One of the most commonly-made objections to Western liberal democracies passing censorship laws is that tyrants and dictators will then cite them as justification for their own, much more draconian censorship laws. That is exactly what is happening in Turkey, with President Erdoğan and his nationalist allies in the Nationalist Movement Party proposing a new law that will criminalise spreading ‘fake news’ and ‘misinformation’ online – by which they mean, of course, anything criticising the Government of President Erdoğan. Ahval News has more.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling party and his nationalist allies presented legislation to parliament introducing jail sentences for persons spreading so-called fake news on the internet.
In December, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan labelled social media as one of the main threats to democracy, saying his Government would criminalise spreading fake news and disinformation online.
The digital censorship law foresees jail sentences of between one and three years for anyone who is deemed to have publicly disseminated false information regarding national security, public order, or general public health that creates anxiety, fear, or panic among the population or disturbs public peace, according to local media including the Diken news website.
Erdoğan’s Government is seeking to tighten its grip on the media and throttle dissent, a process that has accelerated since the introduction of a full presidential system of government in the summer of 2018.
The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is acting with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), has said that the law would be similar to legislation and regulations in Germany, France and the United States.
In Germany, provisions do not block access to social media and do not include criminal sanctions other than fines, Yaman Akdeniz, a professor of law at Istanbul Bilgi University, said in an analysis on May 19th for Article 19, an organisation promoting freedom of expression. In France, the law only targets election misinformation rather than criminalising disinformation per se, while U.S. measures are aimed at countering foreign propaganda and disinformation in particular with regards to elections, he said.
Turkey ranks 149th of 180 countries for media freedom, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in an annual report at the start of May. Authoritarianism was gaining ground in Turkey, threatening media pluralism, and all possible means were used to undermine critics, RSF said.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: This is a powerful argument against the U.K. Government passing an internet censorship law. But instead of defending the Online Safety Bill against these and other criticisms, Nadine Dorries has posted a video of herself rapping about it on TikTok.
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I wrote a letter to my MP-
Dear Philip
I am trying to understand the implications of the Online Safety Bill.
I read this explanation –
‘The Bill will empower Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, to fine social media companies up to 10% of their global turnover if they fail to remove harmful content — and not just harmful to children, which is hard to argue with, but to adults as well.
What does the Government mean by ‘harmful’? The only definition the Bill offers is in clause 150, where it sets out the details of a new Harmful Communications Offence, punishable by up to two years in jail:
“‘harm’ means psychological harm amounting to at least serious distress.”
But, confusingly, it won’t just be harmful content that meets this definition that the bill will force social media companies to remove. After all, this relates to a new criminal offence — and content that meets the threshold for prosecution under this new law will, by definition, be illegal. Notoriously, the Bill will also force social media companies to remove ‘legal but harmful’ content — and exactly what that is, is anyone’s guess.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/05/25/why-i-fear-this-censors-charter/
Is this reporting accurate?
Would this mean that anyone could claim to have experienced ‘serious distress’ as a result of another person expressing a point of view/asking a question online, (a point of view/question that is perfectly legal to express offline), and that the person expressing the view would be liable to prosecution?
For example if a person were to express the view online that the founder of Islam was not a prophet of God but that the founder of Islam was a reprehensible man would a Muslim be able to contact the police and have that person prosecuted if the Muslim claimed that they had been caused serious distress?
If the answer is no can you please explain why?
If a person went online and expressed the view that biological men that were now decalring themselves to be women should not be allowed to take part in women’s sport could a trans activist claim serious distress and have that person prosecuted?
If the answer is no can you please explain why?
If Alexander Johnson were to read online that a person considered him to be a reprehensible liar in relation to the party gate affair would Alexander Johnson be able to declare that reading this opinion caused him serious distress and enable him to have that person prosecuted?
If the answer is no can you please explain why?
This legislation appears to be intentionally designed to be ambiguous regarding ‘serious distress’ so as to have a massive silencing effect for online discussion.
Such ambiguity would give the State the ability to subjectively accept one point of view being expressed caused serious distress whilst the counterpoint did not.
If the Government do wish to prohibit certain points of view from being expressed online should the Government not at least have the decency to specify openly in advance which opinions may not be expressed so the the British public know which views they may not express in advance of the police coming to arrest them?
I look forward to your clarification so that I can take the necessary steps to make sure that I do not express any views that may result in my serving time in prison for having caused ‘serious distress’ should this legislation be approved.
Under this new legislation posting that Father Christmas* does not exist would lead to two years porridge
*Father Christmas does exist
Or that father Christmas is not black, he’s not gay, he’s not a leprechaun, etc ad infinitum
Nor is he a beergutted white supremacist Trump supporter and Brexit lover who can’t get a girlfriend but enjoys watching heterosexual porn on the internet as he chants “Ian Smith was right! He’d have shown all the trendy wokers what’s what!”, given that he doesn’t exist.
Clearly he doesn’t exist, but “beergutted white supremacist Trump supporter and Brexit lover” is close enough to the trad view of him for my grandchildren, I think.
Well, being a beergutted white Trump supporter is probably why 100’s of millions of children round the world love and admire him.
Blimey, I’ll take that if the food crisis gets bad…
As Orwell reminded us, the goal of totalitarianism is to stop you saying things to ultimately train you stop thinking them.
It works. The young are uncritical of climate change or multiculturalism. Obviously they’ll learn in time the high price they will pay, not the least of which is never owning a house while their local council builds flats for Africans as they do where I am.
That is to say, for the very young the notion of being critical of other cultures or races is already unthinkable. That’s how it seems to work for the majority. So the online harms bill is crucial to train the plebs. Don’t expect to be posting here after it passes.
Don’t worry they’ll get retrained to hate. Look at Russia and Putin, you must hate him, whatever he says is 100% lies. He has made no progress in Ukraine, he’s constantly retreating and running away. The Azov Battalion are a gentle peace keeping force protecting the Russian speakers in the East and do not admire Isis techniques.
Well, I hope that causes ‘serious distress’ to your MP! Probably he/she/it/them will just laugh, though.
If ‘they’ even read it. You can hear the words ”Just bin that one….” to the nearest servile serpent.
And is there clarity on whether these powers can used retrospectively? We know from lockdown that when police are given flexible rules, they will abuse this power.
Nobody other than a court ought to be able to impose fines.
What next – will the police, Ofcom, etc., be able to sentence us to be locked up too?
Magistrates – essentially hubristic amateurs – can already hand out custodial sentences. So it won’t be a surprise when mission creep sees our brave police given similar powers.
Any MP will soon be able to impose a fine as and when they see fit!
After all Hancock invented s £10,000 ‘fine’ at the Dispatch Box for visiting Portugal!
Very unlikely – retrospective legislation is frowned on and rare. New laws normally apply to any offences committed on their commencement date or afterwards.
USED TO BE frowned on and rare. I’ve no doubt we won’t be able to count on anything we considered ‘lawful’ in the time to come.
Bet you won’t get anything like a real answer.
The intellectually limited woman pushing this through Parliament doesn’t even understand what she is doing.
I bet she understands only too well, limited intellect notwithstanding. Someone has no doubt explained it to her – one of her servile serpents, probably, saving her the stress of having to understand it. After all, why keep a dog and bark yourself?
Nadine is a ****
Well, I used the equivalent of 5 stars!
I’m sure it would constitute causing distress once they pass the legislation.
Useful idiot?
Useless idiot!
This censorship started when people had the gall to post online what the climate was actually doing, and, because it was what the climate is actually doing, the climate hysterics had no way to argue against it. So they got google to censor the websites, followed by twatter and fascist book.
When woke lose the argument (as they inevitably do) they attempt to censor.
Of course they do. They seek power and alternative viewpoints are a threat.
As Nadine Dories’ rap explains, it’s all to “protect us”.
The government is going to protect us. Online platforms are going to protect us. Content providers are going to protect us.
Protection nobody asked for as it happens.
When the government comes to protect you it does so in the same way that the henchmen of gangsters protect you. It’s basically a racket designed to keep you subdued and in servitude and keep them in power.
Ronald Reagan told a story that if you had a knock at the door and were faced with men stating; “We’re from the government, we’re here to help you”. You had better RUN!
Remember how the press hated Reagan the man who did most for nuclear disarmament. They said he was stupid, one of the few presidents with a degree in economics. He certainly didn’t sound stupid in interviews.
But if Google, Sh*tter, and Faecebook were all truly capitalist, eh?
So chem trails (Geo-Engineering). Real or fake?
Can’t make my mind up. Anyone testing scientifically?
Contrails started behaving differently a decade or so ago.
Yeah so they say but blowed if I took any notice a decade ago.
Was wondering if anyone had managed to get samples or whistleblowers who know what’s being added to the fuel.
I watch them now. Some disappear but many lace the sky and bring a haze blotting out what started as a beautiful clear day.
It isn’t “so they say”, it’s what I noticed.
And it happened this morning: out with the dog at 6:30, criss-cross trails expanding to fill the sky.
I know I see them and I’m suspicious. Just would like some corroboration not based on assumption from just looking. Weight of evidence etc.
Maybe that has something to do with changes in turbofan design to increase fuel efficiency?
I vaguely recall reading an original cloud description for Naval weather observation from the 1880s that mentioned various types of cirrus.
”
Cirrus Howard 1803
(On the modifications of clouds, etc., see Appendix 2)Cirrus fibratusThis type of cloud was initially called Cirrus filosus by Clayton in 1896 (Discussion of the cloud observations, etc., see Appendix 2)”
https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/appendix-3-history-of-cloud-nomenclature.html
Won’t be long before Scotland and Wales follow
We should not forget that Johnson committed himself to the defence of freedom of speech – he declared it to be the essence of Britishness – when he became Prime Minister, this is less than 3 years ago, so where is this? The state which often lies or gets it wrong cannot be the the arbiter of truth.
”Everyone knows the values that flag represents:
it stands for freedom and free speech and habeas corpus and the rule of law,
and above all it stands for democracy.”
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/boris-johnsons-first-speech-as-prime-minister-24-july-2019
One of the most maladroit governments in history is now committed to silencing its critics.
I am increasingly of the view Johnson isn’t running anything. We all joke about PMs and other senior politicians being front men. But we often mean it as an insult, that they lack sufficient backbone to reject influence.
But I think we really are seeing actors. Johnson making those comments is just one example. I remember Cameron once stating the UK was too white and too Christian. I find it hard to believe someone in his position genuinely wants more foreigners and more Hinduism or Islam. It doesn’t make sense, unless he is expected to say it.
One of the main things I believe going on with the political class is learned helplessness.
I suspect learned helplessness is more apparent in the population at large. Constant reminders of things like climate change may make people here scoff, but they remind the plebs of unseen titanic forces at play. Invisible killer viruses help too.
Some of the politicians I’m sure are like this. I’m convinced most were jabbed except the top dogs. So who knows?
I think your hypothesis is bang on.
They are ruled by a spirit which can’t really be described in terms of western philosophy. The closest that you might get is nihilism. The impetus behind technocracy is essentailly an admittance of the deadness of the western mythos. If you read the big thinkers around the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the tone is essentially one of pessimism and managed decline whether it’s Oswald Spengler or Carol Quigley. Jung said that there are still two aread of vitality to be found in western spirituality – the discovery of the male within the female and the female within the male, and the grail mythos.
You’ve lost me!
Sorry but the only mythos I know of is a Greek beer!!!!
You are quite right – I have been saying the same thing now for years,,,
In a highly technical and bureaucratic state there is no way that any single politician can master the total complexity of any situation – so they are completely dependent on what their bureaucrats and advisers tell them (and, increasingly. DON’T tell them).
The bureaucrats operate supra-nationally. For example, when the Russians went over the border into Donbas, our intelligence staff would have been talking with their US counterparts to agree a united position and plan of action to present to their respective politicians, well before any political decision was taken. Similarly, our government medical advisers would have been taking direction from the CDC and other bodies in the US and WHO long before our politicians were told that there might be a pandemic beginning.
The politicians are an essential buffer between those who really make the decisions and the public. They protect the decision-making process by making it seem as if the people have some say in the policies which will be followed, and are convenient scapegoats to be abandoned whenever those policies fail or become unpopular.
This may not actually be a major problem, so long as each country’s bureaucrats are acting in the interests of their country. But more and more they are beginning to act in the interests of a global supra-national bureaucratic state.
The problem is the elected politicians are so up their own backsides they can’t deal with complexity that brings uncertainty and is difficult to explain. Faith is a problem, they believe some things are self-evident because it fits their world view and they don’t carefully and critically examine something that might overturn that view.
This is a human problem. At least 80% would rather bury their heads than have their world view upset. It doesn’t even correlate well with I.Q. I think it’s maybe linked to E.Q. Ego is also a problem, people hate to be completely wrong and will do anything to deny or cover that.
Also factor in most “expert” institutions are well captured by financial interests.
Seems those that warned us about Boris were correct. Just says anything for self promotion. But … will his successor be pro freedom? Liz Truss, Rishi, Nadine Dorries, Priti Patel, Michael Gove. Not a great choice. God forbid – Ben Wallace!
Unfortunately for us, Johnson is a born liar.
And we all know what misinformation is don’t we, anything that goes against the governments orthodoxy.
Misinformation is of course not false information, otherwise it could be denied
There is a case to be made they are sincere. A recent video interview of Bill Gates he talks about stopping misinformation. Klaus Schwab too. They weren’t joking. They are so isolated from normality they view any challenge as genuine misinformation.
There is a strong element of paternalism in this view. People are being bombarded with crap online, so we have to step in and help them sift through it.
Gates was incredulous anyone would challenge his obviously good intentions. A masterclass in what mild Asperger’s actually looks like. Completely tone deaf to even well researched, thoughtful criticisms of why a university dropout with $120bn in the bank lecturing us on epidemiology and private health matters might be problematic.
So I don’t mean sincerity in any positive sense. Rather, we have people who think they are doing us a favour.
‘of why a university dropout with $120bn in the bank lecturing us on epidemiology and private health matters might be problematic.’
A health expert with tits bigger than many a page 3 stunner.
I think it is plain and simple narcissism.
They actually think they are god-like and have a monopoly on the truth. They think what they want to be true must be true.
Either that or they are evil genocidal maniacs.
Wow: what a hussy.
This type of thing isn’t new
https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-us-forced-sterilization-policies-that-lasted-into-the-21st-century/
“Nazi sterilization was modeled on laws in force in Indiana and California”
“Western values” on display again. If we want to fight for western values – the values that made the west great, our first priority should be to restore them to our own nations, rather than fighting to impose the corrupt and decadent travesties that have replaced them in our culture on the few foreign nations that have resisted some of them.
And members of our ruling classes, and their lackeys such as police and collectivist healthcare employees, singing and dancing instead of doing their jobs merely reinforces the point.
Sweet gentle Jesus. The woman is barking.
“The woman is barking.”
Seems to be something characteristic of the kinds of arrogant entitled scumbags who think they know what should be allowed to be said and thought:
https://youtu.be/e4inJSblCUY?t=356
“They may be evil, but they’re also ridiculous. Nina Jankowicz is the most ridiculous of all. So you read about her appointment in the Washington Post this morning, and you immediately thought of the NKVD, because why wouldn’t you? Yet even the NKVD, even at the height of Stalin’s purges, never did karaoke. They were too dignified for that. But Nina Jankowicz happily does. Here she is“
I’m distressed that people say the world is going to end if I don’t stop eating meat. So are they all going to prison? Every last one of them
Yes, eventually if they are alive.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yW1I24FG1wE
Chilling Speech from Justin Trudeau Reveals What He Wants to Control | ROUNDTABLE | Rubin Report
And Trudeau in Canada is passing an Online Harms Bill, to “protect minorities.”
What an amazing coincidence! Another Western government passing online censorship legislation, and it has exactly the same title! I
One might conclude there’s been some international agreement to crush the free speech of people who call out the bulls*** of governments and others in power.
Erdogan has been heading off into autocracy for years. He doesn’t need inspiration from Nadine Dorries. Putin is his main playbook (segueing between president and prime minister to maintain power).
There’s long been an inherent contradiction between the censorship and libel controls that print, radio and tv media have to operate under, versus the effective free-for-all in social media.
This is on the grounds that they are ‘platforms’ not ‘publishers – a distinction which has blurred to the point of non-existence.
I don’t know how you solve it. But nothing that comes out of Dorries mind is likely to do the trick.
It is as if reality is bending to the worst mockery of itself as if to say that if you don’t get it now you never will. Brings to mind the Apocalypse of John: And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
It is as if reality is bending to the worst mockery of itself as if to say that if you don’t get it now you never will.
yes it does feel like something went wrong with the concept of “reality” a while ago and things have been spinning out of control ever since.
“rapping about it on TikTok.”…..Silly bitch!
How long is the prison sentence in Turkey for mentioning the mass murder of Armenians? I know it’s against the law to mention this in Turkey. Denial that it occurred is lawful, though, indeed encouraged.
I wonder what her constituency is like and I shudder at the thought of the horrors contained therein.
Let them bring it in, then file law suit after law suit after law suit, either, pointing out the stupidity of the new rules (being offended is subjective so you can be offended by literally anything), or alternatively, every time the government provably lies online (sorry misleads us for our own good).
Seriously I have never expected much but this harridan is beyond the pale surely.
“Beyond the pale” – that is in the wild lawless, uncivilised barbarism and corruption threatening to overwhelm us – so yes “beyond the pale” is the new normal.
“The Pale” no longer offers protection!
It can’t happen. Just look at your own searching habits. They might act like they have some sort of supremacy over the tech wilderness but they really don’t.
It’s coming isn’t it? Tyranny.
If people don’t awake & just refuse billions will die.
and dorris thought rapping on tiktok was a great idea did she?
unfortunatly this is what happens when the likes of dorris bans any opinion she does not like, they become mentally warped thinking what they are doing is perfectly fine even to the extent of going on tiktok and rapping about it.
I previously thought Nadine Dorries was just an elderly government minister. Now I realise she is in fact down with the kids. Cool daddio!
it does concern me that these so called leaders who can’t lead are getting more and more out of reality, if this spirals further down hill in the months and yrs to come and as the censorship increases further, you may see catastrophic outcomes. I also find it a disgrace that dorris is targeting children and teens on tiktok with this video as this is who uses the site most, talk about manipulation.
Everyone’s at it! They’re all seeing trouble ahead… not good.
Surely he will be copying Dorries’ “On Line Harms Bill” as well – a model for all Fascists!
Does Nadine Dorries seriously think this either makes her more credible or appealing to the general public?
Rather it shows her to be completely out of her depth and subservient to lobbyists (probably big tech trying to pull a fast one). Who the heck is advising her?
Nadine Dorries does not “serioulsy think” – say no more.
She seems to have her eye on Boris!
You should only appear on video if your bra fits properly
First reaction seeing that ridiculous Norris person making an unprofessional fool of herself – YEUK.
Standard performance from the Johnson stooges!
They all get Knighthoods and Damehoods for it!
Censorship of speech. Yes, that is definitely what we need in the world mr. Erdogan. Isn’t it a shame you are not as vocal on well, you know, things like dangerous experimental biologicals, the severe adverse events and deaths caused by these same experimental biologicals, the proxy war in Ukrainia and Russia, sanctions by the USA causing a total disruption to the world economy. Perhaps sir, you could devote a little bit of your very important time on issues that are really affecting the world, instead of tackling this horribly offensive act that is freedom of speech.