For this week’s
blog post I wanted to cover a news story that reminded me a lot of what we read
a few weeks ago about how websites like Yahoo are being censored in places like
France and China. Last week a hostage crisis occurred at a central courthouse in
Istanbul Turkey where a well-known prosecutor was held at gun point against his
will. In an unsuccessful police raid, two militants and the hostage were unfortunately
killed in the cross fire. However, the debate that is being raised isn’t so much
about the wisdom of the raid but rather the publication of a photograph depicting
one terrorist holding said prosecutor helplessly at gun point. Due to the image
being circulated through Twitter and YouTube, the Turkish government
immediately shut down both websites and any additional sites that portrayed the
image. In addition, the Turkish newspapers that published the photograph were
also barred from covering the prosecutor’s funeral. This raises the question;
did Turkish authorities go too far with their rulings?
This wouldn’t be
the first time that the Turkish government had pulled such a move under the
leadership of President Recep Erdogan as they have become somewhat notorious
for aggressively cracking down on expression in a battle between the state and
the press. In fact, due to this history they have only further distanced
themselves from joining the European Union, which they have long aspired to do.
As such, everyone, including myself, generally agrees that Turkey’s censorship
of websites such as Facebook and YouTube are simply stupid. However, this case
is slightly different in my opinion in that I believe a debate should be raised
as to whether or not the image should have been posted without any alterations.
This point was raised by another Turkish reporter, Ahmet Sik, who believed that
the photo should have been published, but the prosecutors face should have been
blurred out as he was confined against his will and it’s important to respect
his family. I completely agree with him for these reasons; however, some people
might disagree with that notion.
My main concern
is that a website like Twitter did nothing to control the circulation of the
photo. I’m not saying that people’s freedom of speech should be confined, as I
certainly do not agree with the Turkish governments recent actions. However, I
feel that it would be ideal if Twitter for example, had some way of analyzing
the pictures that users post, and alerting them if they contained inappropriate
or sensitive content. While this system sounds a lot like the “are you sure you
want to click this button” option, whose effectiveness is a topic of debate in
itself, I believe it would help users think twice about circulating images that
could hurt the families of those involved.
Reference:
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