Turkish Finance Minister Defends Twitter Ban 94
An anonymous reader writes "Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has defended his governments ban on Twitter and accused the social networking site of not complying with court orders. Simsek said: 'The Turkish telecommunications watchdog has made a number of statements saying that they have asked Twitter on a number of occasions to remove some content on the back of court orders and Twitter has been refusing to comply. I don’t think any global company, whether it’s a media company, whether it’s an industrial company, it shouldn’t see itself [as being] above the law.'" As a result of the ban, Tor gained over 10,000 new users in Turkey.
Above the law (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody is above corrupt law.
USA sets the example here (Score:1, Insightful)
We call it law, but actually they are purely interests (that need to be covered by some law to make it "legal")
We call it democracy, but actually it is consumerism/corporationalism/populism
We call it freedom, but nobody knows anymore what it is, after all those redefinitions.
Therefore I love all the comments on Turkey's government being bad, while we live under the same shit.
Re:It isn't above the law (Score:3, Insightful)
And Megaupload was not based in the US or NZ. So?
Re:The issue is not about compliance with the law (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I disagree. Compliance with the law is the heart of the problem, the question is: whose law?
While I'm no fan Turkey's repressive laws, I do wonder how what Turkey is mad about differs all that much from the US or whomever complaining about pirated content being posted in countries where that's not illegal.
If country A does something we don't agree with, it's okay for technology to circumvent that. If country B does something we don't agree with, it's not okay for technology to circumvent that. The bottom line here seems to be less about technology and more: in a globally interconnected world, how do we decide what laws get applied where? So far it largely seems to be decided by the US leaning on anyone they don't agree with. You can bet if the positions were reversed, Turkey would be leaning on the US government to discipline Twitter. This works great if its something you agree with, and less so when its something you don't (maybe copyright laws). I could say we're fortunate that its the US with the Big Stick and not someone else, but maybe we only think that because we're in the West so we tend to align with our own values? And even if this works great, what happens when someone else takes possession of the Big Stick (China maybe?). Perhaps this won't be so appealing then?
Opposite Result (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's exactly why the internet should not be governed by one country
The problem with that statement is, when you don't have a single entity governing with reasonable protection of free speech (like the U.S.) the alternative is a U.N. like panel stacked with all sorts of countries that all think it's perfectly reasonable to censor some speech.
Having an "independent law" in reality means Turkey has MORE of a say, not less, in what that independent law states about what Turkey can tell Twitter to do.
Re:USA sets the example here (Score:3, Insightful)
Tell me when you can get arrested in the US for reminding your people of a well-known US historical event, and you will start having equivalence.