
Turkey cracking down on Internet usage - joyofdata
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/05/turkey-internet-censorship/5220339/
======
royprins
I lived in Turkey (Istanbul) for one year, made some good friends and was
active in the Gezi Park protests. While the country is now highly polarized,
all sides have some things in common which help explain these measures.

Turks typically have a feeling that everybody conspires against them. Not only
against the country, but also against them personally. Americans and Jews are
always among the prime suspects of any conspiracy.

The kemalists have nurtured a strong national identity with flag, anthem, the
infallibility of leaders, language and territory. Criticism is simply not
welcome, but the internet is full of it.

Istanbul, and let alone the rest of Turkey, despite the rich cultural past is
not international or multi-cultural. It is a given that most people are
inclined to distrust cultures they are not familiar with.

None of these factors are exclusive to Erdogan. That helps explain why
internet censorship is prevalent in Turkey and does not cause much uproar at
all.

Now the AKP movement is extra zealous in 'protecting' the people from sex and
gambling. That does not help either.

* disclaimer: I tired giving a generalizing brief on Turks, plz don't take it personally.

~~~
blumkvist
Hey, thanks for that write up. It is an opportunity I can't resist to see
someone who can give me a thorough and relatively objective opinion on a
question that has been bugging me for some time.

Can you shed some light on the political movements in Turkey regarding its
neighbors? How is the Ottoman period perceived. What are the population's
general sentiment towards neighboring countries. What do they say about it in
their HS History textbooks?

I'm born in the region and was always genuinely curious.

~~~
royprins
I cannot avoid generalizations in answering this and I am pretty sure any Turk
would be more qualified to answer, but there it goes:

I don't think the political movements are really defined by views on foreign
policy. Notable exception being Syria which grabs a lot of attention.

To the west Turks still see the Balkans as their hinterland. They feel a deep
connection to the fate of the Bosnian Muslims and have yet to forgive the
Serbs. They are not so fond of Greece (long history), but have a neutral
attitude towards Greeks. Bulgaria is viewed an odd little brother from another
father.

To the north, the wars with Russia have been long forgotten. Russia now
represents a big economical opportunity. I wouldn't think that Russians and
Turks are very compatible characters, but business is business.

To the east there are some Turkic countries with whom the Turks feel a
spiritual connection, starting with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. They
represent the ideal of the nomadic society from the historic homelands.
Georgia is a bit like Bulgaria. Armenia, they would rather forget about. Too
many open wounds. Iran is a dangerous country. Militarily mighty, unreliable
and very different.

The south represents economic opportunities. The Arabs are basically walking
bags of money. I was surprised by the deep connection the Turks felt towards
the Syrians. They have been very welcoming towards the refugees.

About the Ottoman period. There is a feeling that Turkey's rightful role is to
lead the region once again. Not that it means that the Ottomans sultans should
make a comeback. Although one of the most popular TV series is set in the
Ottoman era. People love the costumes and the court intriges.

I don't know how the history books teach about this period. Would be very
interesting.

~~~
blumkvist
I really appreciate the answer.

------
aurora72
Many people here in Hacker News, Turkish and non Turkish tried to exploit this
news as an oppurtunity to attack Turkish people by making some generalizations
and talking about massacres, which are totally unrelated to the problem at
hand.

They fail to realize that the Internet restriction practices are not specific
to any one particular country. Similar practices are emerging in Britain,
Ukrain and even in the USA.

If I was to talk about Internet restriction in the USA would I start talking
about individuals in the USA or what kind of massacres took place in the past
in America? How big a non-sense would that be!

We are faced with serious problems here in Turkey and most of those problems
are artifically created and one-sided. The Internet Restriction law was
proposed by only 27 parliament members and law's passed wo asking others. It's
sure to die soon because it's created in a one-sided manner by a small group
of blind people.

------
cateye
Countries like China, Iran and now Turkey are just slightly ahead of the curve
of what will come toward us.

While the progressive part of the Turkish population looks for help and
support from the "Western civilization", the "Western civilization" struggles
with internet censorship and privacy themselves.

The sense of superiority of this western society is really strange: when
disapproving and rejecting this kind of developments in the Middle East, they
pretend that is intolerable and they cite the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. But in the meantime, they themselves trivialize their own actions and
policies regarding censorship and privacy breach that is getting worse.

Public opinion is just as schizophrenic. Such news is read with pity and
denigration, without any realization that their own future is maybe not much
better.

But hey, we are just much better and things like this will never happen here!

~~~
mikeash
"They" are cracking down on "dissidents", while "we" are cracking down on
"terrorists".

~~~
cateye
This is exactly what I mean. With a simple terminology trick, both are doing
the same.

Do you really think that the domestic propaganda machine (of both) doesn't
label these people as terrorists? How is Assange and Snowden treated? Were
they terrorists?

------
mahouse
Wasn't this the country that wanted to be part of the European Union? When
they said that, I thought they were going to take steps in the right
direction. But years have passed and that's obviously not the case.

~~~
royprins
Relation status: It's complicated.

They pushed for EU membership when their economy was in shambles. It seemed
like an economic necessity for which they were (sort of) willing to make
changes.

The opinions within the EU itself were always diverse, but what counted is
that Turkey was a strategic and economic asset. Moreover it was a place where
the EU could 'do good' with their superior moral values (sarcasm intended).

The first contribution of the EU was to keep the AKP in power. Every previous
Islamic party was either outlawed of removed from power by the military. Both
the army and the supreme court decided against that, because that would mean
Turkey would never join the EU (which they needed at that time).

Turkey dragged its feet in making changes, likely because they were not so
convinced the EU has superior morality. Meanwhile Turkey rebounded
economically and the role within the region grew. It also saw Romania a
Bulgaria admitted into the EU while these countries did not even live up to
the economic demands of joining.

When Erdogan took full control, several things happened. Corruption went
rampant and civil liberties were restricted. The country is being islamized.
These things led to the Gezi Park protests and a diminished confidence from
investors. Funny thing is that the more progressive part of the population
only now starts to realize that EU membership could result in better civil
rights.

Meanwhile the EU keeps broadcasting mixed signals. They criticized Erdogan but
let him get away with attacking and lying to him own people. France and Sweden
are among the strongest advocates of Turkish membership. Sweden has the
strongest civil rights tradition and France has the strongest separation of
church and state. The idea still seems to be: "when they come into contact
with our superior standards, they will change accordingly".

My opinion? That is an arrogant thought and it will not work. It did not work
for immigration waves and it certainly won't work for 75 million Turks. The EU
will not change Turkey, but Turkey will change the EU.

~~~
waps
The EU commission (which is the unelected organisation that actually decides)
simply wants power, so if Turkey wants to join and play Trojan horse, they
will certainly let them.

Because of this, and regardless of the Turkey issue, can we please stop
referrring to Europa, or the European Union as "democratic" ? It's not. Let's
just stop pretending.

~~~
tomp
> The EU commission (which is the unelected organisation

What are you talking about? It's elected, maybe not by the people directly,
but by their (elected) representatives. That's the same as saying that the US
president isn't elected, because s/he isn't elected directly by the
population.

> the European Union as "democratic" ? It's not.

Care to substantiate that claim?

~~~
true_religion
In practice, the US president is directly elected by the population. Every
state has a law declaring that their electors (the representatives that really
'elect' the president) will follow the majority vote counted within that
state.

Granted, if you look at wikipedia it'll say its an indirect system, but that's
only a technicality.

~~~
tomp
Ok, then I was wrong. I've previously heard that in theory, the electors could
change their mind, so that's why the parties only nominated their most senior,
most trusted members for electors.

~~~
selectodude
You're technically right (the best kind of right) but in practice, that hasn't
happened in probably 250 years.

------
makmanalp
This seems to be a calculated move by the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
in response to two things:

\- Widespread dissent that was not publicly expressed suddenly became public
in the gezi park events, and the internet was a huge catalyst in expressing
dissent and disseminating information, as well as organizing protests (Long
topic, more here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_protests_in_Turkey))

\- There has recently been a fallout between AKP and their longtime allies,
the Gulen Movement (weird religious cult-cum-political-power
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement)).
This has resulted in the Gulen people uncovering a ton of dirt on AKP members,
including mind-blowing corruption scandals that include millions in cash being
kept in shoeboxes in the personal residence of the owner of a national bank
and important people being complicit, including the PM Erdogan's sons. AKP's
response was to shuffle around 350 police officers to replace them with their
own men, and unsurprisingly the police refused to carry out the prosecutor's
orders for arrest. The prosecutor was also fired. The cabinet was reshuffled.
A "judiciary coup" took place where they tried to change the laws to have the
head of the judiciary elect the prosecutors, so they could elect their own
prosecutors, so they could find prosecutors which would not indict AKP
([http://www.todayszaman.com/news-336883-erdogan-govt-rolls-
ba...](http://www.todayszaman.com/news-336883-erdogan-govt-rolls-back-
judicial-reforms-in-violation-of-eu-coe-rules.html))

Throughout this internal fallout, documentary evidence was often released
anonymously on the internet (records of phone conversations, photos of
documents, etc). AKP suddenly realized that it's not to their benefit to allow
this.

(Long topic, more here:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turk...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_corruption_scandal_in_Turkey)
and [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/opinion/the-filth-in-
erdog...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/28/opinion/the-filth-in-erdogans-
closet.html?pagewanted=all) and yet even more here:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/whose-turkey-
is-i...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/whose-turkey-is-
it.html?hpw&rref=magazine&_r=0))

The new legislation was suggested by 27 members of AKP, and no other members
from other parties. Surprise, surprise! (Source:
[http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/develop/owa/tasari_teklif_sd.onerge_b...](http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/develop/owa/tasari_teklif_sd.onerge_bilgileri?kanunlar_sira_no=145376))

edit:

More info on the new laws:

\- The Telecommunications Communications Directorate (yes, redundant name, TIB
for short) head can immediately order content to be removed.

\- TIB can ask for any information they want and the hosting providers have to
supply it, no due process needed (no DMCA safe harbour-ish clause)

\- You need permission from the TIB head to begin a questioning process about
any TIB employee (i.e. abuse abounds)

\- Hosting providers must keep IP addresses for 1 year instead of 6 months

\- IP, DNS and URL blocking will be implemented (previously it was DNS only),
but of course no one knows how they're going to acquire the hardware for deep
packet inspection.

\- No hearing required for complaints about websites that allegedly involve a
violation of personal rights. A decision is immediately made.

\- Hosting / Service providers must respond to requests in 24 hours.

\- The directorate has permission to "fight cyber war", which seems to be a
patriot act-ish catchall phrase to do whatever they want.

Ridiculous!

------
GreeTheo
That's nothing new in that country, before free-internet was a hot-trend,
Turkey used to genocide and massacre thousands of Kurdish people just because
they wanted to speak in their mother tongue, and west was OK with it, because
we needed Turkeys support during the cold war, the same situation continued
after the cold war in other forms, Turkey and Iran use these kind of acts as
an old and continuing process mostly for racial purposes. We can't compare
this to the paradigm that exists in the US or EU.

~~~
utoku
And after the internet age, when the facts hit the people who were not even
aware of it went "Oh shit, did our military really do this to those people?".
If it wasn't for internet, most Turks would stay ignorant of the military
power abuse in the Southeast, the way a regular US citizen didn't hear about
Guantanamo Bay. So what is your point? Should Turkey degenerate more or should
Turkey try to improve? If Turkey cannot improve, the few in power will abuse
it, and this time even more people will suffer.

Orwellian control of the internet will not make power abuse go away, it will
increase it.

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joyofdata
[http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1fwj66/u161719_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1fwj66/u161719_tells_us_all_why_surveillance_is_not_ok/)

This link has been just recently discussed here on HN and it seems like this
will be the future of Turkey.

Turkey never was a hotbed of freedom and justice - but when injustice is made
legal by law, then the shit is about to hit the fan soon.

Option if you have friends in Turkey like me - set up a VPN?

------
f4stjack
The best analogy I can come up with is proverbial ostrich hiding his head when
threatened. Long story short, the ostrich doesn't survive then again this is a
myth purported by Pliny. But this does not hide the fact that this act is
parallel to that.

------
muloka
Curious if this will affect Put.io as they are based out of Istanbul.

