PM Erdogan of Turkey Calls Twitter a Menace to Society

February 21, 2014 / / No Comments

Marc Andreessen references the New York Times’ summary of remarks from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, which were passed over by the Turkish news media:

Now we have a menace that is called Twitter,” he said. “The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.

He was delighted to hear PM Erdogan’s reaffirmation of Twitter as an important medium for communicating the people’s dissent:

Ukraine and Venezuela

February 20, 2014 / / No Comments

My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine and Venezuela. Everyone in the U.S. hopes the result of your struggles is peace and freedom.

I think it’s becoming increasingly clear: citizens of every country are no longer willing to tolerate oppressive regimes, bad governments. Contrary to cynicism in some quarters: Internet + smartphone + many other info-tech innovations ramping up power of citizens versus bad governments.

Prediction: Every country with a bad government will have as many protests and revolutions as needed to get to peaceful, prosperous democracy.

The world has changed. No going back. There will be difficulties and setbacks, but the direction is crystal clear and will not reverse.

https://twitter.com/IvanTheK/status/436653043892109312

Post created via the following tweets: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Notes From “World Protests 2006-2013”

February 20, 2014 / / No Comments

Notes From “World Protests 2006-2013”

“There have been periods in history when large numbers of people rebelled about the way things were, demanding change, such as in 1848, 1917 or 1968; today we are experiencing another period of rising outrage and discontent, and some of the largest protests in world history.”1,2

A quick summary:

  • A steady increase in the overall number of protests every year: from 2006 (59 protests) to mid-2013 (112 protests events in only 1/2 yr).3
  • Main causes of outrage are: Economic Justice, Failure of Political Representation and Political Systems, Global Justice, Rights of People.4
  • Most sobering finding is overwhelming demand, not for economic justice per se, but for what prevents economic issues from being addressed:5
  • Lack of ‘real democracy’, result of peoples’ growing awareness that policy-making has not prioritized them, even when it has claimed to.6
  • Not only traditional protesters (activists, unions) demonstrating; middle classes, youth, older people are protesting in most countries.7
  • # of protests + # of protestors increasing. 37 events had 1M+ protesters; some may be largest protests ever (100M India ’13, 17M ’13).8

Source: Marc Andreessen’s tweets referencing “World Protests 2006-2013”: