
Erdogan says social media 'danger to society' - orrsella
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4387396,00.html
======
Jun8
This quote is from his lengthy one-on-one interview
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cfNKKUDcV4>) with the Turkish journalist
Fatih Altayli on June 2nd. The purpose of this program was to explain
Erdogan's ways to people and promote/show his side, it produced just the
reverse reaction due to his callous comments.

The one-sidedness of the Turkish TV stations is appalling: Altayli
characterizes the protests as "mostly vandalism" and gives the PM a platform
to explain his side, without providing that to the other side. While CNN
International was transmitting live from Taksim, CNN Turkey had a documentary
about penguins! Currently there's a petition
([http://www.change.org/petitions/cnn-international-must-
pull-...](http://www.change.org/petitions/cnn-international-must-pull-its-
name-franchise-from-cnn-turk)) on change.org to ask CNN to revoke its naming
agreement with CNN Turkey, it has reached 40k signatures.

~~~
nettdata
Saw this pic on Reddit that kind of sums it up.

<http://i.imgur.com/DkdgGnQ.jpg>

~~~
doktrin
Does this sort of sad-yet-comical media censorship _work_ in a country like
Turkey? I'm baffled that anyone in a decision making position at CNN Turk
would think this is somehow a good idea.

~~~
pinars
If you don't have access to Internet, unfortunately, it does.

I called my mom who lives in Eskisehir Saturday morning TST, and asked her
about the protests. Her reaction was, "What protests?" If you get your news
from TV, and if none of them broadcast the protests, then how would you know?

~~~
eatitraw
Sadly, when there is internet connection, the problem doesn't simply go away.
In Russia, internet media are heavily censored too - so internet user has to
make effort to obtain the information not biased in favour of Putin's
government: there are only several "unbiased" regular online media(not
counting social media like big social networks like facebook or twitter). It
is much simpler to just turn on TV especially if you don't care much about
politics.

The described reaction is extremely familiar to me. There were major protests
in Russia during winter 2011/2012. The first protest event happened the next
day after federal parliament elections(quite important event). So, after
another 2 days I call my mother(she lives about 3000 km away from Moscow) and
ask her if she heared about protests, and get the same reaction "What
protests?".

Five days after the initial event, there was another: ~50 000 - 100 000 people
gathered in the center of Moscow. Did the federal governmental media mention
it? This time did, but very briefly, and understating the number of
participants by order of magnitude.

~~~
Jach
<https://bloodyshovel.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/on-fairness/>

~~~
eatitraw
If some guy is bad it doesn't automatically makes Putin good. If democracy in
other countries is not a real democracy, it doesn't make Putin a democratic
president instead of bloody dictator.

------
swombat
"Anyone who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic."

Right, well, how can we debate the voice of reason? He's right! The world is
black and white. I hereby invoke Godwin's law to declare that anyone who
orders police brutality against largely peaceful protesters is Hitler
reincarnated.

~~~
venomsnake
In the case of Erdogan you may not be that far off. Turkey is interesting
country - the army there was the guardian of the secularism inherited from
Kemal Ataturk.

That is almost dismantled by now with the involuntarily help of the EU.
Erdogan came after free elections and after that Turkey is moving in some very
dangerous waters. Add instability in Syria into the mix and the semi civil war
with the Kurdish minority.

~~~
fixxer
Very troubled waters indeed...

I spent quite a bit of time there in the late 90s; absolutely love the country
and the people, despite almost getting blown up by the PKK.

After Erdogan came to power, I was wondering how long it would take the
military to put him in check. They got pretty close a couple years back.

------
lutze
"There is now a menace called the printing press. The best examples of lies
can be found there. To me, movable type is the worst menace to society." --
some fucking Pope or other.

~~~
iuguy
To be fair an Ottoman Sultan banned Ottoman script from being printed,
effectively banning the printing press across the Ottoman empire and pretty
ending the Ottoman golden age, starting it's descent.

The irony of Tayyip Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanist dreams is not lost on me with
this statement.

------
iuguy
Anyone who feels like menacing Turkish society by helping provide unfiltered
Internet access could do a lot worse than set up a Lahana[1] node. Discussion
here[2].

[1] - <http://lahana.dreamcats.org/>

[2] - <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5810091>

~~~
muyuu
Cheers for that.

------
pinars
His actual quote about news spreading through social media is near the middle
of the article.

"There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best
examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace
to society."

------
eatitraw
Oh, this is so typical: call something a "danger to society" when actually it
is a danger to you and your government.

Not only they think that "government == society", but also they think that
"their government == society".

------
mindcrime
The actual "biggest threat to society" is politicians.

~~~
Sven7
This is very easy to say. Politicians are just reflections of who we all are.

And imho they have the hardest jobs on the planet today.

There isn't a course on Khan Academy, that they can take, which tells them
what to do when uncontrolled chain reactions are set off by Social networks.
The results will always be messy.

And to then say if they just did the "right thing" all will be well, isn't
being very realistic. When the "right thing" for different sections of society
is so different.

~~~
X4
I'm sorry, but this is naive and idealistic.

Politicians don't work hard and they never will, don't get fooled by the
Media. Just because one travels a lot doesn't mean he/she doesn't have enough
sleep or that he/she works very hard. It's the opposite!!11

They use your tax money to buy stuff for them and their family. They hire
their relatives for "ghost-jobs" and double their salary within the law that
they signed the other day. Get an update and a reality-check please. No
offense, we're all getting brain-washed, but don't be one of the sheep.

~~~
Sven7
Have you managed a team of people?

~~~
X4
Yes I have, different sizes of teams on many occasions and with very different
mentalities, religions, motivations and "qualities".

But that's an "Apples" vs "Oranges" type of comparison. Don't compare a team
with a party. A team is working to solve a problem. A party is there to
reflect their ideology and motivations and to fight against other parties.
Different parties rarely find consensus, because they don't work to solve a
problem. They work just for themselves and THAT's the problem! But hey if you
agree that bureaucratically manifesting your ideas is work, it's ok.

To answer your question: I had no failures until now and I am grateful for
that. There would be no excuse if I had one though. I and my team would know
what my failures were. Communicating that early is very important. But
admitting failures officially is counter-effective, you're better off
communicating countermeasures that will protect you from further failures.
Avoid becoming the symbol of that one failure you had. Keep up, we're Start-
Ups after all, no everybody will succeed in this race and it's ok. We should
help other succeed when we can't. This is the big difference between you and a
politician.

Ever seen a Republican going to the Democrats or vice vera who shared his
knowledge having good intentions?

It is not the democracy which is wrong, people have the need for consensus.
What's really wrong is that the people with the wrong mentalities or
motivations lead us. People we didn't vote for join the winning parties.
Corruption evolved into a sign of success inside of those parties.

Politicians give excuses for their failures, but in reality the overall
situation isn't the cause for their failure. There are no excuses!

Example: Try walking outside through the crowd looking very angry, very
disappointed, very sad or very happy. Every emotion, idea and thought you have
in your mind will unwillingly express in all you do. You shape everyone around
you without noticing it. Your thought, has a lot of effects to your
environment. When you look very angry for example, people could be irritated,
afraid, or aggressive.

Reading all the books about Information Management and Project Management
won't help you. First hand experience, will show you that it's very important
to reflect what you want. Your team will find consensus based on that.

------
grannyg00se
True for some definitions of "society".

Like "entrenched group of ruling fascists", for example.

------
jongraehl
If Twitter is a menace to your society, then it's time to start looking for a
new society.

------
skylan_q
Anyone care to say why he's wrong? I'd like a bit more elaboration from his
argument, but it's possible that he's right.

~~~
Jare
For some definitions of "society", he's not wrong.

The wrong is in wanting one such kind of society for his country.

~~~
skylan_q
_The wrong is in wanting one such kind of society for his country._

Who decides that it's wrong or right?

~~~
Jare
Hopefully, people who have educated themselves via history, philosophy,
political science, etc. and look for the well being of a majority of the
population.

------
flyinRyan
Shame, I actually _do_ believe some social media (hi, Facebook!) are a danger
to society. In this specific case, it's not social media specifically but
large scale communication in general that is a problem for him.

------
blendergasket
Social media is a danger to top down society unless the platforms reside in
said top down society then they're more of a danger to the people using them
to try to change that society, as China seems to understand.

------
Uchikoma
And then, only some days later, HN has forgotten the Reddit Boston witchhunts.

(If you want to make this into defending Erdogan, just don't)

------
late2part
Yes, a danger to the old ways!!!

------
shmerl
To Erdogan and co.: <https://youtube.com/watch?v=VmffgIqlAYA>

~~~
bilbo0s
Pretty funny...

but it kind of got the politics all mixed up.

Erdogan is supporting the Syrian rebels against Assad, for instance. And, of
course, Iran is supporting Assad against the rebels.

It would have been better with Putin, Assad, and Achmed.

~~~
shmerl
The fact that they can be opposed to each other doesn't diminish their
dictatorial aspirations.

------
oddshocks
What a screwball.

------
OzzyB
What is this? The Isreal bash Turkey thread?

~~~
simonh
Whenever two factions within a Muslim state clash, one or both will eventually
accuse the other of being Israeli stooges. The same charge is also commonly
levelled at any external criticism of a Muslim state or faction. It's the
Muslim world's equivalent of Godwin's Law.

~~~
makomk
To be fair, someone did post a link to ynetnews, an Israeli news website which
appears to have a rather pro-Israeli-government slant with all that entails.
(It was quite entertaining when Turkey got a new government that was no longer
friendly to Israel and suddenly all the Israeli politicians and news websites
went from pretending the Armenian genocide didn't exist to making a big fuss
about it.)

