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The Kurdish Facebook scandal
6.3.2012
By Khalid Sulaiman |
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March 6, 2012
The Facebook documents that the UK’s Daily Mail
published recently bring us out of the tunnel of
world change but keeps us in the dark. Because it
raises the curtain on the big lie promoted during
the early nineties stating that the spread of
communication means today will be a strong factor
for the spread of the principles of freedom,
democracy.
Facebook's content policy on the first hand is
related to Kurds, while on the other hand is
connected to Turkey’s policies. It is necessary
therefore to stand still and think about it before
letting it go just like that. Of course there have
been wide spread discussions on Facebook that the
social network bans the circulation of anything like
Kurdish maps, photos of Abdullah Öcalan, but it is
more serious than that. There are other things that
are being blocked by Facebook. Some of these
include:
- The rejection of Holocaust
- Any attack on Ataturk (in photos or text)
- Kurdish maps (Turkey)
- The burning of Turkish flags
- Anything related to Abdullah Öcalan
- Anything that might help the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK)
On the last two points, the content policy does not,
ironically, ban the circulation of the same stuff if
they are against the PKK and Öcalan.
What is astonishing about the content policy is that
these points have been listed under the
international terms and conditions of Facebook's
content policy. But only the first point is about
the holocaust, the rest are about Kurds and Turks.
The first question that pops up is who is actually
running Facebook and is designing its policies? Is
it Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook board, or the
Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT)? This will be the
first question of any ordinary person who reads
Facebook’s international content policy, which
brings together the Holocaust with the burning of
the Turkish flag and attacks on Ataturk! While at
the same time it targets Kurdistan's flag and the
PKK.
The Daily Mail's quotes from Amine Derkaoui, 21, an
ethnic Moroccan who worked for oDesk, a third-party
content-moderation firm used by Facebook, point to
some other important issue. This is the exploitation
of third world people when they work for Facebook
and other giant companies working in the field of
technology and social media. Derkaoui said he was
paid $1 per hour by oDesk, while Facebook earns
hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour from
advertisements.
The highlight here is the association of Facebook’s
content policy with Kurds and the Kurdish flag. Many
people may say it is only about the PKK and its
leader Öcalan,www.ekurd.net
who has been in prison since 1999 on the island jail
of Imirali. OK, fine! But what has Facebook got to
do with Ataturk and the Turkish flag? Or where does
the Holocaust fit in? Is it possible that the
Facebook board have been so told by the Turkish MIT
that Kurds in Turkey have ran a holocaust against
the Jews in Turkey? I know that this is a very
stupid question, but stupidity will lead to stupid
questions, too.
I wonder what the position is of the Kurdish
political elite in Kurdistan and other Kurdish parts
in Iran, Syria and Turkey about this Facebook
content policy, while they pour thousands of dollars
into Facebook's advertising account?
Khalid Sulaiman is an independent Kurdish
journalist and writer
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