Zeynep Tufekci writes on technology and society, including social media, protest movements, and how media report on user security.
HN commenters link it in threads on the Turkey protests and online security reporting, with some disputing her claims and others finding her accounts persuasive.
This is ridiculous. I'm at work so I can't do a point by point refutation but I will later.
It's obvious that you know more than the average person on this subject, but you're falling into the trap of thinking that just because you know some things, you have a good (or even the best) picture of what is happening.
First of all, the main significant thing about these protests is that it was the FIRST large scale protest to not be organized by any political group(s) and instead is grassroots. People just started messaging each other and walking outside of their houses to support others. A day or two later, parties finally started organizing but the protest is nonpartisan. I have never otherwise seen a TKP (left-communist party) and MHP (ultra-nationalist right) flags flying together EVER! There are also people from Laz, soccer teams, Kurds, workers unions, LGBT groups. I am getting daily updates from almost all of my friends who are taking part in the protests. The idea that it was "subverted", or is fake astroturfing is absurd. Read this: http://technosociology.org/?p=1255
Second, yes, Erdogan's leadership resulted in economic reform (the costs of this is another discussion altogether, but no one can deny the gains). But this has nothing to do with his authoritarian ruling style. Under his tenure, Turkey has had the great (!) achievements of dropping to 54th in the corruption index (http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/9967221.asp) and "noticable problems" the press…
I've been following the events since the beginning (in fact I was there at the solitary meeting in Chicago yesterday: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-local-demonstration-supports-turkey-protests-20130601,0,5732219.story), so let me summarize what's been going on. However, if you have time to read just a single post, read this (http://technosociology.org/?p=1255) spot on analysis instead of my comment.
First, it's not an Istanbul thing anymore, many Turkish cities, especially Izmir and Ankara witnessed large protests and clashes with the police in the past couple of days.
On paper, this started with a small group of protesters sitting in the park to stop its demolition and cutting down the trees on Monday. That evening and at 5am on Tuesday morning they were violently attacked by the police. The attacks continued on Wednesday. The appalling police brutality unfortunately is nothing new in Turkey but this time it triggered an unexpected reaction from a wide swath of people.
People's discontent with AKP has been rising for some time, although they have provided a stable economy for the past 10 years. Some of the recent events have really notched it up, though, e.g.:
* The fact that government made no official plans to celebrate the May 19th holiday, which is an important day in the creation of the Turkish Republic (mirroring their approach to the October 29th holiday, which is like July 4th for Turkey)
* Lack of adequate response from PM Erdogan to…
Agree, and I'm disappointed that the conversation on HN is still in terms of “free speech”. Do people know what kind of content Violentacrez posted? According to Zeynep Tufekci’s account:
Children focused “jailbait” forums typically
include photos of minors on a beach in splashing around
in bathing suits, a youngster practicing gymnastics,
students in school with the picture taken from a
low-angle, from-the-behind etc. and are peppered with
comments about genitals, looks and rape. The more
adult-oriented “creepshot” forum typically include
non-consensual “upskirt” photos of women’s crotches,
breasts, as well private photographs that were shared
with boyfriends, exes, being circulated for commentary
and leering.
I never visited the communities in question, so if that summary is materially inaccurate, please correct.
If that is accurate, I don’t see how anyone could think the actions of taking such photos, sharing them publicly and encouraging more to be taken, are victimless actions, or are even remotely defensible under the banner of “free speech”. Intimidating and harassing others and sharing recognizable photos without their consent is not “free speech”.
If Reddit wanted to take the moral high ground they would need to realize that while certain content may technically be legal, it should not be encouraged and welcomed by their community.
More in this great (but long) article by Zeynep Tufekci, which I've quoted above:…
From the open letter on http://technosociology.org/?page_id=1687 :
> The behavior described in your article is not a backdoor in WhatsApp. This is the overwhelming consensus of the cryptography and security community. It is also the collective opinion of the cryptography professionals whose names appear below. The behavior you highlight is a measured tradeoff that poses a remote threat in return for real benefits that help keep users secure, as we will discuss in a moment.
What real benefits are gained from making it easy for ISP-level attackers to mount man-in-the-middle attacks? Security from your spouse snooping on your phone? What's the threat model here and why are these experts so adamant in minimizing the security risks?
Moxie went as far as to ignore the opt-in aspect of the (very benign looking) key change notification, but he's on the payroll. What's the motivation of the other experts in this sudden "overwhelming consensus"?
One of the more hackernews relevant aspects of this event is the role of the media. Turkey has a very robust media, with dozens of TV stations and newspapers, yet there are no laws preventing the media from participating other commercial activities, or owning both newspapers and TV stations, etc. In fact, most of the media is owned by large corporations. Add to this the large role the government plays in the economy, it's almost inevitable that media is corrupt and avoids going against the government.
Even with that background, the reporting by the mainstream media about the events of the last couple of days has been a disgrace, and social media is filling the void.
The following is the most insightful analysis I've seen on this topic "Is there a Social-Media Fueled Protest Style? An Analysis From #jan25 to #geziparki "http://technosociology.org/?p=1255
Zeynep Tufekci was the organizer of the open letter about the Guardian reporting on WhatsApp.
http://technosociology.org/?page_id=1687
In this connection, she's particularly concerned that misreporting the nature of attacks, (edit:) or reporting them without context, will cause people to make bad security decisions. That issue is raised in reporting on these tools just as it was raised in the WhatsApp reporting, and it's the focus of her editorial here.
I don't think Tufekci wants people to refrain from talking about the terrible state of information security in general, or about how we could improve it. (While she also dislikes Wikileaks in general, which is very apparent in this editorial and slightly complicates the point, I don't think she means to suggest that we shouldn't know or talk about these capabilities or how to respond to them.)