Turkey Blocks Access To Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Facebook (itpro.co.uk) 94
Turkey has blocked Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube, according to censorship monitoring site, Turkey Blocks. From a report on IT Pro: The group broke the news today around 1am local time, saying the government was throttling these services. This is a method of slowing down websites to the extent that they become difficult to use or unusable. Initially, issues with the social media and messaging apps detected on national provider TTNet, Turkcell, and they were soon reported on other big internet providers as well. The block follows the arrest of 11 politicians from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) overnight in the south-east of the country. Many reports are linking the social media block to these arrests, with the HDP the main opposition party to that of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Re:Again? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Demonization and banning of opposition parties, jailing of political opponents, suppression of free press.
Pretty much by the numbers totalitarian rule.
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Just like a Trump Presidency. How else do you make your nation great without silencing all those negative retractors who goal is to prevent your vision of greatness.
Re:Again? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Insightful? How is parroting Beibart insightful? That overgrown Cheetoh showed he has no intellect in the debates. His "policies" amount to nothing more than inventing conspiracies.
The most insulting part is a good part of the American people cannot spot him for the low-grade grifter that he is. He make Sargent Bilko look like a paradigm of virtue.
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Hitlary doesn't need that, the press already does her biding. Now if they could just shut up Julian Assange... BTW, Hitlary and Erdolf can get along pretty well.
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Stop it. Please tell me of a Trump critic who has been silenced. Get real.
Here's what being silenced looks like... https://www.wikileaks.org/pode... [wikileaks.org]
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Demonization and banning of opposition parties, jailing of political opponents, suppression of free press.
Pretty much by the numbers totalitarian rule.
Happening here in Brazil also, we already have #1 and #2. #3 will never happen because the Brazilian media always preferred to blowjob the government as long it keeps taxes over press paper zeroed, pays media companies' debts and prevents competition from foreign news services.
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with the amount of people arrested or fired, i can't see how he didn't know about the coup and simply let it happen to grab power. there is no way you can keep a secret like this with so many people involved
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And I'm sure there are legitimate charges against every single one of them, and they will all get fair trials.
Re:Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's almost certain that the coup wasn't really a coup. It's a shame, Turkey was really making strides towards being a true modern democracy until Erdogan came along. Even before the coup he was beginning to show signs of Trump-like behavior. I think democracy is done for Turkey now, at least Turkey is cooked as long as Erdogan lives.
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Re:Again? (Score:4, Informative)
I think it's almost certain that the coup wasn't really a coup. It's a shame, Turkey was really making strides towards being a true modern democracy until Erdogan came along.
This coup also had the side effect of allowing Erdogan to purge a lot of the top military brass and replace them with officers more loyal to him. This is important as the Turkish military had traditionally played the role of maintaining Turkey's secular status by undertaking coups. He has pretty much assured that there will be no military intervention any time soon in domestic politics.
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Given all the things that Erdogan has done in the wake of the 'coup', it makes me wonder whether it was actually a coup attempt, or just Erdogan's version of the Reichstag fire.
You are not alone in thinking that. As an outside observer somewhat interested in Europe in general and how Turkey relates to it, I figure either the whole thing was concocted by Erdogan to justify what followed or the coup plotters very badly underestimated the dissatisfaction with Erdogan's rule. There are plenty of people in Turkey who don't like Erdogan or what he's doing. The problem is that they're in the minority and have no power any more.
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Given all the things that Erdogan has done in the wake of the 'coup', it makes me wonder whether it was actually a coup attempt, or just Erdogan's version of the Reichstag fire.
A couple thousand troops (most of whom had no idea what was going on at all anyway) mobilized only in the capital, halfhearted attempts to take over local media outlets but no attempt to take over media outlets or military bases in other parts of Turkey, and most of the "leaders"of the coup miraculously killed riding in the same helicopter and you couldn't realize the coup was staged until Erdogan started arresting hundreds of generals and admirals (gee, you'd think with this many high ranking officers invo
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Erdogan is a whore who sold out his country and democracy for a bag of beans. His modus operandi is to hide behind a Muslim face veil claiming to be pious while he wastes his country.
Re: Again? (Score:1)
Re:Again? (Score:5, Interesting)
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To be fair, Germany voted in the National Socialists to the Reichstag too, to the point of giving Hitler enough power to seize the Chancellory.
Nobody ever said Democracy was perfect.
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Yes, but Hitler had the Depression to do a bank shot off of. Turkey has no excuse. For nothing they elected the one person most likely to destroy their democracy. And they are still too stupid to see the problem.
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And yet, here we are, today, about to have a vote where someone like Trump is a possible victor...
Using the exact same tactics.
Re:Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will it be more or less scary when the headline reads 'Trump' instead of 'Turkey'?
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WhatsApp is used almost exclusively by under 25s
Go ahead and link your citation for that. Thanks
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While for the most part these tools are used for rather benign activities. But to a lot of countries even pointing out that they have problems is a big deal to them. That stupid political post on facebook pointing out that Hillary Clinton may not be truthful, may cause a person to laugh at it, get angry at it, or just ignore it.
However if you live in a country where society says your country is perfect. Such changes to spark the idea that they are problems can cause major up rest.
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These are basically glorified chat apps and scrapbooks for neurotic people to try to appear important online so they can ignore their failed lives. If they go away, what exactly is lost?
We know we cannot trust our media or any centralized service like censorship-prone Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. Best solution is to go back to NNTP.
But the decision to partake in these activities should be left to the people.
Re:Productivity increases by 200% (Score:4, Insightful)
I hear they're a handy way for ordinary people to make fun of particularly thin-skinned aspiring despots...
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and Tier Z internet celebrities
social media is like TV but lower cost of entry and lots of people on there someone might follow but most won't care about
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These are basically glorified chat apps and scrapbooks for neurotic people to try to appear important online so they can ignore their failed lives. If they go away, what exactly is lost?
While we may consider these applications to be casual needs for our entertainment, they can be effective means of communication. The purpose of blocking access is for the government to severely limit the population's ability to communicate and organize against it. Erdogan feels that his power is being threatened, so he and his government are going to do everything they can to retain control. The loss of any particular service isn't what's important - the overall situation related to a government crackdown o
Turkey and Kurds (Score:2, Insightful)
And this, is the reason that the US can't have an open-ended alliance w/ the Kurds. The Kurds, whether in Iraq or Syria or even Turkey, would be happy to join forces to combat Jihadist terror in their lands, be it ISIS, Saddam, Shias or Sunnis. Just one problem - Turkey
If the US followed a policy that made sense, it would have endorsed an independent Kurdistan, where not just Kurds, but Christian Assyrians, Chaldeans, Yazidis all could have lived peacefully - they would not have been a wannabe Islamic t
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i think you mean to say 'a vanishingly small percentage of Islam', you bigot.
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Re:Turkey and Kurds (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as Turkey goes, Trump is right about NATO. It is a Cold War relic, given that the membership still reflects what it was when the Soviets were the adversary. Since 2001, when Islam replaced Communism as the main enemy of the West, it makes more sense to form a new alliance of non-Muslim countries in the periphery - Russia, Israel, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and some others. Maybe expand that alliance to the East to include Thailand, Philippines, Myanmar, India and Sri Lanka. But keep Turkey out!!!
I liked your suggestion of an independent Kurdistan, but I can't get on board with this one. The only thing keeping the Baltic States independent is NATO. I have no doubt that if not for NATO Putin would have already manufactured a crisis in them where ethnic Russians were supposedly at risk and used that to justify invading them. The whole reason NATO exists is to protect member states from Russian invasion. That's a real threat. Russia has even tried to intimidate Finland and Sweden, the first one especially, by warning them of the dire consequences of joining NATO. However, Russian threats to both have pushed them closer than ever to joining as his air force's fly bys have made both think that they may have to join to be protected.
Additionally your lists are well-intentioned but not likely. Ehtopia and South Sudan are of questionable stability. Cyprus is completely under the control of Turkey in the north (it invaded in the early 70s to "protect" ethnic Turks and it never left). Serbia and Russia have some bizarre ties that don't really to me make a lot of sense, but they exist nonetheless and Serbia is if anything somewhat of a Putin apologist. Greece has always been kind of iffy in NATO although they have dropped the constant anti-American bs that propped up some pretty bad governments they had in the past. Thailand is now so pro-China that their usefulness to the USA is really under question. The Philippines have a president who is either mentally ill or at best badly playing over head in a game he can't win. Myanmar is still too closely tied to China, although that may change. I'm not sure that Sri Lanka wants to do much more than focus on their own issues at the moment.
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The alliance I'm talking about is one meant to contain Islam. There is nothing stopping the US from signing multilateral agreements protecting the Baltic states (including Sweden & Finland) from Russia. The reason NATO existed was to protect member states from a Soviet invasion and a Communist takeover. It's inane to pretend that today's Russia has the same global geopolitical goals as did their Soviet predecessors.
My list was based on the fact that all the countries in question are either externa
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>It's inane to pretend that today's Russia has the same global geopolitical goals as did their Soviet predecessors.
?
Is it now? The same leaders that basically led the Soviet lead into its fall, also got to lead Russia when it rebuilt post Soviet. We are entering a era where Russia is starting to finish its Cold War Recovery.
We already had a Crimean war, where we got a "axaaxaxaxa" as a passager plane was shot down.
We had Soviet pilots come on record with their Soviet stuff, and what is essentially bullyi
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And this, is the reason that the US can't have an open-ended alliance w/ the Kurds. The Kurds, whether in Iraq or Syria or even Turkey, would be happy to join forces to combat Jihadist terror in their lands, be it ISIS, Saddam, Shias or Sunnis. Just one problem - Turkey
Correction, 2 problems: you forgot Iraq. Any independent Kurdistan would take a large chunk of land(with a lot of oil) from Iraq. Iraq doesn't want to give up control of that area and would firmly resist any policy that could cause it. If the US supported a Kurdistan then Iraq would very quickly turn to others(namely Russia, but possibly China) for support. It's sad too, as the Peshmerga have made strong gains against Daesh in Iraq and are one of the more effective groups fighting in Syria.
In regards
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Sell the Peshmerga real weapons and Iraq won't touch them. It's not as if Iraq has any of their oil right now, it's being sold by Kurdistan to... Turkey. The problem for the KRG is their only choices to sell to as a land-locked region are Turkey, Iran or Iraq.
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Sell the Peshmerga real weapons and Iraq won't touch them.
We already have special forces...I'm sorry, "advisors"....embedded with the Peshmerga in Iraq/Syria, so we probably aren't too far away from arming them if we haven't already. There's even photos [dailymail.co.uk] of special forces fighting with Kurds in Syria (if you need proof besides the beards that they are special forces, in the second picture the soldier in the back is carrying an FN SCAR which is only issued in special forces in the US military).
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The US did help set up the first government in Iraq, but it doesn't owe the current government in Baghdad anything, particularly given the way they've been drifting towards Iran and enabling what's known as the Shi'ite Crescent that starts in Iran and goes thru Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Given that Iraq is working against US interests by getting in bed w/ Iran, the US needs to trim their coverage. That's why supporting an independent Kurdistan makes sense. If it broke away, and if the US allowed the Sunn
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This post completely misses the point that we're supporting the extremist jihadist rebellion in Syria against the more secular Assad specifically because he refused in 2009 to allow the Qatar to Europe gas pipeline to be built through Syria (citing his allegiance with Russia).
And yes, NATO is out of date, the USSR is gone, but that doesn't mean we ended our conflicts with Russia. And ISIS is just not a priority right now. After all, our government knows what the effect of supporting religious extremists in
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The reason Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey support the Sunnite insurrection to topple Assad has nothing to do w/ any oil or gas pipeline. It is historical, and dates back to the regime of Assad's father, Hafez, who ruled Syria as the strongest military power in the region besides Iraq during the 70s, 80s and 90s.
The Baath Party in both Syria and Iraq is/was a nominally secular party, dominated by minority Muslim sects in alliance w/ non Muslims. In Iraq, Saddam's Baath coalition consisted of Sunnis, Turk
Iran & Saudi Arabia (Score:2)
You really have to ask how? Iran is a mortal enemy of Saudi Arabia - something that came to the fore last year, when Saudi Arabia executed a Shi'ite cleric and snapped relations w/ Iran when the Saudi embassy in Teheran was set ablaze. Iran sees its Sunni Arab neighbors as major threats to them, and therefore does what it can to destabilize the 'Whabist Nazis', as you put it.
First of all, there is no country called 'Persia' - the 5th century called, and they want their country name back! Persia was a
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Yes, the Sunnis are against Assad. Please tell me, when did I ever say otherwise?
My point was about why the US was arming and supporting religious extremists against Assad.
And whoever downvoted me, don't take my comment as an indirect support of Trump. It is absolutely not. When you've personally helped a drug trafficker escape justice thanks to your sister's professional connections as a judge, then you can't claim the moral high ground on drugs anymore.
I am surprised to read that Europe is dependent on Russian gas - I have read so many stories here on /. on how European countries have excess solar capacity and can't figure out how to consume all of it. Maybe run their grid right up to places like Kharkiv, Tallinin and so on and get as many Teslas into those countries as possible
In Europe, the goal is to replace natural gas energ
No, not Turkey, nor government! (Score:2)
It's people doing it to and with other people. The question is why is this happening again and again?
Fear, stupidity or what else is causing this it on one side, pathology on the other?
As a reminder... (Score:5, Informative)
As a reminder for anyone who may need Facebook for communication of any kind (especially in countries attempting to prevent free speech), Facebook officially runs a Tor hidden service.
Details: https://www.facebook.com/faceb... [facebook.com]
Tor Hidden Service: https://facebookcorewwwi.onion... [facebookcorewwwi.onion]
(or as they call it, Facebook Core WWW Infrastructure)
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Which is why he's become friends with Russia in recent months. Russia doesn't care if you're a dictator, most of their allies are. Russia however would LOVE to turn a NATO member away from NATO.
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Correction (Score:3)
"Turkey Blocks Access To Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Facebook"
Correction: "Turkey Thinks They Blocked Access To Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Facebook"
Context (Score:3)
Here are a couple of links that I hope are not in any way connected to this:
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/... [foreignpolicy.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The youtube clip is 8 years old, and has approximately the same borders as the new October map. This has been simmering for 98 years, and seems to be gathering steam in recent years. Note that Turkey is following the long established practice of demanding territory where ethnic Turks live while refusing to give up territory where non-Turks live [infogalactic.com].
Erdogan has been consolidating power since the failed plot to remove him [duckduckgo.com], which was about 4 months ago now. (Also see Sledgehammer [infogalactic.com].)
Turkey blocks... (Score:1)
How's the circumvention going?
Ataturk (Score:2)
Mustafa Kemal was truly cutting edge when he led the creation of modern Turkey. Freedom of the press was core to his plans. He's rolling in his grave because of what they're doing now.
Congratulations. (Score:2)
Now everyone you want to suppress the speech is most likely using tor, and you can't read what the hell they're talking anymore.