This is a dizzying time for anyone who follows the subject of online censorship by authoritarian regimes.
The latest story on that front is Turkey’s decision over the weekend to stop blocking Instagram, which it did for nine days. The reasons for the short-lived ban were never entirely clear.
Judging from officials’ comments, it was either because Instagram wasn’t censoring enough content (it apparently didn’t take down posts insulting Turkish founding father Kemal Ataturk or referencing “gambling, drugs and abuse of children”) or because it was censoring too much (President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director complained that Instagram was “preventing people from publishing messages of condolence” for slain Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.)
Either way, the Turkish government claims the Meta-owned photo site has now “promised to work jointly on posts related to catalog crimes and censorship.” I’ve asked Meta to explain how it’s now going to meet the government’s demands; no answer yet. By the way, the video game platform Roblox remains blocked in Turkey, which nixed it last week in the name of child protection.
Meanwhile, as we mentioned in Friday’s newsletter, Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro has suspended access to X, following his likely-bogus claim of victory in the country’s recent election. (No word yet on whether Maduro and X proprietor Elon Musk will engage in a cage fight that Maduro proposed, with Musk accepting.)
But Caracas has also blocked Signal, the encrypted messaging app. And so too has Moscow, which is scrambling to ramp up censorship following Ukraine’s military incursion into the Russian province of Kursk. The Russian online censor Roskomnadzor said the Signal blockage, which followed reported restrictions on YouTube access, was necessary “to prevent terrorism and extremism.”
Signal said Saturday that it was aware of blockages in several countries, and offered instructions for those who want to set up proxy servers so people there can bypass the censorship. The endless cat-and-mouse game continues.
Stepping away from the subject of censorship now: The tech world was shaken Friday by the death at 56 of Susan Wojcicki, who had been living with lung cancer for the last two years. Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google in Wojcicki’s garage in 1998, and she fulfilled key roles for the company from 1999 to early last year, when she stepped down after nearly a decade of helming YouTube. Apart from her sterling achievements as a tech leader—which Allie Garfinkle celebrates in today's Term Sheet—I also strongly recommend reading Diane Brady’s piece on Wojcicki’s legacy as a working mother.
Also, rest in peace, Mike Magee, cofounder of The Register and other scrappy tech news publications, who passed away yesterday at the age of 74. Magee (who was also a notable occultist) melded deep tech reporting with tabloid-style irreverence, and tech journalism is all the better for his legacy.
More news below.
David Meyer
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