Turkey blocks instant messaging platform Discord | Hacker News Reader

Turkey blocks instant messaging platform Discord

reuters.com

A few years ago, it looked like Turkey would be joining the EU.

But then it derailed. Really hard.

Yes, Erdogan has really dragged Turkey back. It picked up after that "coup" attempt that he used to arrest anybody who disagreed with him, be it soldiers or even judges.

It's so sad to see Turkey turn out like this, but there's nobody that can do anything except their own citizens.

Sadly they already joined the NATO.

allies =/= friends

But what to do if your ally is best friends with all autocrats in the world? Are you by transitivity allies with them too?

NATO is allied with many autocrats, especially the Gulf countries.

Few years ago? Must be more than a decade - or would you specify how many years ago do you mean?

it happened in 2016

Yeah, but Turkey went way far away from EU much earlier.

When, in your opinion?

Already during Erdogan's prime ministry, it was well known that Turkey is not really joining EU at least since 2010.

Erdogan didn't come to power much earlier than 2016 though

He was a prime minister with parliamentary majority since 2004: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Turkish_general_electio...

Looks like both want control over internet traffic and chat.

> A few years ago, it looked like Turkey would be joining the EU

They have a handicap though, they are muslim. That's why EU does not want them. But EU is playing theater and gives them false hopes.

What does Turkey have in common with Russia? They both have blocked Discord simultaneously. What a synergy!

Both are in BRICS? Are there other BRICS countries who also blocked Discord? Maybe the news organizations don't care much about smaller nations like Burkina Fasa blocking Discord.

Turkey is not in BRICS.

True, thanks for correcting me. Turkey applied in 2024 to join BRICS (and also SCO seemingly), but haven't done so yet.

And likely won’t be accepted unless it exits NATO. Sitting on that many chairs is not acceptable even if you control the Bosporus.

Is brics the name of a alliance or a regional war?

> What a synergy!

Jakov Smirnoff homage?

Malware authors in shambles. No point in mourning a platform that neglects user safety and comfort to this extent.

Could you elaborate on this.

Sure. Discord is a magnet for child sex abuse and money scams. The end.

I can say the same about FB, Messenger, Reddit, WhatsApp,

(...)

HackerNews, mails, letters, conversations.

The end.

What is it about Discord that makes it more of a magnet than any other large Internet platform?

From what I have seen, it is Discord's closed nature, their decision not to police their own communities very much, combined with the fact that it's a great product.

edit after 1 upvote: I should add that I believe that Discord has an immense amount of moderation-debt.

Due to its closed nature, there aren't external eyeballs on the communities so things can really fester. At some point, that can boil-over into IRL, like they appear to have just done in Turkey.

I don't want Discord "policing" my community, nor do I want "external eyeballs" on it. In any case, this is not specific to Discord at all, which was my original question.

Policing was the wrong term to use, I was too late to edit it.

What I meant was moderation. And they do moderate, whether you like it or not. CSAM, conspiracy to murder, and terrorism are beyond the pale for nearly everybody. All of those things require moderation if a company wants to stay in business.

Yup, and those are the things I want them to moderate (and they do, about as well as any large tech company does)

That's just censorship by another name. No thanks.

Taking action against people/servers sharing actual child pornography is literally censorship, huh?

Well, that sounds… good? They don’t meddle in the communities unless child abuse and other straight up no-doubt illegal content is involved, in which case they do.

Feels like a less centralized reddit, which sounds like something for which there definitely exists a decently large market.

I have no idea what you are on about. I have used Discord for many years without any issues about safety or comfort.

People are happy about censorship as long as it doesn't invoke them, I guess seeing reactions.

People were cheering when Brazil banned Twitter. Go figure.

Tolerance for ideas one disagrees with has a very short history in space and time. Intolerance in this area seems to be the long run equilibrium and we are simply returning from a far from equilibrium state that could only last so long.

Before you make too many assumptions:

> The block comes after public outrage in Turkey caused by the murder of two women by a 19-year-old man in Istanbul this month. Content on social media showed Discord users subsequently praising the killing.

This is what would happen anywhere else in the world, see the last incident between France and telegram

This is ridiculous, if any platform on which "users praised _illegal things_" were banned every single website in the world would be banned.

> This is what would happen anywhere else in the world, see the last incident between France and telegram

Telegram wasn't banned in France

There is a (very wide) spectrum between full censorship due to a few "users" and complete freedom to the point of being the backbone of illegal cartels

That’s because they had access to the founder and threatened him imprisonment.

And why does everyone who replies to me leave behind the main point on the article?

It’s not “just” people said something’s here. It’s that in response to a very real crime , the authorities were denied assistance by the platform.

It’s like saying that telegram was in trouble because people said some stuff. Nope, telegram in trouble for not cooperating with the government.

'a very real crime". Is celebrating a murder, a real crime? I know INCITING is in most places. How about laughing about it? Minimizing it? Making. jokes about? Having a conspiracy theory about it? I don't know Turkey' s laws, but I suspect almost all of these are legal in free speech oriented places.

> ... every single website in the world would be banned.

Doesn't seem to be even slightly true, as not every website in the world has that crap.

> This is what would happen anywhere else in the world

On every single large social media platform, people praise and applaud the death of individuals and entire races of people, all the time. Yet Facebook, Twitter and related sites aren't blocked in most of the world. What's up with that?

Nope.

If murder or terrorism happened in France or UK and a social media platform refused to assist the authorities, There. Would. Be. Consequences.

Your first post did not indicate discord refused to assist authorities, but that users praised a violent act.

Indeed. GP's original post - ironically prefaced with "Before you make too many assumptions" - implied the reasoning was something entirely unrelated to what it actually was about.

HN rules are that I should assume you read the article.

Technically there's nothing saying that in the guidelines.

I suspect it was meant tongue in cheek, I had a good chuckle with it when I read it.

I did read the article. I'm just pointing out the likely reason that all these comments seem to be talking past one another.

The quote you chose doesn't seem to reinforce the point you are making.

> Yet Facebook, Twitter and related sites aren't blocked in most of the world. What's up with that?

You don't want to upset people from the capital (Washington). /s

> This is what would happen anywhere else in the world

lmao wtf no it wouldn't. Truth Social is used literally every day (by some) to call for the assassination of politicians belonging to the Democractic party, the party currently in power, and it has not been banned.

Maybe Erdogan and the rest of Turkey should grow a slightly thicker skin.

However, you still see the US banning non-US controlled social media, eg. TikTok. Silly dances and cat videos are are too much for the American government 's skin, when they can say no to the NSA and FBI

I would not take their stated reasons seriously.

They seem not to be a fan of social media in general, and have blocked a long list of social media sites. They even blocked Wikipedia until their constitutional court overturned the ban.

That’s absolutely true.

It’s also true that they do have a point in this unfortunate event.

Both can be true.

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