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Turkey Says It's Investigating 10,000 Social Network Users (engadget.com) 83

Posted by msmash from the crackdown dept.
Turkey has been cracking down on internet activity at a frenetic pace ever since an attempted military coup in the summer, and it's now clear that there are a lot of people caught in the dragnet. From a report: The country's interior ministry has revealed that officials are investigating about 10,000 social network users suspected of backing terrorism. About 3,710 people have been questioned in the past 6 months, authorities say, and 1,656 were arrested. The rest were let go, but 1,203 of them are still under watch. There's one inescapable question, however: just how many of those internet socialites really support terrorism?
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Turkey Says It's Investigating 10,000 Social Network Users More

Turkey Says It's Investigating 10,000 Social Network Users

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  • are being monitored by the Five Eyes countries? Never mind how many are being monitored by corporations that may be "encouraged" to share the data with various governments.

    • The Five Eyes isn't an obvious attempt at cleaning house, while everything Erdogan has done since the coup is a very obvious attempt at clearing the deck of his political adversaries. Don't expect elections in Turkeys near future.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by khallow ( 566160 )

        The Five Eyes isn't an obvious attempt at cleaning house

        Yet.

        • Re:And how many (Score:5, Insightful)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @01:10PM (#53560451)

          Yet.

          That is the point. In the "Five Eyes" (US, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ), data is being collected, and it is possible that maybe someday that data could be used to roundup and arrest dissidents or people that question authority.

          In Turkey, that worst case scenario is happening now. 70,000 people have been arrested. Hundreds of thousands more have lost their jobs. Erdogan's has openly expressed contempt for democracy. He once said "Democracy is like a train. You get off once you reach your destination."

          For those of us who believe in open societies, with free movement of people, goods and ideas, 2016 has been a annus horribilis. I never expected to see so much regression in so many places.

          • Re:And how many (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Ginguin ( 4444711 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @01:49PM (#53560701)
            Anytime someone asks questions about my concern for privacy online and why I find data collection so dangerous ("But I am doing nothing wrong and have nothing to hide, so why should I care?"), I point to McCarthyism and the anti-communism mania from the 1940's and 1950's. In the late 1940's, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (Yes, that's really the name of a U.S. House of Representatives investigative committee) began to subpoena Hollywood types (screenwriters, directors, actors, etc.) and ask them to testify about known or suspected membership in the Communist Party, association with its members, or support of its beliefs.

            This committee would ask people to name names of colleagues with Communist affiliations. They saw a massive web of dissidents just based on affiliation. No bad deeds required other than showing up at a house party 20 years earlier. A paranoid black spot on our history that had serious repercussions for a lot of professionals when private companies started to blacklist people (See the Waldorf Statement) based on little to no evidence. Just being subpoenaed by the committee was enough cause to lose your job and not be able to find another job. Why would you be subpoenaed? Who know? Did you go to a coffee shop where "Communist" meetings were held? Did you best friend become a Communist? You could be roped in and tarred when you hadn't done anything wrong. It was even worse if you were actually a member of the Communist party (something that was not illegal) ten years before.

            Can you imagine how horrible that era would have been if they government had just the Metadata on every single person in the country? Who you messaged, called, etc. tells a lot about your network, and you are going to be 'guilty by association' for a lot of things that you are not necessarily guilty of. It may be wrong of me, but I often draw parallels in modern times with what happened then. Are there any ideas they or their friends hold that may become more unpopular in ten or twenty years? Do they have religios beliefs that will be considered 'bad' in the future? We don't know... but if it does we have a record of every person you talked to. And that's just the Metadata. Browsing habits, actual content of communication: apparently a lot of that was collected (if not retained). Location is just as dangerous. There is a record of nearly everywhere you have been since you they started logging where your phone has been. Every day for a month, were you at Starbucks around the same time as a future terrorist? You wouldn't know, but the government does.

            People are damned by what they say, even if what they say wasn't wrong when it was said. It can get taken and twisted by a motivated agent, and we are giving them the ammo future McCarthys need to do horrible damage to society. Sure, no one is actually looking at you when your data sits in a massive data warehouse, but when that data becomes relevant or certain ideas are labeled as 'dangerous', it's there for discovery. What was once 'no evidence of wrongdoing' at one time becomes the noose that is used to hang you in the future.

            • > Anytime someone asks questions about my concern for privacy online and why
              > I find data collection so dangerous ("But I am doing nothing wrong and
              > have nothing to hide, so why should I care?"), I point to McCarthyism
              > and the anti-communism mania from the 1940's and 1950's. In the late 1940's,
              > the House Committee on Un-American Activities (Yes, that's really the
              > name of a U.S. House of Representatives investigative committee) began to
              > subpoena Hollywood types (screenwriters, direc

              • The government did not do this. Do you not see the difference between official government supported discrimination of political beliefs and a corporation responding to public feelings? You can ignore the private citizen extremists who want purity of thought (on the left and the right), but you can't ignore it when the government decides what you should or should not think.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Jawnn ( 445279 )

            Yet.

            That is the point. In the "Five Eyes" (US, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ), data is being collected, and it is possible that maybe someday that data could be used to roundup and arrest dissidents or people that question authority.

            Exactly, and it's already started. I certainly feel just a little bit less safe since the election last month, given the incoming administration's plainly stated intent to violate my Constitutional rights. Then again, they're probably going to have a bitch of a time pinning down the political leanings of a liberal who likes guns and NASCAR, so I may be safe for a while.

  • i think Turkey (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @11:34AM (#53559841)
    has gone insane with paranoia, maybe a coup would be best, get rid of that insane paranoid government and install a secular democratic/republic government that has a separation of islam and state, religion tends to ruin democratic processes and islam is the worst offender, (just look at the brutal states run by islam) so democracy needs republic oversight otherwise it is just tyranny of the majority

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You are correct. Religion has killed many millions of people over the last 2 millennia all in the name of some bearded chap called God It is funny how the beliefs of people influence others only to find thet they are turned upon. Take the Phelps bunch of religious nutters where everyone "apart from themselves" were going to burn in hell, then some time later one of them is ousted "Shirley Lynn Phelps-Roper" from the family church and then they are now going to burn in hell too. It's a wonder they can eve

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Erdogan's paranoia is hardly a function of religion, plenty of officially secular countries are far worse. For example, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and many of the former soviet satellite countries.

      But it is standard operating procedure for autocratic rule.
      And its self-reinforcing, we are watching a democratic state fail into dictatorship.
      He's been steadily weakening the country's civil institutions, concentrating power in himself. He's also reacting poorly to crises, each reaction pushes the country f

      • He's also reacting poorly to crises, each reaction pushes the country further into dictatorship and he can't walk back any of those choices for fear of losing legitimacy in the eye of the public, so he doubles-down instead.

        You're quick to assume you understand his motives. You very likely do not.

      • This isn't paranoia. This is a purge.

    • Re:i think Turkey (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @01:26PM (#53560555)

      You misjudge what is happening in Turkey. Erdogan has openly expressed an explicit goal of creating an Islamic state, and dismantling democracy. That is what he was elected to do. His actions have been broadly popular, and the current crackdown has broad support.

      If you know any Turks, you might be surprised that they could support this. But the Turks that you know are likely urban, cosmopolitan people from Istanbul or Thrace. Erdogan's base is in rural Anatolia, where people are less educated and far less tolerant. They hate Christians (especially Armenians) even though they have likely never met one. They hate Shiites. They hate and fear the Kurds even more. And they are sick of the Istanbul elites treating their culture and their religion with perceived contempt. Erdogan is their champion.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        So basically, Erdogan is Turkey Trump?

    • maybe a coup would be best

      an apparently fake coup was announced there some weeks ago (and used for excuse for firing several army members, and jailing several journalists) - the president, Erdoan, is nothing more than an dictator.

      * any external influence outside United Nations is not welcome (see that CIA?)

    • islam is the worst offender

      not true

      (just look at the brutal states run by islam)

      Anecdotal evidence [wikipedia.org]

    • I wonder whether Turkey will crack down on Sedar Argic?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GNious ( 953874 )

      has gone insane with paranoia, maybe a coup would be best

      huh? they just had one, quite successfully too, I might add....

    • It's not necessarily paranoia, it is more likely a political clean up of the opposition disguised as paranoia.

    • Heh, you could say that the paranoia in Erdogan's case is self-fulfilling. He's going to go far enough and pin enough people in a corner that there won't be anything for them to do but chop his head off.

  • Zero (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @11:34AM (#53559847)

    Just how many of those internet socialites really support terrorism?

    Probably close to zero. Most of them are likely supporters of Kurdish or other opposition parties, people who think the hate campaign against Fethullah Gülen is a giant smoke screen or just people who made the mistake to point out that Erdogan bears a striking resemblance to Gollum .

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gnick ( 1211984 )

      Just how many of those internet socialites really support terrorism?

      Probably close to zero...

      They all support terrorism. For various definitions of terrorism. It all depends on who's asking.

  • As Someone Actually In Turkey (Score:5, Informative)

    by dryriver ( 1010635 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @11:45AM (#53559923)
    Turkey is very far along on the way to becoming both a non-Democracy and a repressive Theocracy. After the ruling AK party forcibly turned about 90% of the country's mainstream media outlets into its mouthpieces over the years, tens of millions of secular Turks flocked to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to be able to talk to each other, to be able to get "unfiltered news", to be able to express themselves freely and to also openly criticize the direction the country is being dragged in. Now THAT too is being cracked down on. VPNs are currently non-functional in Turkey. If a website is blocked, you're not gonna find a way to access it anymore. Well known websites get blocked or slowed down all the time (last week Youtube and Twitter were quite often slow or inacessible). This, unfortunately, is what Turkey's future looks like. Few rights for people, very little self expression allowed (at least not without consequences), many bans on the internet, ideological pressure on all media outlets and citizens. That is the overall picture in Turkey, and it doesn't look like it will change anytime soon.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      To show how far this has gone, we have a branch office in Turkey that does about $1.5m in business a year. Since this summer they haven't been able to VPN into our network to access files and the ERP system. The ISPs answer regarding getting an exemption for business reason has been a resounding "get fucked".

      Outlook over HTTPS luckily still works, so they're sending their orders by Email, but I know they're taking a big business hit from their intra-corporate competition from countries that allow VPN access

    • What do you think about the recent abortive "coup" attempt? To me, it seemed like an operation completely in the control of Erdogan's government with the goal of providing a pretext for the current crushing of dissent. I'm not over there, though.

      • Either a false flag operation (the leaders are really in Obiwan's pocket and will be quietly pardoned when nobody's looking) or they were somehow duped into having a go by false intel. I suppose they could have just been incredibly stupid.

        In any case, Turdipan's making the best of it - if even a tenth of the accused were really in on it they'd have won.

        • Hm, history would tell us that the "false intel" is how the "false flag" is carried out.

          I also have some theories along those lines about the assassination of the Russian ambassador last week. The scene was too controlled.

          • Perhaps false flag was the wrong expression, but the situations I mentioned are quite distinct; in one case the rebel leader is a rube, in the other he's a stooge.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by swell ( 195815 )

        "an operation completely in the control of Erdogan's government"

        Exactly. That's what I thought from the moment the story came out. I don't understand why no media is considering this. They love to quote Erdogan (and any politician's lies) but are they just afraid to confront what seems an obvious truth?

        Erdogan was conveniently away when the 'coup' occurred. He walked right back in and effortlessly took control by arresting and killing many 'offenders'. Certainly the local press has suffered its share and I

    • But Turkey voted for this. This isn't some crazy despot, it's the will of the people. Islamic countries want to live under Islamic laws. Freedom of Speech is an imported concept from the West, along with racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and all the other issues that Trump successfully ran on.

      Perhaps it's best to consider the period of 1920-2010 as an aberration in Turkish history. Now Turkey is merely regressing to the mean, as it was always going to do.

  • Fuck Turkey. Kick them out of NATO, and sanction them until they cry like a little girl

    • Fuck Turkey. Kick them out of NATO, and sanction them until they cry like a little girl

      And drive Turkey into the arms of the Kremlin? I don't think so. The only thing we can do is ride the Erdogan phenomenon out just like the rest of the world is going to have to ride out 8 years of the Trump/Putin man crush phenomenon hoping that none of these ass holes starts WWIII in a temper tantrum over a crass joke by some talk show host suggesting that Erdogan has a crush on a goat, a comedian cracking jokes about Putin seasoning other peoples tea with Polonium or a ill conceived face loosing POTUS twe

      • Name me one thing Turkey has done that is pro-NATO since 1991. For example, when the Bosnia war was on, why did Turkey not choose to be one to support Bosnia? They refused to support the US in Iraq, thereby making it clear that they're not pro Western by any stretch of imagination.

        Although truth be told, NATO is obsolete - has been since 1991. Trump was right - it's high time that the US pull out of it. Islam has long replaced Communism as the ideological threat to the world, and so the US needs to pi

  • The "inescapable question" is how many of them are journalists.

  • Coming soon to a country near you (Score:3)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Tuesday December 27, 2016 @03:11PM (#53561197)

    " Suspected of backing terrorism "

    is easily translated into

    " Disagree with how we are running things so we slap a terrorist label on them and prosecute accordingly "

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