Facebook unfriended a Kurdish dissident group

Stefan Mileschin · 2nd March 2021, 08:17

Nice to know who your friends are

Social notworking site Facebook banned a Kurdish YPG dissident group because its presence on the site was offending the Turkish government and it might cause problems for its business in the country.

As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighbouring 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.

To be fair to Facebook, YPG is an armed group that fights the Turks, but at the time no one wanted to be giving into authoritarian government. Unless you were a Facebook executive. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's No. 2 executives wrote: “I am fine with this".

"The page caused us a few PR fires in the past", one Facebook manager warned of the YPG material.

However her words are coming back to haunt her as the YPG photos and updates on Turkish military's brutal attacks on the Kurdish minority in Syria still can't be viewed by Facebook users inside Turkey.

https://fudzilla.com/news/52436-face...issident-group

2nd March 2021, 08:17	#1
Stefan Mileschin [M] Reviewer Join Date: May 2010 Location: Romania Posts: 153,575	Facebook unfriended a Kurdish dissident group Nice to know who your friends are Social notworking site Facebook banned a Kurdish YPG dissident group because its presence on the site was offending the Turkish government and it might cause problems for its business in the country. As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighbouring 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. To be fair to Facebook, YPG is an armed group that fights the Turks, but at the time no one wanted to be giving into authoritarian government. Unless you were a Facebook executive. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's No. 2 executives wrote: “I am fine with this". "The page caused us a few PR fires in the past", one Facebook manager warned of the YPG material. However her words are coming back to haunt her as the YPG photos and updates on Turkish military's brutal attacks on the Kurdish minority in Syria still can't be viewed by Facebook users inside Turkey. https://fudzilla.com/news/52436-face...issident-group

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