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’t ban the tens of millions of Facebook users in the country from the platform.
ProPublica reported:
As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighboring Syria in early 2018, Facebook’s top executives faced a political dilemma.
Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from the People’s 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?
It wasn’t a particularly close call for the company’s leadership, newly disclosed emails show.
Sheryl Sandberg, author of “Lean In” and Facebook’s chief operating officer, made the determination in a message to team members who were reviewing the YPG’s page.
“I am fine with this,” was all Sandberg wrote, but it was enough to ensure YPG’s message would be censored and Facebook’s business would be protected.
As ProPublica noted, YPG’s 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.
Facebook in January gave lip service to free speech while providing a positive spin on their decision as part of a response to Turkey’s new law about social media firms having legal representation in the country.
“We believe freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, and we work hard to protect and defend these values around the world,” the company wrote. “More 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.”
Back in 2018, however, internal company messages show Facebook was concerned about ensuring they still had access to Turkey’s users rather than anything to do with human rights, ProPublica reported.
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.
“The content that Turkey deemed offensive, according to internal emails, included photos on Facebook-owned Instagram of ‘wounded YPG fighters, Turkish soldiers and possibly civilians.’ At the time, the YPG slammed what it understood to be Facebook’s censorship of such material. ‘Silencing the voice of democracy: In light of the Afrin invasion, YPG experience severe cyberattacks.’ The group has published graphic images, including photos of mortally wounded fighters; ‘this is the way NATO ally Turkey secures its borders,’ YPG wrote in one post,” ProPublica reported.
In a statement to the outlet, Facebook spokesman Andy Stone defended the company:
“We strive to preserve voice for the greatest number of people,” read the statement. “There 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.”