There's been plenty of talk about how social media -- and specifically tools like Twitter and Facebook -- have been useful in organizing various protests around the world, but it's interesting to see how other popular tools are being used as well. For example, with the huge protests in Turkey, some of the protesters are using IndieGogo to finance a full-page ad in the NY Times to tell their story to the world. And it worked. Within a day, they'd raised the amount and it's continued to rise since then (and there are still weeks left). The NY Times has already accepted the ad as well. This strikes me as fascinating on a number of levels, because crowdfunding is just a different kind of platform -- and while most people just focus on its uses for buying products -- one of the key features is how it actually builds a community around the project in question. And, as such, you can see how it can also be such a powerful tool for building further community and support around a political campaign of sorts.

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.

Techdirt has written a few times about Turkey's difficult relationship with new technology. Unfortunately, it looks like that now includes Twitter, as two troubling decisions against users have been handed down recently. Here's the first, as reported by the Turkish Web site Hürriyet Daily News:

Model Nilay Dorsa had filed a criminal complaint against Tolga Çam who posted a tweet mentioning Dorsa with "offensive content" in November 2011.

…

The court board said Çam committed revilement crime by expressing his personal thoughts over Twitter and sharing them with public, considering Twitter as a media platform for the first time in Turkey.

That sets a bad precedent, since it means that writing on Twitter is now regarded as akin to publishing in a newspaper or magazine, with correspondingly severe punishments. Indeed, only a few days later, the same argument was made when a suspended 10-month sentence for "insulting religious beliefs held by a section of the society" was imposed on the well-known Turkish pianist Fazil Say. According to another story in Hürriyet Daily News, the sentence was increased massively because he "published" his thoughts on Twitter:

Say was initially handed eight months for "committing and insisting on committing a crime" before the court tacked on an additional four years because the artist voiced the insult through "a mode of publication."

Fortunately, the sentence was then reduced to 10 months, and suspended, but made subject to a five-year supervision period, during which time it could still be imposed. A similar three-year supervision was imposed on Çam in the case involving Nilay Dorsa, establishing a clear pattern that is likely to have a chilling effect on the use of Twitter in Turkey.

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Last week we wrote about the important news that Mexico is asking to join what began as a bilateral trade agreement between the US and Europe, with the suggestion that Canada might follow suit. Now, via @FFII, we learn that even before Mexico's announcement, the US has been encouraging other countries to join:

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Wednesday US Secretary of State John Kerry wanted Turkey to be included in Transatlantic Free-Trade Area (TAFTA).

Davutoglu said they would follow closely the process of Turkey's inclusion in TAFTA.

As with Mexico's application, it would seem that the European Union doesn't get any choice in the matter. But what's really interesting here is that it confirms the impression that the US is keen to build out TAFTA to include many more countries, including some far from the Atlantic that originally defined it. The big question is now: who's next on the list?

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Back in 2010, Techdirt reported on Turkey's habit of blocking Google over certain holdings on its various sites. Mostly these were YouTube videos it took exception to, but other services were banned too. An earlier case, from 2009, received less attention at the time, but has now led to a precedent-setting ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that could have a big impact on future cases in Europe, and maybe even beyond.

The case was brought by a Turkish PhD student named Ahmet Yildirim, who complained that he had faced "collateral censorship" when his Web pages hosted on Google Site were shut down by the authorities in 2009 as a result of a court action aimed at another set of pages held there. Open Society Foundations, which had filed a brief with the European Court of Human Rights in support of the applicant's claim, explains the background:

Yildirim's academically-focused site was blocked by the Turkish regulator, TiM, as a result of a court injunction that ordered it to close down local access to the entire Google Sites domain. The move was supposedly aimed at a single website hosted by Google which included content deemed offensive to the memory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, in breach of Turkish law.

Yildirim's appeals against the injunction were turned down by the Turkish courts, which argued that the blanket ban was reasonable because it was not possible for the authorities to block a single Google-hosted site.

In its judgment, the ECHR noted that the regulator had not attempted to contact Google to seek the closure of the offending site, and that the 2007 law that allowed the regulator to close down foreign-hosted sites did not permit blocking an entire domain such as Google Sites.

As this makes clear, the problem was the over-blocking that resulted in all Google Sites being taken down, even though only one of them was accused of insulting modern Turkey's founder. The court's judgment (pdf) explains that such blocks are only compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights if they fulfil various strict conditions:

The Court reiterated that a restriction on access to a source of information was only compatible with the Convention if a strict legal framework was in place regulating the scope of a ban and affording the guarantee of judicial review to prevent possible abuses. However, when the Denizli Criminal Court had decided to block all access to Google Sites, it had simply referred to an opinion from the TiB without ascertaining whether a less far-reaching measure could have been taken to block access specifically to the site in question. The Court further observed that there was no indication that the Criminal Court had made any attempt to weigh up the various interests at stake, in particular by assessing whether it had been necessary to block all access to Google Sites. In the Court's view, this shortcoming was a consequence of the domestic law, which did not lay down any obligation for the courts to examine whether the wholesale blocking of Google Sites was justified. The courts should have had regard to the fact that such a measure would render large amounts of information inaccessible, thus directly affecting the rights of Internet users and having a significant collateral effect.

The broader importance of this decision is explained in a comment quoted by the Open Society Foundations press release:

Darian Pavli, a lawyer at the Justice Initiative who worked on the submission, said: "This is the first ruling by an international tribunal on wholesale blocking of internet content, and a very significant precedent. The court made clear that access to online content is a fundamental right, and that it can only be restricted in exceptional cases, subject to full judicial review."

Although there is a three-month period in which the ruling can be appealed, the fact that the court's verdict was unanimous among the seven judges, one of whom is from Turkey, suggests that any such appeal is unlikely to stand much chance of overturning this important decision.

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Here in Canada, we gave our proverbial thanks over a month ago, and since all the Americans at Techdirt have taken off for the weekend, I thought I'd take a moment to put together some advice on preparing a great Thanksgiving turkey—with a little help from the USPTO.

If you're tired of the traditional roast, maybe it's time to try a more creative preparation—just be careful you don't run afoul of any patents. Here's an idea: with some skilled knife-work, you can slice a turkey into pieces that resemble various cuts of steak—and that method will only be under patent for another five years!

There are lots of unique recipes out there that call for a deboned turkey. For the inexperienced, it's probably wise to ask your butcher to do this for you—just make sure he doesn't use this method until 2022:

Luckily, there are plenty of open alternatives for the patent-savvy chef. Who needs those fancy new turkey cutlets when you can use this classic "method of preparing turkey ... in the form of a flat elongated slice or slices of raw fowl free from bones, tendons, membranes and skin." Mmmmmm. This patent was granted back in the 60s, so it's long since expired:

Or you could try this "method of preparing barbecued poultry such as turkey which closely simulates barbecued pork", patented in the early 70s and now free for all to follow in handy flow-chart form:

And finally, for the vegetarian in your life (assuming they prefer a lump of vaguely meat-shaped tofu to a nice falafel or something), there's this "method and apparatus for preparing a roast turkey analog (replica) from vegetarian ingredients". A patent was applied for in 2005, but appears not to have been granted...yet. Patents are retroactive to the date of filing, so only use this method if you want to gamble on the USPTO rejecting silly patents (then come play poker with me). All you need to do is make yourself what appears to be some kind of turkey mould, or possibly the sunken city of R'lyeh:

This is an exciting time, with much to be thankful for! Who knows what bold new turkey innovations the patent system will fuel next? A turkey-shaped gravy boat? A way of pulling the bones out from a different angle? A recipe where the sauce goes on after the broth? A toy turkey made out of a pine cone? Ooh, that's a good idea—I should call up the USPTO and... oh, never mind, some other Leigh beat me to it in 1927.

It's almost Thanksgiving (here in the US at least), and the traditional meal for this holiday is the humble turkey. So here are a few links about turkeys that might be informative or entertaining if this is your first time cooking a large bird. Have a fun (and safe) Thanksgiving, everybody!

• Underwriters Laboratories (UL) continues to deny a safety certification for any turkey fryers because they're so dangerous if used incorrectly. UL even states that the risks are not worth a great-tasting bird. [url]
• Turkeys have been known to "attack" people when taunted. Wild turkeys make lousy house pets. [url]
• There are a lot of meaningless food labels for turkeys -- such as "all natural" or "minimally-processed." But if it's labelled "fresh" that actually means the turkey has not been cooled below 26 degrees Fahrenheit and has not been fully frozen. [url]
• Alton Brown has a Thanksgiving turkey recipe that promotes the benefits of brining. Alton can't guarantee that you won't overcook your turkey, but brining increases the odds that a cooked turkey won't turn out dry. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

I'm on record as saying that I think the activist hacking by groups like Anonymous, designed to take down websites in protest, are not particularly smart or useful. I will admit, however, that I'm surprised at how effective they've been in drawing additional media attention to certain stories, and how they really have helped drive two particular stories forward (the ACS:Law situation in the UK, and the HBGary Federal story in the US). And while I still don't think it's a particularly effective overall strategy, I must say that I find the whole effort (and similar efforts from "groups" like Lulz Security) fascinating. I've also pointed out that what may be even more interesting is how traditional law enforcement and governments can't really grasp what they're dealing with.

I think that point may be driven home with two separate governments claiming success in "arresting" Anonymous members. Spain got some attention for supposedly arresting three "Anonymous" members late last week, and then Turkey also got some attention for arresting "32 members."

If these individuals were involved in actual criminal activities, then the arrests are perfectly reasonable. But if these governments actually understood what was going on, and actually understood what they were dealing with, they wouldn't have said they were arresting members of "Anonymous," which is hardly a group anyway, and the word "member" is misleading. Taking a traditional top down approach, these governments think that by announcing that they've "arrested Anonymous members," they're likely to scare people off from being a part of Anonymous. It's very much speculation on my part, but knowing the sort of people involved, my guess is that it's having exactly the opposite response. By presenting the people arrested as being a part of Anonymous, these governments are glorifying Anonymous, and adding to the allure. And the arrests are unlikely to scare off too many actual participants, since they quite likely think that they are better at covering their tracks... and as things move along, that will likely be true.

These governments could have easily arrested people and charged them with hacking without making the connection back to Anonymous. Making such statements is like responding to trolls on internet forums. It's tough to resist sometimes, but it only encourages more such activity. And, of course, just as with trolls, this sort of thing really only plays into exactly what Anonymous wants. It builds up the group's own profile, increases the very necessary mythology, and likely improves the efforts to do more such activities (while protecting participants even more).

In a world with increasingly distributed power, Anonymous and others are really a precursor to what's coming down the road, demonstrating how certain forms of activism really don't work the way people in power expect them to. I don't agree with their specific tactics, but I'm fascinated by their ability (intended or not) to get companies and governments to play right into their strategy.

We've discussed in the past how out of touch the bureaucracy is in Turkey when it comes to censoring the internet. Over the past few years, we've seen Turkey ban (repeatedly) various Google sites, with YouTube frequently being blocked across the board over a single childish video. Bureaucrats have defended the blocks, claiming that it's about "respect" and they're not worried about how others feel about it. Yet, as the government has announced plans for further censorship, in the form of filters and restrictions on domains, thousands are apparently taking to the streets to protest, speaking out against such attempts. The government is trying to play down the new efforts, claiming they're not really about censorship, and will be voluntary, but when asked how that fit with bans on certain domain names (e.g., you cannot have a domain name with the word "blonde" in it), the Turkish regulator (BTK) just sent the Wall Street Journal reporter "an email with a dozen of the rudest words in the Turkish lexicon, without comment or explanation." Well, that clears it right up, then.

We've discussed at length Turkey's absolutely ridiculous on again/off again bans on YouTube and other Google sites due to a single example of content that the government doesn't like. Now it appears to be doing it again. The government has now banned all of Google's blog hosting operation, Blogspot, because there are a few blogs out there that are embedding or linking to streaming versions of satellite TV provider Digiturk's TV shows. This is not the first time that the government has banned Blogspot over the identical issue. Seriously, go back and read that post from over two years ago, where it yet again involves Digiturk complaining about Blogspot because some users posted links to unauthorized streams of Turkish football matches. It didn't work last time, why does anyone think it makes sense this time around?