21st Century Wire says…
Last week 21WIRE reported on Facebook’s new communitarian policy whereby readers can ‘flag’ content as “fake news” if they believe it’s not real, or if they do not like it. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo False Flag event, the social media giant appears to be now allowing governments to determine what is ‘good free speech’ and what is not. Is it censorship? You decide…
“An article that many people have reported as a hoax or chose to delete will get reduced distribution in the News Feed”. If the article is flagged by any anonymous person (most likely, from a political opponent of the news story in question), then the post creator is hit with the alert that says, “many people have reported that this story contains false information”. It’s common sense that just because someone else says something is false, or true for that matter – it does not always mean that is the case. Most smart readers can figure this out themselves, but do we want/need ‘faceless’ communitarians to decide that for us?
This method of approach will only lower the bar of intellectual ability in the long run. This is the danger of this type of nanny state.
That’s one Facebook tool specifically designed to destroy free speech. The next tool is much larger, and even more blunt – which is Facebook’s emerging strategy which appears to ‘customize’ regional governments’ ability to drop a censorship curtain down on the social media platform in a particular country. Would Facebook ever partner with repressive regimes? Of course they would, and they already have.
Only two weeks after Mark Zuckerberg declared “Je Suis Charlie” (or ‘Je Suis Hypocrite’), the latest round of censorship regimes is already being road-tested in Turkey and in Pakistan using “images of the Prophet Mohammed” as the latest pretext for government control of the platform (see full report below). This is essentially one step from the fullblown Chinese-style “Great Wall on Information” system of political censorship. What the Turkish government is actually afraid of are images like this:
MASSIVE ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTS ROCKED TURKEY IN 2013.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has opposed Facebook’s latest Trojan horse which has been disguised under the Orwellian banner of “compliance with content restriction”. It appears that Facebook’s motivation might be 100% financial, as they want to maintain access to large advertising markets and thus will comply with any nondemocratic draconian measure suggested by any government in order to “stay in the game” in that market.
EFF adds here, “As governments grow aware of the fact that stifling speech is as easy as submitting an order to a corporation, the number of those orders will drastically increase.”
Now is the time to voice your opinion on this issue…
The social media giant, Facebook, is currently censoring certain postings and comments by members in countries that object to certain content, the latest being Turkey. A Turkish high court ruled that members’ posts and comments on insult the Prophet Muhammad and are offensive to followers of Islam, according to news reports on Monday.
The Turkish court ruled that the owners and administers of Facebook and its advertisers must conduct their social media website in compliance with the court’s determination or Facebook will be banned in Turkey as it already is in other Muslim nations such as Pakistan. The Turkish court announced its decision on Sunday night, said the reports. “A person with knowledge of the matter confirmed that Facebook blocked content in Turkey following a valid legal request. That content remains visible, however, outside the country,” according to the New York Times.
Facebook claims that it already removed 1,893 Facebook entries in Turkey. According to the company’s spokesperson, the majority of complaints about unlawful content comes from Turkish law enforcement and the so-called Information and Communications Technologies Department. They said Turkish law covers a wide range of illegal activity including defamation of the country’s president. While civil rights and human rights groups are calling on Facebook executives to fight back against this obvious government repression on free speech and expression, the social media website appears to be following Turkey’s Internet regulations.
Last year, the Turkish government had blocked Google DNS and other DNS servers, which were being used by residents of Turkey to bypass the nation’s ban on another widely used social media giant, Twitter.
In a statement by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during an election rally last year in Bursa which was held just prior to the Twitter ban, he said, “Twitter and so on, we will root them out. The international community can say this or that – I don’t care. They will see the power of the Turkish Republic.”
Continue this story at Examiner.com
READ MORE FACEBOOK NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Facebook Files
