Turkish Prime Minister Blames Twitter For Mass Social Unrest, Because It Sure Beats Blaming Himself

from the try-again-please dept

You may have heard a thing or two about the protests going on in Turkey. If you haven't, you really ought to read the news a bit more, because it's a pretty big deal. What started as a small protest swelled into a very big one, with much of the anger being directed at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan's response? Blame Twitter.

"There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society."

If you wanted to demonstrate just how out of touch you are, and how in denial you are to complaints from the public, I'd have trouble thinking of a much better way to express it than those statements right there. It's certainly not going to stop the anger and the protests. No one is hanging out near Taksim Square hearing that, and saying, "oh, gee, I guess it's time to go home now."

Mocking the tool that people are using to communicate and to organize is a strategy that's never going to succeed, and can only serve to make things worse. It also makes clear how out of control the situation really is. When things are under control you don't make statements like that one, which simply demonstrate a Prime Minister in denial.

Filed Under: denial, recep tayyip erdogan, social media, turkey
Companies: twitter

Denial: MPAA Pretends That No Big Sites Have Joined SOPA/PIPA Protests

from the living-in-denial dept

Living in what can only be described as pure denial, the MPAA announced today that the SOPA/PIPA protests "failed to enlist big sites." Honestly, there's really not much more to say about that. Google. Wikipedia. Facebook. Amazon. Craigslist. All participating. Let's just stare in wonder at the MPAA's hubris and ability to deny reality.

Filed Under: blackouts, denial, pipa, protect ip, protests, sopa
Companies: google, mpaa, wikipedia

DoD Blocking Access To Techdirt Because It's About 'Computers And Internet'?

from the say-what-now dept

Sent in by an anonymous person in the Defense Department is the notice that they were unable to read our recent story about customs and border patrol harassing Wikileaks volunteer Jacob Appelbaum as he flew into Seattle from a vacation in Iceland. What struck me, however, was the hilarious wording explaining the block:

This Page Cannot Be Displayed

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Based on DOD access policies, access to this web site ( https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110112/16054412641/customs-hamfisted-attempts-to-intimidate-wikileaks-volunteers.shtml ) has been blocked because the web category "Computers and Internet" is not allowed, your IP address and username have been recorded and forwarded to your IA staff for review.

As the reader notes: "Who'd have thought that "Computers and Internet" would be banned when they give me one, and an Internet connection, to work with?" Nice to see that the DoD is so concerned that DoD workers see what their own government is up to.

Filed Under: blocks, defense department, denial

US Government Seeks 'Willful Denial' Software That Will Block Wikileaks Data From Federal Employees

from the are-they-serious? dept

It's been both depressing and amusing to watch the federal government react to Wikileaks with some of the dumbest policy decisions possible. First, we saw the Library of Congress block access to Wikileaks' site, not realizing that the site was barely a part of how the documents were being distributed, while still frustrating Congressional Research Service analysts who needed to access the site as a part of their research. Then, we had reports of the Defense Department crudely blocking access to any website that had Wikileaks in the title, followed by the Air Force's decision to block access to news sites, such as the NY Times, that are discussing Wikileaks.

This is all downright bizarre. Basically, this is content that everyone else in the world can access and read about, except for government employees who don't look at it at home. The whole exercise seems like a complete waste of time and money by the US government, and it's about to get worse. According to some reports, the federal government is reaching out to security firms to see if they can build a system to block all access to Wikileaks content from within the federal government's computer system. One company asked about this notes that it's different than what they normally do, which is focused on keeping documents in a network (too late for that), rather than architecting a system to keep documents out.

At what point will the government finally admit that if a classified document is leaked and widely available, it's counterproductive to keep pretending that it's still classified. It doesn't help anyone, and it just makes the government look silly and in denial. I prefer my government to respond to reality, not pretend reality doesn't exist.

Filed Under: denial, federal government, firewall, us government, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

How Denial Works: Library Of Congress Blocks Wikileaks

from the head-in-the-sand dept

So the latest in the US government sticking its head in the sand over Wikileaks is that the Library of Congress has blocked access to the Wikileaks site, claiming:

The Library decided to block Wikileaks because applicable law obligates federal agencies to protect classified information. Unauthorized disclosures of classified documents do not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents.

I don't know how to put this any more diplomatically, so I'll just say it straight up: this is stupid. This is pure denialism. We've seen it before, such as in the Al-Haramain case, where the government accidentally leaked evidence of warrantless wiretapping, and the information was widely available... but everyone involved in the case had to pretend it wasn't available. It's stupid.

And that's what's going on here. Rather than admitting that the content released by Wikileaks is available all over the damn internet while also being widely reported on in the press and elsewhere, the Library of Congress pretends that blocking access to Wikileaks actually does something. It does not. It just makes the Library of Congress appear to be in denial. If the Library of Congress was actually serious about blocking access to classified information, it would also need to block all of the torrents that contain the cables, the scores of media outlets reporting on this and highlighting the documents and the thousands of other places that are also offering up the documents. But that's (of course) impossible. Which is kind of the point. Why make such a symbolically silly move and claim that it's because you're "obligated" to block such content. How hard is it to admit the reality of the situation, rather than pretending it's something different? I don't know about you, but I would prefer that my government responded to the reality of what's going on, rather than pretending it wasn't going on at all.

Filed Under: denial, library of congress, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Comcast Pretends That Cord Cutters Aren't Cord Cutters If They Cut Cord Because Of The Economy

from the denial-is-a-channel-on-the-internet dept

A couple of months back, we noted that the TV companies were in complete denial, insisting that the idea that people would cut the cable cord to go internet-only would never happen. However, we noted with amusement that the same day, that article came out so did a report saying that cable TV had suffered its first ever decline in subscribers. It seems that's continuing. Comcast apparently lost 275,000 video subscribers in the third quarter. However, the company has an ingenious way to make it clear that those people aren't cord cutters. Why not? Because they're saying they canceled their accounts due to the economy:

Comcast lost 275,000 cable subscribers last quarter, and has lost 622,000 in the first 9 months of 2010. More evidence of "cord cutting"? Nope, says the cable giant. It's evidence that the economy sucks. That's the short version of the company's explanation for the drop during its earnings call this morning: It had a variety of reasons to explain the exodus of subscribers, but all of them revolved around money that their previous customers don't have or don't want to part with.

Um. That doesn't change the fact that they were cord cutters. One of the reasons why people will cut the cord is that cable TV is too expensive (something that Mark Cuban is still confused about). One of the things contributing to the "tough economic conditions" for people at home is the fact that their cable bill keeps going up and up to pay for the "billions" in retransmission fees that Cuban and others want to last forever. And that's only going to serve to drive more people to cut the cord.

Filed Under: cord cutters, denial, economy
Companies: comcast

How Many 'Significant Blows' Against File Sharing Will It Take For File Sharing To Actually Decrease?

from the we're-still-waiting... dept

Back in 2006, we started noticing how every raid or every legal win against some sort of file sharing operation resulted in the RIAA, MPAA or equivalent organization coming out with a statement about how this was "a significant blow" against unauthorized file sharing (they normally used this misleading or incorrect terms "piracy" or "theft"). But, we were beginning to wonder, just how many "significant blows" does it take to make a difference? Since then, there have been many, many, many such claims of "significant blows" and absolutely no evidence that it has had any impact whatsoever.

TorrentFreak is noting that a bunch of sites that were recently raided or lost lawsuits all seemed to bounce back within days, which really seems to highlight that for all of these "significant blows" -- it doesn't appear that the word "significant" really means what the entertainment industry appears to think it means....

Filed Under: denial, file sharing, significant blow

Verizon Wireless Denies It's Charging People Phantom $1.99 Fee, Despite Tons Of Complaints

from the this-won't-end-well dept

For a little while now, Broadband Reports has been doing a good job highlighting how Verizon Wireless has been charging a phantom $1.99 fee for "accessing the internet" even when users claim they did no such thing. Despite a growing amount of press coverage, Verizon Wireless had been silent on the issue. However, once David Pogue at the NY Times reported on it, finally the FCC got involved and asked Verizon Wireless to explain. The company apparently delayed for a while and then sent a reply (pdf). While much of the press coverage focused on a separate question (about why Verizon Wireless had doubled its early termination fees), what may be more interesting is the company's non-response to the phantom $1.99. It basically said it doesn't do what lots and lots of people are saying it does. David Pogue noticed how odd this is and why Verizon Wireless is not being upfront:

How about the 400 people who chimed in to say, "Me too!" in the comments of my original post? Are they all idiots? How about me? I found several of those $1.99 charges on my own bills. How about the Verizon whistleblower who has begged his managers to change this greedy scheme, and been told to shut up? Is he mistaken?

Even more amusing is that Pogue contacted the Verizon Wireless PR person who had initially scolded him for not getting a comment from the company for his original story:

"I'm going to let the letter to the F.C.C. speak for us," he said. "I'm not able to comment further."

"But you're saying that you don't charge that $1.99 fee!" I told him. "Yet it's happened to hundreds of my readers, and it's happened to me. So what are we missing?"

"I'm going to let the letter to the F.C.C. speak for us."

"But it just says Verizon isn't doing it!"

"I'm going to let the letter to the F.C.C. speak for us."

Comforting, right? It amazes me that companies actually think this sort of approach makes sense, when it's almost guaranteed that the details will eventually come out. Update: FCC isn't buying Verizon Wireless' response.

Filed Under: denial, phantom fees
Companies: verizon wireless

Understanding The Decline And Fall Of The Major Record Labels

from the perhaps-it-was-inevitable dept

There's a fascinating, and well sourced, editorial over at Hypebot by Kyle Bylin, suggesting why the major record labels have had so much trouble adapting to these changing times. Bylin argues, convincingly, that a big part of the problem was that as the record labels got bigger and bigger, they focused solely on the "music as commerce" side of things, ignoring the role of "music as culture." Obviously, music as commerce is an important part of the music business, but if you ignore the cultural importance of music (except, of course, when lobbying the government for more protections) you miss what's actually happening in the marketplace: how people are connecting with the music, and what they're doing (and want to do) with the music. Here's a snippet:

As the record industry moved through this stage there was a decline in learning orientation -- in learning what fans actually wanted -- both in terms of how they consumed music and what they were willing to pay for. So to, they began to discount the role that luck played in their success, to assume that the mass-marketing successes that occurred near the end the CD boom, which sold 3-4 million copies, applied to the natural laws of the universe, rather than that of a relatively short-lived phenomenon. This addiction to blockbuster artists is what characterizes the second stage of decline, which Collin's deemed The Undisciplined Pursuit of More. Here, the record industry started out on an unsustainable quest, and, because of their huge successes, they were pressured to grow.

Having reached the peak of the CD boom in 1999, the record industry had become a nearly $15-billion-a-year juggernaut, but under the pressure for more growth they collapsed, and, in the process, a vicious cycle of expectations had been set that strained the artists, the fans, the culture, and their systems to the point of breaking. Since record industry was unable to deliver new music with "consistent tactical excellence," they began to fray at the edges. Disruptive technologies were released, an epidemic of file-sharing proceeded, and, at this critical juncture, vested interests of music executives struggled and competed to achieve repetitive consumption through obsolescence. But these executives were too late, as the record industry, by externalizing the blame for their decline in sales, had already started to show symptoms of stage three, Denial of Risk and Peril.

Music executives began discounting negative data, amplifying positive data, and putting a positive spin on ambiguous data. In stage three, Collin's argues that those in power start to blame external factors for setbacks -- "or otherwise explain away the data" -- rather than accepting responsibility and confronting "the frightening reality that their enterprise may be in serious trouble." Right away, the Internet and file-sharing became easy scapegoats for the decline in sales that the record industry faced.

There's nothing all that surprising in the essay, but it's nicely written and explained. Well worth reading the whole thing.

Filed Under: business, denial, luck, record labels, strategy

When There Are So Many 'Human Errors' On Your E-Voting Machines, It's Your Problem

from the sequoia,-i'm-talking-to-you dept

Last week, we wrote about yet another problem with Sequoia e-voting equipment where the company was vehemently denying the problem was with the machines, even saying: "There's absolutely no problem with the machines in the polling places. No. No." Of course, this came right after a report revealing how easy it was to hack their machines, as well as numerous other problems with Sequoia machines. Yet the company consistently employs the same exact strategy: it couldn't possibly be the fault of the machines.

You may recall the story earlier this month about the Sequoia optical scanning machines in Palm Beach County that supposedly couldn't reach the same vote tally if different counting machines were used. At least that was the original claim -- but it was later changed when election officials admitted they had simply misplaced some ballots. Well, the latest report claims that the recount is now not showing lost ballots -- it's showing too many ballots. Fantastic. Election officials think they've traced the problem to the fact that some votes on Sequoia's e-voting machine cartridges weren't properly transferred, which kicks off Sequoia's standard PR response:

The company's representative, Phil Foster says "the cartridge is fine. Why it didn't read I do not know," suggesting another human error made on election night.

You know, when you keep saying that, and the problems keep occurring, at some point, people are going to stop believing you. Even if the problem really is human error every one of these times, people might begin to wonder why you don't design your systems to avoid such human errors.

Filed Under: denial, e-voting, human errors, palm beach county, security, vulnerabilities
Companies: sequoia