Turkey Slaps Ad Ban on Twitter Under New Social Media Law (reuters.com)
- Reference: 0141257102
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/01/19/1223209/turkey-slaps-ad-ban-on-twitter-under-new-social-media-law
- Source link: https://www.reuters.com/article/turkey-twitter-int-idUSKBN29O0CM
> Under the law, which critics say stifles dissent, social media companies that do not appoint such representatives are liable for a series of penalties, including the latest move by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK). The law allows authorities to remove content from platforms, rather than blocking access as they did in the past. It has caused concern as people turn more to online platforms after Ankara tightened its grip on mainstream media. The latest decisions in the country's Official Gazette said the advertising bans went into effect from Tuesday. Twitter, its live-streaming app Periscope, and image sharing app Pinterest were not immediately available to comment.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/turkey-twitter-int-idUSKBN29O0CM
If Twitter had any value whatsoever... (Score:2)
... they could demand payment instead of ads.
[Of course I'm not saying Turkey's leadership is not totalitarian religious nutjobs at this point. As usual, everyone is a dick in this story.]
But given as it is, any idiot could create a Twitter equivalent with any blog site and a single evening of adding trivial ridiculous artificial restrictions like a character limit.
If Twitter died, the time to switch to another platform would be measured in hours.
Free online speech could've done so much good (Score:4, Insightful)
The current demonification of popular opinion sharing sites, though justified in many ways, will of course be used to the advantage of those regimes hell bent on squelching dissent.
In the West, free expression breeds cult-like conspiracy cells that undermine the very democracy that allows it. In Turkey, free expression undermines the authoritarian religious government.
Any government by the people, and for the people, will eventually succumb to the people.
Re: (Score:2)
> Any government by the people, and for the people, will eventually succumb to the people.
What does that have to do with the USA, where we have government by, of, and for corporations? If you look at who's getting our alleged representatives elected, you can clearly see who's calling the tune after paying the piper. Only a small minority of them work for us.
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, free speech is a check on government. Probably why it's the first Amendment.
Re: (Score:2)
On the flip side you can be pretty sure that if we leave the public forum, which sadly is on corporate owned platforms and services, to be regulated solely at the discretion of those corporations, that moderation is ultimately in the interests of those corporations and not the public. While recent actions like kicking Trump & Co off twitter may have public support, that's not always going to be the case.
Here in Europe Trump being kicked off the service has lead to a lot of politicians to come out, mo
Turkey wants scapegoats (Score:4, Insightful)
They need "in-country representatives" that can be arrested, tried, convicted, and punished when something "evil" happens.
Anyone stupid enough to apply for such a jobs will, of course, work diligently to protect their lives.
Change of names (Score:2)
They should enforce social media to carry more meaningful names than Twitter and Facebook . If Twitter got renamed into Warcry and Facebook into Fightclub then their purpose would become more obvious to all generations. These companies have weaponized people's thoughts, but then carry cute and harmless sounding names, which is why we have all this trouble with them. Countless of grand parents trying to tweet their grand children have ended up in cults and extremist groups. Just again did I see a granddad get
The stifle dissent for free in the US (Score:2)
Seems like a missed opportunity for Twitter to branch out their "right think" into a full fledged, world wide business opportunity. There are a lot of governments that would be happy to dump money on them to do in their country what they do in the US for free.
Probably one of the reasons Gab was targeted (Score:2)
Gab's business model was based on no spying, no ads, nothing. Free users get basic features, pro users get a lot of more advanced features.
If Gab had been allowed to succeed in going after Twitter, it would have done incalculable damage to Google and Facebook and been a stepping stone toward a "yu are the customer, not the product" Internet.
And now you know the secret behind the reeing about Gab.
Facebook already gave in (Score:2)
This is unfortunate, but Facebook has already gave in to the demands:
[1]https://www.usnews.com/news/bu... [usnews.com]
What that means, is there is a permanent hosta^h^h^h^h^h...representative in the country. In the event of a resistance to a takedown request we can guess what will happen. Actually takedown is not the big issue, they could also ask for private information for any user they don't like. Remember what happened with Yahoo and China back in the day.
So, you change your mind, and want the ho^h^h...representative t
[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2021-01-18/facebook-bows-to-turkish-demand-to-name-local-representative
Banning ads for Turkey Slaps? (Score:1)
[1]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki... [wiktionary.org]
[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/turkey_slap
Their smartest move here is not to play (Score:3)
They're better off getting blocked in Turkey than hiring a government censor. It's easier to get unblocked by popular demand than it is to get rid of someone like that.
Re: Their smartest move here is not to play (Score:1)
Facebook went ahead and censored their platform on behalf of the local dictator.
Not sure why this article doesnâ(TM)t mention it but they did hire the required local censors.