Let’s start with something basic: Freedom of expression is absolutely essential to democratic or republican government. The syllogism works like this. If you have a right to vote freely, you have a right to have as informed a choice as possible. In order to make such an informed choice, you have to be able to receive information freely, and if people cannot speak freely, you cannot receive information freely. Therefore, freedom of expression is absolutely essential to free elections. Frankly, by this metric, few world governments are truly democratic or republican.
Turkey is one of those countries that isn’t truly republic (as they claim) because they do not have free speech. For instance, Article 299 of their penal code literally punishes you for insulting the president of Turkey. That significantly impairs the ability of any opponent to actually challenge the incumbent (but it doesn’t limit incumbents), because it hems in how one can criticize the persons currently in power. After all, if that law was enacted in America, Donald Trump would have racked up probably 200 years in prison by now! And Joe Biden wouldn’t have been too far behind by the time he took office in 2020. And that is only scratching the surface of Turkish censorship.
With that in mind, we are nonetheless coming up on an election in Turkey this Sunday that promises to be close, despite the competition being hobbled by censorship:
Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday will have President Recep Tayyip Erdogan facing unprecedented challenges that could end his two-decade rule https://t.co/Yqd0mSE2V5 pic.twitter.com/pjGFJeC0nQ
— CNN (@CNN) May 13, 2023
And with that election looming, Twitter has caved to Turkish demands of censorship:
In response to legal process and to ensure Twitter remains available to the people of Turkey, we have taken action to restrict access to some content in Turkey today.
— Twitter Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) May 13, 2023
We have informed the account holders of this action in line with our policy.
This content will remain available in the rest of the world.
— Twitter Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) May 13, 2023
Taking them at face value, they are saying they have prevented certain accounts from being heard in Turkey. They are available in the rest of the world, but for some reason, people in Turkey are not allowed to see … whoever these people are and whatever they are saying. Twitter seems to be saying that some kind of legal process had been initiated and there was a belief that if they didn’t censor these people, then all of Twitter might have been prohibited. So, we can see what the people in Turkey are not allowed to see.
Of course, one person has a theory about how people in Turkey could get around this problem:
Simple solution for those in Türkiye wishing to access content restricted by Twitter:
Use a VPN service.
It's that simple!
— Joseph Çiprut (@mindthrust) May 13, 2023
We have no idea if that would work.
Naturally, this got some pushback:
The Turkish government asked Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and @elonmusk complied — should generate some interesting Twitter Files reporting. https://t.co/RDrGS75Au5
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) May 13, 2023
In the interests of transparency, you should clarify what content is being censored in Turkey. Is it disinformation about the election process itself, designed to mislead voters (which used to be reportable on Twitter), or is it simply any point of view unfavorable to Erdogan?
— Traci Degerman 🇺🇸🌎🇺🇦 (@TraciDegerman) May 13, 2023
We should find out what exactly the people of Turkey are not allowed to see.
we thank you.🇹🇷
— AG__3334 (@AG__3334) May 13, 2023
For making your country less democratic?
Why? How is that good for anyone aside from the government of Turkey. We all know Erdogan has no problem with genocide. Imagine what he’ll do with no one watching! Please reconsider 🙏🏼
— GenXbitch💋 (@unemployed_mass) May 13, 2023
Turkish users should utilize slang and language creoles to avoid censorship. https://t.co/I5SJrJqaf0
— Styxhexenhammer666 (@Styx666Official) May 13, 2023
We don’t know if that would work, but censors tend to be dumb, so … maybe?
Mr @elonmusk, what is "some content"? Where is transparency? The bans you are currently implementing are supporting Erdogan's censorship of his dissidents. This is not fair! https://t.co/JwSuVoG74J
— Ayşe Hür (@HurAyse) May 13, 2023
Um, silencing the opposition in Turkey, looks a little like election interference, no?
— Marcella (@marcykey50) May 13, 2023
And of course, a great deal of it involved calling out Musk himself:
Looks like Erdogan demanded @elonmusk censor his political opposition a day ahead of the election and he immediately complied.
Musk is either the world’s most sanctimonious hypocrite, coward and fraud or actually wants to censor the opposition to help Erdogan. Or both. https://t.co/qhBbQ0P86f
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 13, 2023
So @elonmusk , what happened to free speech?
— Jarkko Jokelainen (@JarkkoKuori) May 13, 2023
Gee… I wonder why Twitter complied with a takedown request like this? They never used to. I wonder what changed?
(Read the next tweet to find out!)https://t.co/uQMc58fHE5
— A. H. (@a_h_reaume) May 13, 2023
"Elon Musk's U.S.-based SpaceX is set to launch Turkey's first domestically produced communications satellite, Türksat 6A, in 2023."
— A. H. (@a_h_reaume) May 13, 2023
Oh it's even worst. They were censoring the leader's opponents on the eve of an election. https://t.co/3DKnYwdVAj
— A. H. (@a_h_reaume) May 13, 2023
SHAME!!!
The Turkish government asked @Twitter to censor its opponents right before an election and @elonmusk complied.Elon Musk is explicitly saying that any government in the world has total control over what is allowed to be published on #Twitter, simply by threatening to… https://t.co/SHgJBukvta
— Enes FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) May 13, 2023
We deserve an answer considering how much we Turkish people care about what you ve done for democracy/free speech @elonmusk
— Yorg (@Yorg99483341) May 13, 2023
Whew, good thing Twitter is about free speech absolutism https://t.co/7tGQymNAlh
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 13, 2023
so you’re helping Erdogan censor his opposition ahead of a close election. Nice work @elonmusk
— Eric Blyler (@e_blyler) May 13, 2023
We have some sympathy for the difficult position Musk finds himself in. If we take Twitter at face value, it was either allow the entire platform to be censored, or censor a few voices. They might have also deduced that if Twitter was available in their country, that the messages might get through. Further, you might hope that the fact that Turkey was demanding censorship on the eve of the election might create something similar to the Streisand Effect, making people turn against Erdogan even more.
I think this brings more attention to the content than just leaving it alone. It’s like the “beep” for foul language.
— Dan (@Dan_Wessling) May 13, 2023
Still, we can’t help but think that the ideal answer would be to tell the government of Turkey to pound sand and then do something like offer free Starlink in the country, just to take a stand.
But Twitter might not be able to afford that, these days, in part because of the liberal campaign to degrade it, motivated by their own hostility to free speech. The ugly truth is tyrants don’t like free speech, and tyrants will not confine their censorship to their own borders. If they think they can use their economic power to censor the world—as China has—they will do it.
It’s not a cheerful thought, but it is the reality we deal with.
Update: via @filmladd, we discovered that we missed Musk’s response to Mr. Yglesias’ tweet above:
Did your brain fall out of your head, Yglesias? The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2023
He also promised further transparency:
We could post what the government in Turkey sent us. Will do.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2023
Still, we think the ideal response is to tell the world’s censors to pound sand.
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