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Friday, March 21, 2014

Malaysian Opposition Leader Calls Speculation About Pilot of Missing Jet ‘Absurd’

Video of a Channel 4 News interview with the Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on Friday.

Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, dismissed speculation that the pilot of the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, a supporter of his movement for democratic change, might have hijacked the plane for political reasons, in an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 News on Friday.

As The Lede explained on Wednesday, the pilot, Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, was reportedly described by an unnamed government official as a “fanatical” supporter of Mr. Ibrahim, a remark that was widely misinterpreted by journalists and bloggers.

Speaking to the Channel 4 correspondent Jonathan Rugman, Mr. Ibrahim criticized the Malaysian government’s handling of the investigation into the missing Flight 370 as “clear incompetence” and said that any attempt “to cast aspersions on the pilot purely on the basis of political leanings is absurd.” Captain Zaharie was, according to Mr. Ibrahim, “very passionate about freedom and democracy,” and “a good professional pilot,” who simply did not fit the profile of an Islamist radical.

Days after Malaysian officials stunned international television viewers by grabbing relatives of missing passengers and dragging them away from reporters, Mr. Ibrahim said that the ruling coalition, which has been in power since 1957, was unable to deal with journalists who are not under state control. “They have been used to a compliant and controlled media,” he said. “And now, facing a more critical international audience, they have a problem. They fumble.”

Follow Robert Mackey on Twitter @robertmackey.



Turks Evade Twitter Ban to Mock Twitter Ban, on Twitter

As my colleagues Sebnem Arsu and Alan Cowell report, Turkey’s court-ordered ban on Twitter was widely subverted on Friday by many of the 12 million Turkish users of the social network, who found ways to gain access to the platform and posted defiant messages of protest.

Many of the messages posted on Friday celebrated creative means of sharing information offline about how Turks can alter Domain Name System settings on their devices to allow them to evade the ban; others mocked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan â€" who told supporters he would “eradicate” the social network he has blamed for spreading what he calls false information about government corruption.

Elif Batuman, a Turkish-American writer, explained that bloggers mocking the ban quickly seized on a contemptuous comment by the prime minister, who scoffed at what he called in Turkish “Twitter, mwitter!” which might be roughly translated into English as “Twitter, schmitter!”

As the journalist and blogger Emre Kizilkaya reported, evasive measures were also suggested by Twitter’s global public policy unit almost as soon as the ban was imposed late Thursday.

Just as they did during the period when YouTube was blocked in Turkey, even some senior officials openly continued using Twitter despite the official prohibition. The most prominent message of dissent came from the country’s president, Abdullah Gul, who recently signed legislation that made it easier for the state Internet regulator to block websites but tweeted Friday morning that the blocking of “Sosyal medya” platforms was unacceptable.

The president was not the only senior official to continue tweeting despite the ban.

At Istanbul’s Buster Internet café, a student named Engin Alturk told my colleague Ceylan Yeginsu that the prohibition had only encouraged people to tweet more. “The ban has had the opposite effect, millions of people are tweeting mocking the government as Erdogan gives his usual rant on television,” he said. “We lived without YouTube for a year, we know all the tricks to get around this,” he added. “Erdogan must think us stupid.”

Writing on Medium, the Turkish sociologist Zeynep Tufekci observed that the ban “has backfired.”

The only people not on Twitter at the moment,” Ms. Tufekci wrote, “are ardent pro-government supporters who do not want to circumvent, and people who may not have the fairly minimal skill required to circumvent. I suspect the latter camp will dwindle.” Turks, she added, “are getting even more practiced and determined in circumvention.”

As a friend said, her 60-year-old mother, practiced from the days of the YouTube ban, was able to get right back on after being told “do what you did for YouTube few years ago.” Anyone too young to have figured things out through previous practice is doing so now.

Reporting was contributed by Ceylan Yeginsu in Istanbul.

Follow Robert Mackey on Twitter @robertmackey.



Turks Evade Twitter Ban to Mock Twitter Ban, on Twitter

As my colleagues Sebnem Arsu and Alan Cowell report, Turkey’s court-ordered ban on Twitter was widely subverted on Friday by many of the 12 million Turkish users of the social network, who found ways to gain access to the platform and posted defiant messages of protest.

Many of the messages posted on Friday celebrated creative means of sharing information offline about how Turks can alter Domain Name System settings on their devices to allow them to evade the ban; others mocked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan â€" who told supporters he would “eradicate” the social network he has blamed for spreading what he calls false information about government corruption.

Elif Batuman, a Turkish-American writer, explained that bloggers mocking the ban quickly seized on a contemptuous comment by the prime minister, who scoffed at what he called in Turkish “Twitter, mwitter!” which might be roughly translated into English as “Twitter, schmitter!”

As the journalist and blogger Emre Kizilkaya reported, evasive measures were also suggested by Twitter’s global public policy unit almost as soon as the ban was imposed late Thursday.

Just as they did during the period when YouTube was blocked in Turkey, even some senior officials openly continued using Twitter despite the official prohibition. The most prominent message of dissent came from the country’s president, Abdullah Gul, who recently signed legislation that made it easier for the state Internet regulator to block websites but tweeted Friday morning that the blocking of “Sosyal medya” platforms was unacceptable.

The president was not the only senior official to continue tweeting despite the ban.

At Istanbul’s Buster Internet café, a student named Engin Alturk told my colleague Ceylan Yeginsu that the prohibition had only encouraged people to tweet more. “The ban has had the opposite effect, millions of people are tweeting mocking the government as Erdogan gives his usual rant on television,” he said. “We lived without YouTube for a year, we know all the tricks to get around this,” he added. “Erdogan must think us stupid.”

Writing on Medium, the Turkish sociologist Zeynep Tufekci observed that the ban “has backfired.”

The only people not on Twitter at the moment,” Ms. Tufekci wrote, “are ardent pro-government supporters who do not want to circumvent, and people who may not have the fairly minimal skill required to circumvent. I suspect the latter camp will dwindle.” Turks, she added, “are getting even more practiced and determined in circumvention.”

As a friend said, her 60-year-old mother, practiced from the days of the YouTube ban, was able to get right back on after being told “do what you did for YouTube few years ago.” Anyone too young to have figured things out through previous practice is doing so now.

Reporting was contributed by Ceylan Yeginsu in Istanbul.

Follow Robert Mackey on Twitter @robertmackey.



Students and Readers Share Their Experiences of Race on Campus

As I report in The Big Topic on Campus: Racial ‘Microaggressions’, “microaggressions” is a term that has long been used by race theorists and sociologists, and is now increasingly popping up in blogs, social media campaigns, art and academic papers. Young people are using the term to describe the subtle ways that racial, ethnic, gender and other stereotypes can play out painfully in an increasingly diverse culture.

Even when behavior considered microaggressions is not overt, the episodes can have a lasting impact Take, for example, a multimedia project and performance that students at Harvard University produced called “I, Too, Am Harvard.” The project was based on interviews with black students who described feeling marginalized on campus, often a result of subtle or indirect comments like “You’re lucky to be black … so easy to get into college.”

We interviewed several students involved in the project. Here’s Kimiko Matsuda-Lawrence, a writer and director, sharing her experience.

A few weeks ago, following my piece on whether American millennials were “post-racial” (*spoiler alert - it turns out they are not) we asked readers to share their experiences with race on college campuses in blog comments and on Twitter with the hashtag #TellNYT.

A selection of the submissions from students included similar concerns about microaggressions:

 

What about you? Have you experienced microaggressions at school, at work or among friends? How did you respond? Do you think young people are being too sensitive, or are they justified in pointing out how they feel? I look forward to reading your comments below. You can also follow me on Twitter @tanzinavega and use the hashtag #TellNYT to share your thoughts.



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