To block or not to block... about online censorship

[wolfigor]

After the facts of Paris and having so many people posting images from Charlie Hebdo, The government of Turkey "asked" Facebook to block all pages criticising Islam in Turkey.
Failure to comply would mean a block of the service in Turkey:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...in-turkey-facebook-blocks-anti-islamic-pages/

Facebook caved in as they did previously by blocking pages related to criticism of Ataturk and pages related to the Armenian genocide.

On the different side we have Youtube and Twitter that did not cave in and they were duly blocked in Turkey (it has been a long time now).
Users still access those services using proxies, VPNs, Tor, and other stuff... becoming very much aware of the repressive stance of their government.

Even the company where I work offers a service which gets blocked by repressive regimes because (as a side effect) allows users to access web sites completely anonymous and untouched by the government spying.
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan are all blocking us... and we bear the business cost of it as a badge of honour.
We lose a sizeable amount of money for sticking to our stated principles.

It's sad to see a company like Facebook which fill its PR mouth with the social value of their social network for freedom of expression failing to upheld to their own stated principles.

At least if a service gets blocked, people in the country gets aware of it and can complain.
In a country like Turkey where there are elections it may help to move the needle.

However when companies like Facebook cave in to the state censorship and control, they de-facto become accessory to the regime especially if they share logs with those government (allowing the government to tack dissidents).

 

[Tahuti]

I'll take the Libertarian position: Turkey does not have the right to block Facebook if it didn't remove the images, though removing the images is a decision Facebook may make as private actor. If you can't live with it, move to another social network or found your own one.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

If Facebook had any principles it wouldn't be as succesful as it is. That's capitalism for you.
What really worries me is Turkey's steady descent into fundamentalism and authoritarianism. This used to be a Westernish country and EU candidate (although they never would be able to join for political reasons). It was always unpleasantly jongoistic like so many countries east and south of Germany are, and there is a chance that Erdogan's policies will faec a backlash, but unfortunately that's not how things usually go. I predict an economic crisis in the next couple of years due to increasing corruption, and if it it happens it will be the reactonaries who will benefit most from it. I fear that turkey will become more and more similar to other muslim majority countries in the region.

 

[wolfigor]

I'll take the Libertarian position: Turkey does not have the right to block Facebook if it didn't remove the images, though removing the images is a decision Facebook may make as private actor. If you can't live with it, move to another social network or found your own one.

Yes and no... facebook will remove the posts containing the images and block the pages.
The same it is doing for criticism of Ataturk & anything related to Armenian genocide.

The problem is that users will never notice that such polemics even exists, so they cannot choose a different social network because they can't see there is censorship in facebook.
The blocked pages and posts will not exists at all from the point of view of the users... it's not that they get a page say: such and such is blocked.

When a user tries to access Youtube, for example, does get such page and becomes aware of censorship.
At least this parks a discussion within the country to decide if such block is necessary or not.
Blocking content selectively in a hidden way does not spark such discussion... democracy is based on free access to information, even to access to information about blocked information.


Secondary point: facebook being accessory to censorship should stop showing itself as a bastion of free speech and emancipation.

If Facebook had any principles it wouldn't be as succesful as it is. That's capitalism for you.

Google (Youtube), and even my company makes very good money without compromising our principles too much as facebook does.
When you have over 1 Billion users (as facebook claims) you have a strong leverage that you can use!

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Google has caved multiple times to the Chinese government, and I know they're spying on me through my phone (Google, not the Chinese).

 

[wolfigor]

Google has caved multiple times to the Chinese government, and I know they're spying on me through my phone (Google, not the Chinese).

Google services are blocked in China.
It was easy to get around it but now they become more strict.

 

[bhavv]

Why do china hate google?

 

[Tahuti]

This used to be a Westernish country and EU candidate (although they never would be able to join for political reasons).

That's Democracy in Turkey. In Turkey, secularism was only a thing among the intelligentsia, middle classes and the military. It was never a majority position. In fact, it required several military coups to stay intact and is now faltering as Turkey is becoming more democratic. Turkey is effectively a society of parallel societies, torn between the lower classes, clerics and financial elite who are Islamist and the military, middle class and intelligentsia who are secularist, as well as the minority.

Turkey simply cannot be both a democracy and keep the influence of Islam down. This is pattern seen in many other Islamic countries, particularly in the Arab world. To Muslims, Secularism constitutes Westernisation, and only a minority will ever support this unless this process is allowed to ripe over decades. That would require Western support for secular dictatorships in the Muslim world.

 

[wolfigor]

Why do china hate google?

Probably they don't hate google per-se but the hate uncontrolled access to information.
Information must be controlled by the party.

The ministry of interior wants quick way to manipulate, block, or hide information in almost real time.
They do for internal services, but they are not able to do it for external services without collaboration from those companies.

Example:

If a user in China posts a comment into a Chinese blog or forum, the post will be scrutinised by both bots and in some cases humans.
If the post is contrary to party policies, the post will simply disappear.

The bots scans the post for specific keywords, in some cases the bot itself hide it in other cases it's flagged for human review.

For all users of the forum or blog such post never existed.

The user which wrote the (now missing) post may be contacted by the authorities with an admonition to control what he writes.

naturally they cannot monitor all internet forums and blogs, and the bots are far from perfect.
people creates new words or use words in a special way to get around such censorship... from a certain point of view its a fascinating process.

 

[bhavv]

The Chinese government is demonic.

 

[Cheetah]

naturally they cannot monitor all internet forums and blogs, and the bots are far from perfect.
people creates new words or use words in a special way to get around such censorship... from a certain point of view its a fascinating process.

And as a result, China banned puns...

 

[Tahuti]

And as a result, China banned puns...

Kundun-Punfun!

 

[luiz]

Youtube and Twitter are blocked in Turkey???

Man, Erdogan sucks more than I previously thought.

 

[Camikaze]

I generally agree that as a private company, Facebook can censor what they like and the rest of us can then choose to give them our business or not. But there is a point where a private company becomes so important or pervasive that it's really performing a public function, which is increasingly recognised by administrative law (at least in the UK and to a lesser extent in Australia), responding to a world of multinational corporations. If we expect public bodies to abide by certain fundamental principles in their decision-making, then there's no real reason why the quasi-public decision of a very large and important company should be absolutely immune from judicial review.

 

[Zelig]

I generally agree that as a private company, Facebook can censor what they like and the rest of us can then choose to give them our business or not. But there is a point where a private company becomes so important or pervasive that it's really performing a public function, which is increasingly recognised by administrative law (at least in the UK and to a lesser extent in Australia), responding to a world of multinational corporations. If we expect public bodies to abide by certain fundamental principles in their decision-making, then there's no real reason why the quasi-public decision of a very large and important company should be absolutely immune from judicial review.

In that context, I'd support the US forbidding Facebook from selectively blocking content on a regional basis, on penalty of a complete US-wide block.