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Re:Facebook Said to Block Pages Critical of Muhammad to Avoi... by olalonde on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @07:40AM (#8952727)
As someone who lives in a country with heavy censorship, I disagree with your opinion. I'd rather have a censored Facebook/Youtube/etc. than nothing at all. Thinking that you are helping Turkish people by denying them access to Facebook because it will "wake them up to what fascist regime they live in" is really a twisted line of thought. Also Turkey is a democracy, not a fascist state. The fact is that Erdogan is actually (relatively) popular in Turkey.
Re:Facebook Said to Block Pages Critical of Muhammad to Avoi... by bsaul on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @08:45AM (#8952934)
To me, Turkey is on the verge of becoming really scrwed. It's still possible for them to change their path. The situation is much much different than, let's say, China where the situation is far too deeply rooted.

All they need are wake-up calls, and having Facebook unavailable could have been one that would have helped realize their dear loved president is blocking a website for a damn cartoon (and putting journalists in jail as well).

Re:Facebook Said to Block Pages Critical of Muhammad to Avoi... by whatsgood on Tuesday January 27, 2015 @11:08AM (#8953789)
Since you live in a country with heavy censorship, I'll try to be sensitive to the fact that you and I have different cultural norms as relates to acceptable trade-offs between free speech and access to personal-communication networks.

In the United States also have popular, elected officials that from time to time choose to censor the citizens which put them in office. Neither the fact that we live in a democracy nor the current popularity of the elected official are popular reasons given as to why we should not protest the infringement of basic rights such as the right to free speech, the right to assemble, or the freedom of the press. The right to protest is granted by our constitution, the same constitution which determines our form of government and the grants the authority of the elected officials. Outside of elections, popularity is not a constitutional basis for authority. So that's the legal side of things.

How about the sociopolitical side of things? Well, stepping into your shoes, some foreign company coming into America and telling me what I can and can't say. Nope. Not gonna fly. Twisted or whatever, this is America, fuck yeah. There's gonna be a world governance organization? Fine, put it in Manhattan so we can keep it in line. We're gonna spy on our citizenry? Fine, but only because we must fight foreign terrorists. And, if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right, with contract employees. No boobs on the television, that's cool too; it keeps my super prudish mother-in-law comfortable while I still have easy access to the best porn in the world (uncensored Internet baby, because why, that's right: FREE EFFIN SPEECH). (disclosure: i actually take issue with the objectification and commoditization of bodies which serves as the foundation for the vast majority of pornography. but hey, you can't pick and choose when it comes to free speech.)

I know that at this point you're already convinced and are rushing out the door so that you and your friends can begin building your own pirate wireless mesh network with which you'll be open the flood gates to the world's miracles and evils. But let me give you a few more reasons to say: “Fuck censorship!”: David Lee Roth, Stanley Kubrick, Mark Twain, Hustler, Rambo, Deep Throat (Watergate), California, Malcom X, Will Ferrell. America. Fuck yeah.

And in the end, you just might even be able to speak your mind in public without being thrown in jail and denied due process. Ahhhhhhh, the little things.