{"id":180291,"date":"2021-02-27T14:55:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-27T19:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=180291"},"modified":"2021-02-28T10:34:36","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T15:34:36","slug":"facebook-caved-to-turkish-government-demands-blocked-group-to-protect-business-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/facebook-caved-to-turkish-government-demands-blocked-group-to-protect-business-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Caved To Turkish Government Demands, Blocked Group To Protect Business Interests"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffacebook-caved-to-turkish-government-demands-blocked-group-to-protect-business-interests%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=180291&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1230302596.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Facebook executives quickly decided in 2018 that it would give in to demands from the Turkish government to block Facebook posts from a militia group targeted by the country, a move that ensured Turkey wouldn\u2019t ban the tens of millions of Facebook users in the country from the platform.<\/p>\n<p>ProPublica reported:<\/p>\n<p>As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighboring Syria in early 2018, Facebook\u2019s top executives faced a political dilemma.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from the People\u2019s Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia group the Turkish government had targeted. Should Facebook ignore the request, as it has done elsewhere, and risk losing access to tens of millions of users in Turkey? Or should it silence the group, known as the YPG, even if doing so added to the perception that the company too often bends to the wishes of authoritarian governments?<\/p>\n<p>Bottom of Form<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t a particularly close call for the company\u2019s leadership, newly disclosed emails show.<\/p>\n<p>Sheryl Sandberg, author of \u201cLean In\u201d and Facebook\u2019s chief operating officer, made the determination in a message to team members who were reviewing the YPG\u2019s page.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am fine with this,\u201d was all Sandberg wrote, but it was enough to ensure YPG\u2019s message would be censored and Facebook\u2019s business would be protected.<\/p>\n<p>As ProPublica noted, YPG\u2019s posts are still blocked on Facebook, even three years later. The conversations among Facebook executives reviewed by the outlet give an inside look into how these companies cave to censorship requests from authoritarian governments and political allies. In 2018, Turkey attacked the Kurds and arrested anyone who criticized the move.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook in January gave lip service to free speech while providing a positive spin on their decision as part of a response to Turkey\u2019s new law about social media firms having legal representation in the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, and we work hard to protect and defend these values around the world,\u201d the company\u00a0wrote. \u201cMore than half of the people in Turkey rely on Facebook to stay in touch with their friends and family, to express their opinions and grow their businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Back in 2018, however, internal company messages show Facebook was concerned about ensuring they still had access to Turkey\u2019s users rather than anything to do with human rights, ProPublica reported.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook confirmed to the outlet that the company made the decision after the Turkish government made clear the platform would be shut down in the country if it did not comply.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe content that Turkey deemed offensive, according to internal emails, included photos on Facebook-owned Instagram of \u2018wounded YPG fighters, Turkish soldiers and possibly civilians.\u2019 At the time, the YPG\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/YPG\/posts\/1701866703168252\">slammed<\/a>\u00a0what it understood to be Facebook\u2019s censorship of such material. \u2018Silencing the voice of democracy: In light of the Afrin invasion, YPG experience severe cyberattacks.\u2019 The group has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/YPG\/posts\/1710048249016764\">published<\/a>\u00a0graphic images, including photos of mortally wounded fighters; \u2018this is the way NATO ally Turkey secures its borders,\u2019 YPG wrote in one post,\u201d ProPublica reported.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement to the outlet, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone defended the company:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe strive to preserve voice for the greatest number of people,\u201d read the statement. \u201cThere are, however, times when we restrict content based on local law even if it does not violate our community standards. In this case, we made the decision based on our policies concerning government requests to restrict content and our international human rights commitments. We disclose the content we restrict in our twice-yearly transparency reports and are evaluated by independent experts on our international human rights commitments every two years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook executives quickly decided in 2018 that it would give in to demands from the Turkish government to block Facebook posts from a militia group targeted by the country, a &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2274373,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1230302596.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Facebook Caved To Turkish Government Demands, Blocked Group To Protect Business Interests","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/GettyImages-1230302596.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Facebook Caved To Turkish Government Demands, Blocked Group To Protect Business Interests","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2274373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}