On this day in 2013, Turkish protesters began occupying Gezi Park to oppose its demolition, an act with led to widespread protests and strikes with approximately 3,500,000 participants, 22 deaths, and more than 8,000 injuries.
The wave of civil unrest across Turkey began after the park occupation was violently evicted by police, who used to tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannons to try and break up the protests, injuring more than one hundred people and hospitalizing a journalist.
The protest quickly grew in size - by May 31st, 10,000 gathered in Istiklal Avenue. In June, the protests became national in scope and transcended any particular demographic or political ideology. Among the wide range of concerns brought by protesters were issues of freedom of the press, expression, and assembly, as well as the alleged political Islamist government’s erosion of Turkey’s secularism.
Millions of Turkish football fans, normally divided by intense sports rivalry, marched in unity against the government. Protesters displayed symbols the environmentalist movement, rainbow banners, depictions of Che Guevara, different trade unions, and the PKK and its leader Abdullah Öcalan.
On June 4th, Taksim Dayanışması (Taksim Solidarity) issued a set of demands that included the preservation of Gezi Park, an end to police violence, the right to freedom of assembly, and an end to the privatization of public spaces. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç met the group on June 5th and rejected these demands.
Erdoğan blamed the protests on “internal traitors and external collaborators”, demonizing his political opposition as the former. Despite the popular mobilization, Erdoğan remained in power and no major concessions were won from the government.
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Discord used to be kinda neat for chatting and gaming
Enshitification has absolutely fucked the internet and I’m surprised that people are still using it tbh. For example, Reddit’s been shit for quite some time but the writing on the wall was there when it decided to ban all communist subreddits. Seems like all of them have “anarchist” mods that don’t even seem anarchist lol
I guess if your only experience with other messaging + VoIP clients was Skype and maybe Facebook then Discord looks like a great place.
But if you use GNU/Linux like I do. Discord literally can’t manage to update their electron version correctly for screensharing so KDE had to create a x11 -> wayland video bridge themselves for it to work (as well as for Zoom who have their own issues).
Also Spyware Watchdog has a good writeup on it. It isn’t enshittification, it was always like this because it is proprietary and they managed to attract the most lucrative and foolish demographic: G@mers.
Honestly, I should probably look into Linux now that I’m working as a software dev. It seems like computer stuff just make more sense when you’re forced to look at the most granular data structures all day 😝