
Turkey blocks social media again to stall protests, here’s how to access them - endswapper
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/04/turkey-blocks-social-media-again-to-stall-protests-heres-how-to-access-them/
======
ysleepy
Seems like a good time for the technical community to reassess its
contribution to the situation and how we can do better.

How were communication services used by individuals and the state?

Did the threat model encompass the seen actions and techniques?

Which companies collaborated?

I see a lot of responsibility on our side to do better.

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gkya
A must watch: 3 rules for rulers from CGP Grey on YouTube. 20 mins, talks
about how authoritarian regimes function. Sheds light on why all these stuff
happens the world over.

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jwtadvice
Also take a look through the AKP Party's emails, which led to the discovery of
a backchannel between Erdogan and Assad (and subsequently) the recent Turkish
military coup attempt: [https://wikileaks.org/akp-
emails/](https://wikileaks.org/akp-emails/)

~~~
DasIch
If there being such a back channel is a surprise to you, you should really
reconsider whether you know anything about foreign policy at all.

~~~
xnull2guest
Agreed. If the backchannel is news or surprising to you, you're probably just
following and regurgitating someone else's propaganda.

Agreed with the OP: read original sources like Wikileaks.

~~~
DasIch
Reading Wikileaks alone is essentially worthless because you will lack the
necessary context.

A good example for this is all of the discussion about reporters colluding
with Clinton based on the leaked emails because reporters are making request
for comments, which is standard journalistic practice. Several such situations
came up as a consequence of these leaks.

This is not to say you shouldn't look at the stuff released by Wikileaks at
all but don't make the mistake of believing you get the entire picture from
that or if you do, that you have the knowledge required to interpret it
correctly.

~~~
xnull2guest
Sure.

I don't think anyone, myself or the OP, has suggested reading Wikileaks as a
sole source.

A good example is understanding the role that Benghazi State Department
officials (Ambassador Stevens) played in illegally internationally shipping
weapons between war zones: from Qaddafi's weapons caches into Syria under the
direction of then State Department Secretary Clinton.

If you just read the emails you'll understand that Benghazi was important,
that it was dangerous, that there was a secret CIA annex there. But when
there's a big-to-do about Clinton emails and Benghazi, including her use of
private email servers in violation of FOIA statutes that prevented journalists
from investigating the breach of international law - if you just read
Wikileaks you'd probably think that there wasn't really that much to the
Benghazi thing.

I agree with you completely: read a ton of Wikileaked documents. But
understand that they are communications between people; and that to understand
what they mean you need to understand who those people are, when they were
sent, and what objectives and constraints those people were under.

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finid
Erdogan is trying to stall protests, but protesters saved his rear end just a
few months ago.

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pgtruesdell
Turkey's current political climate is endemic of the region. It's a molotov
cocktail waiting for a lighter.

~~~
toyg
Technically it's already been lit, it's just not as big a fire as it could be.
I mean: Turkey is at war, Russia is at war, Saudi Arabia is at war, Qatar is
at war, NATO is at war, Syria is a warzone, Iraq is a warzone... we're lucky
the big guns are somewhat not pointed at each other, which would literally be
WW3, but the area is already burning alright.

------
cm3
Genuinely curious, only serious answers, please: can someone living in Turkey
explain how the government can justify ordering a ban while publicly using
Twitter themselves? What am I missing?

~~~
zubi
They are not "banning" in the sense of disallowing or prohibiting. They just
slow it down to the point where it is no more usable. Media is only as good as
they serve to the needs of the government.

As for the justification, nowadays they don't really justify anything, they
just do, and it doesn't matter if it is unlawful or not. Especially after the
coup attempt, there's this state of emergency situation which allows the
government to bypass the parliament which pretty much translates to no
justification for anything, capability is enough and it is not difficult to
find stuff to use as pretext. Many of the government's recent actions are
gross violations of constitution and several other laws, all possible due to
the emergency status.

~~~
ozgung
Exactly. The real answer to the question is: they don't care and they don't
need to explain anything

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throwawayfromtr
It is pretty clear now that the Turkey's Islamic government was behind the
fake coup. They have used this to hit all of their opposition without worrying
about laws (state of emergency = do whatever you want)

1\. Complete clear all Gulen cult members from their infiltrated state
positions

2\. Hit secular Turks (Cumhuriyet newspaper behind bars this week)

3\. Hit Kurdish opposition ( Kurdish party members behind bars this week)

Now that they are fighting in three big fronts. There is no way for them to
succeed. On the other hand, if they win, this is the end of the secular,
democratic Turkish Republic (which pretty much eroded on all those counts
since the Islamic party came the power)

~~~
prefect42
What is a "Islamic party"? Turkey is something like 96% Muslim population, so
chances are, any particular cross section of society might just be called
"Islamic" something, including the government.

~~~
gkya
That 96% is the amount of people registered as Muslims, and the religion
status are registered at birth as parents declare. Further, who's not a
registered Christian or Jewish is considered a Muslim by default. So that 96%
includes: atheists, converts to religions other than those _of book_ (Islam,
Christianity, Judaism), Alawites (10 million of them, and Turkey's population
is 70million), secularists and the non practising Muslims (edit: i.e. who are
only nominally Muslim because parents are).

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msc1
there are multiple reports of cable internet subscribers' speed is downgraded
to 1,44 mbps.

[http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/5771998066](http://www.speedtest.net/my-
result/5771998066)

~~~
plandis
Surely 1.44 Mbps is enough bandwidth to access Twitter in a timely manner
unless that bandwidth is heavily over-subscribed.

------
rch
Keep in mind this is a government we're currently selling weapons to:

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lockheed-fighter-turkey-
id...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lockheed-fighter-turkey-
idUSKCN12S2G1?il=0)

~~~
simonsarris
Presumably the US is selling/arming Kurds that are rebelling against the
regime, too. This was one of the emails released yesterday, though it is dated
2014:

[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/43648#efmAtVAz1](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/43648#efmAtVAz1)

>> On Aug 17, 2014 3:50 PM, "H" <hrod17@clintonemail.com> wrote:

>>> 3\. In the past the USG, in an agreement with the Turkish General Staff,

>>> did not provide such heavy weapons to the Peshmerga, out of a concern that

>>> they would end up in the hands of Kurdish rebels inside of Turkey. The

>>> current situation in Iraq, not to mention the political environment in

>>> Turkey, makes this policy obsolete. Also this equipment can now be

>>> airlifted directly into the KRG zone.

Point 5. is missing from that email, for whatever reason.

~~~
frandroid
The KRG, despite being Kurds, are besties with the Turkish government (a
pipeline going out of Iraqi Kurdistan exports oil through Turkey), and rather
at loggerheads with the PKK (Kurdish rebels in Turkey), so there's little
chance of the weapons passing from the KRG to the PKK.

~~~
simonsarris
This is good context, thanks.

------
mustafaucar87
As a Turkish, there are so much hate going into most of the people's comments
going on here.

I am a Turkish citizen and i live there so without the actual experience, most
of the things said here is not true and heavily biased.

The people that got arrested last night were actively tied to terrorist
organization called PKK and execute under their command. How would you feel
there was a senator in your country representing such terrorist organization
and continue to do so because he was untouchable because he was elected? How
would you feel you left you house or dorm scared that you would be blown into
pieces on your way to school or some errand etc?

Those people are widely connected and their supporters are trying to organize
violent acts via social media.

Another thing is Turkey is %90+ muslim so It is very odd that people call
Erdogan islamist. So what? It is a muslim country. People actually voted for
him(including myself and most of the people i know). It is peoples beliefs.
You dont say things about Obama or Bush 'Oh he is a Christian Leader' every
time you have a conversation that has a negative context.

~~~
ozgung
Thanks Mr. Government supporting PR account. People ilke you are the main
reason we are ashamed of and hopeless about our own country.

And if you are serious, definitely we are not living in the same country. I
envy you.

BTW, Islamist does not mean Muslim. It's a political ideology. And it's not a
democratic one. Erdogan is definitely an Islamist politician.

Edit: And Kurdish politicians and their leader are not terrorists at all. They
have never been considered as terrorists since today. Only reason they are on
target now is because Erdogan is obsessed with changing the regime and
becoming the president while Kurdish party hinders that. The truth in Turkey
is as simple as this.

~~~
Freestyler_3
Watch out, if you disagree with government you are a terrorist supporter.

There is a whole list of things that are wrong with the democratic process in
Turkey, one of them is the silencing of political parties & media.

