EMRE KIZILKAYA

Fatih Polat on X: "İsrail'in Türkiyeli gazetecileri gözaltına alması basın özgürlüğüne darbedir. Onları sadece Türkiye gözaltına alabilir." / X İsrail'in Türkiyeli gazetecileri gözaltına alması basın özgürlüğüne darbedir. Onları sadece Türkiye gözaltına alabilir.

Israeli authorities arrested two Turkish journalists, prompting protests from Ankara.

Fatih Polat, former editor of Evrensel, shared a brilliant comment on X today:

"Israel's arrest of Turkish journalists is a blow to press freedom. Only Turkey is allowed to arrest them!"

x.com/fpolat69/sta...

Territory claimed.

A warning sign on a door at Istanbul University reads: “A #cat has given birth inside. Please do not use lecture hall.”

Years ago, I sat in that very classroom as a student, taking the very same Political Organizations course, on a campus accustomed to coexisting with #animals.

#Democracy is not something to be taken for granted. Unless it is actively defended every single day by the people it belongs to, it will erode far sooner than most expect.

#MediaFreedom #CNNSale #MediaOwnership #PressFreedom #WarnerBros #Paramount #Netflix

Democratic societies should not place too much faith in the protective power of institutions alone (Hi, dear Daron Acemoglu!). Institutions can withstand pressure up to a point. But under enough strain, for long enough, they break.

Unfortunately, journalists at @cnn.com now face the pressures their Turkish colleagues experienced. And if the democratic public in the US fails to oppose this consolidation of #media control, which includes #BigTech, American #information ecosystem may mirror Turkey's path of democratic erosion.

I was surprised because I remember that some of CNN US employees were following the developments in Turkey, such as 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿, who texted me to ask about these issues many years ago.

Last year in Italy, I stumbled upon 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁 𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗹𝘀, CNN's VP of News, EMEA. We briefly chatted. I was surprised that he remained largely unaware of how their Turkish franchise had completely turned into a #propaganda and #disinformation outlet after the purchase.

A Trump ally is about to acquire the parent company of CNN, mostly for political reasons. This is reminiscent of how an Erdogan ally bought the media group I worked for, which also owned CNN Turk, in 2018.

Journalism must instead operate as an active structural #resistance, dismantling these mediations to preserve an objective, shared reality.

#Journalism #UmbertoEco #NewsMedia #Humanities #Democracy

Because the spectacle functions to invert reality into a passive accumulation of appearances as Guy Debord once observed, the commodification of news accelerates this civic detachment.

Yet, if the book provides the enduring architecture of #culture, then #journalism serves as a crucial pillar for public reason, preventing civic discourse from collapsing under the weight of spectacle.

Extending this premise, the contemporary consumer mentality also reduces #news to a fleeting distraction, treating it as a mere good to be digested and discarded.

I find it hard to believe that it's already been 10 years since the great Umberto Eco passed. He had said that "those who love #books know that a book is anything but a commodity."

Shoshana Zuboff wants to abolish social media | The Observer The Harvard professor believes that Silicon Valley’s business model must be outlawed. Her new film about the tragic case of Molly Russell explains why

Shoshana Zuboff outlines her rigorous case for abolishing #surveillance-driven social media in an interview with The Observer: observer.co.uk/culture/inte...

Amara’s Law, coined by Stanford researcher Roy Charles Amara in 1978, states: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a #technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

Over the years, I've come to believe that the true measure of a society is found in how it treats its weakest and its wisest.

"We knew that international #law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim," says Canadian PM Mark Carney in one of the most significant speeches by a head of government in the 21st century.

#EndImpunity
#Justice #HrantDink

The Observer's best books of the 21st century Please take the time to complete our survey. Your feedback is important.

All three are essential for understanding how the blind quest for #wealth and #power is destroying our world and democracies today.

You can cast your vote here: www.smartsurvey.com/t/observerbo...

#Books #ReadingList #SurveillanceCapitalism #TheObserver #BestBooks

The Observer is asking readers to select the top books of the 21st century so far. It is a tough list to narrow down, but I’ve locked in my three votes:

1. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐠𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦 by Shoshana Zuboff

2. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐄𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 by Sunil Amrith

3. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 by Michael Lewis

RAM sticks I bought for $160 last year are now listed at $629. It’s unbelievable that cartel-like price-fixing by companies like #Nvidia and #Micron is now treated as normal, 20 years after the DRAM #antitrust cases. They’re gutting the consumer market to feed #AI data centers. The EU needs to act.

Brief bursts of wisdom — Harvard Gazette Aphorism lover and historian James Geary reflects on how ancient literary art form fits into age of social media.

Celebrating the short, witty, philosophical phrases known as aphorisms, THE WORLD IN A PHRASE is an entertaining tour through the wisest sayings in the world. In this interview, author James Geary reflects on how ancient literary art form fits into age of social media.

‘Adults think with their mouths open’: five modern aphorisms to help us make sense of 2025 In his new book The World in a Phrase, author James Geary shares aphorisms from David Byrne, James Baldwin and more that speak to the modern day

Great to see the new edition of James Geary’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘗𝘩𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘦: 𝘈 𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘮 published this month, which brings together a wide range of aphorisms that continue to resonate in 2025: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n... #books #writing #language #culture #ideas

I wrote a discussion paper for @harvard-carr-ryan.bsky.social as part of our #Technology and #HumanRights fellowship on #SurveillanceCapitalism.

It examines how authoritarian states and #BigTech create a system of "dual domination" in fragile democracies: www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr...

Bosphorus is a super-element: mobility culture and urban perception of international students in Istanbul The purpose of this study is to investigate how international students in Istanbul perceive and practice the city and what role technology plays as a mediator in their mobility culture. Employing a...

5️⃣ Grateful to co-authors Kerem Rızvanoğlu, Serhat Güney, Betül Aydoğan and Onurcan Güden.

The link to the full paper, which you can also find interactive maps to explore: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBQ8I...

#UrbanTech #DigitalHumanities #MobilityCulture #AlgorithmicBias #SmartCities #Algorithms

4️⃣ Why this matters:

🔹 Planners: Reveals stratified accessibility.

🔹 Tech firms: Shows need for more inclusive, serendipity-driven maps.

🔹 Universities: Helps understand international student mobility & belonging.

3️⃣ Key findings:

💡 Algorithmic Urbanism – Navigation apps reinforce centrality, making peripheries digitally invisible.

💡 Mobility Bubble – Metro networks compress the city into a 50 km² triangle of accessibility.

💡 Bosphorus = Super-Element – The city’s key symbolic and orientational anchor.

2️⃣ We analyzed:

• 265M transit journeys
• Surveys with 208 international students
• Gamified digital diaries and walk & talk sessions

1️⃣ Our new paper “𝐁𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐮𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫-𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭” is out in 𝘔𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴! 🚀

A 2-year mixed-method study on how locative algorithms and transit systems shape how international students see and move through Istanbul.

🔗 www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBQ8I...

#UrbanStudies #BigData #Istanbul #Lynch #Lefebvre

We had a great discussion with @courtneyr.bsky.social on "Big Tech + Big Brother: Resisting ‘techno-fascism’ and the surveillance state" at the @globalfreemedia.bsky.social World Congress & Media Innovation Festival in Vienna on October 25.

Credit © Ronja Koskinen / IPI