. I appreciate that, and suspect the pre-Musk Twitter would not have been as transparent.
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"The Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and @elonmusk," tweeted journalist Matthew Yglesias on Saturday, adding that this "should generate some interesting Twitter Files reporting." In the Twitter Files, journalists with access to the company's internal documents detailed censorship requests by the U.S. government and others, and the ways previous Twitter leadership dealt with them.
Musk responded: "Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?"
But providing people in authoritarian regimes with a false sense of public opinion while doing their leaders' bidding hardly helps foster civil liberties.
If Erdogan wanted to suppress opposition content and his only way to make that happen was to throttle all of Twitter, it would presumably be a more difficult call. And if he still chose censorship, it would also force him to alert—and often anger—Turkish citizens in the process.
Instead, Musk made a quasi-dictator's job easier.
Condemnation of Musk's defense flowed from across the political spectrum.
"If Twitter were throttled in its entirety perhaps Turkish voters would better understand the authoritarian tendencies of their government and the costs it's imposing on the nation as a whole," commented conservative journalist Jonah Goldberg. "Throttling the opposition to that govt on election eve doesn't seem optimal imho."
"From a speech perspective the answer is clear: You publicly tell Erdogan no and dare him to throttle the whole app," tweeted Ryan Grim of The Intercept.
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The Brad
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Let the blathering and nitpicking begin.
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Are we supposed to be mollified by the fact that they objected while complying? Isn’t that the corporate equivalent of the “sternly worded letter”?
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What is twitter's motivation?
Do they want to send a virtue signal to those who like free speech?
Are they after the advertising income?
Do they want to obey the law of the country where they operate?
I assume they want to strike the right pose while making their money.
What is their DEI guy saying?
