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Turkey, positioned geopgraphically on the edge of Europe and politically inside of NATO, has been heading in a troubling direction for some time in regards to speech. Crackdowns on dissent and even open speech are increasing and Internet communications are the specific focus of some of the recent actions. Coming up is legislation intended to curb the Internet (WWW) in ways similar to how television and radio have already been limited:
Having already brought Turkey's mainstream media to heel, and made considerable headway in rolling back Turkish democracy, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set its sights on a seemingly innocuous target: a satellite television preacher named Adnan Oktar.
[...] "It is just about control," said Kerem Altiparmak, a human rights and media lawyer. "Considering what has been happening in Turkey, I have no doubt this is a hegemonic power, controlling newspapers, TV and the judiciary, that is now out to control the [I]nternet sector."
All the restrictions are made that much easier through increased use of and dependence on centralized services like Facebook by the remaining opposition.
Source : Erdogan's Next Target as He Restricts Turkey's Democracy: The Internet
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @07:41PM (1 child)
No he wasn't, read a book.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pTamok on Monday March 05 2018, @09:19PM
Well, it depends. Hitler was the leader of the largest party in the Reichstag after the elections of 31st July 1932. The NSDAP were allocated 230 out of 608 seats. It's worthwhile reading the Wikipedia paragraph relating the rise to power of he Nazis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925%E2%80%931933 [wikipedia.org] for a quick overview, and also the timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_timeline_of_Nazism#Weimar_Republic. [wikipedia.org] Key points include the Reichstag Fire decree [wikipedia.org], of dubious constitutionality, and similarly, the passing of the Enabling Act [wikipedia.org].
It is not hard to draw parallels with the rise of authoritarian right-wing political groups that have good media skills (or at least, successfully control the media) currently. Whether one would be correct to do so is another question. It is also remarkably convenient to use extraordinary events to arrogate emergency powers. Some might argue that the Gulenist coup attempt [wikipedia.org] was one such event, and certainly, one result of it was the declaration of a state of emergency [wikipedia.org] where 'Under the state of emergency, under Article 121, "the Council of Ministers, meeting under the chairpersonship of the President of the Republic, may issue decrees having the force of law on matters necessitated by the state of emergency..." with decrees subject to subsequent parliamentary approval.'.
Hitler's NSDAP was electorally very successful. That success was twisted in constitutionally dubious ways to enable Hitler to gain absolute power, but that could not have been done without the large base of support the NSDAP had.