Turkey bans Grok over Erdoğan insults

https://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-ban-elon-musk-grok-recep-tayyip-erdogan-insult/

113•geox•4h ago

Comments

snvzz•4h ago

It is sad.

At one point, they were close to joining the EU.

comrade1234•3h ago

Austria kept blocking it. This lead to Erdogan taking over and he kept pushing.

I don't think they were really that close to joining - too much bad blood ((invasions and stuff) with Austria, Italy , etc.

skinnymuch•3h ago

That’s not the issue. It’s that Turks and Kurds are not considered European. Europeans are the most Islamophobic.

stodor89•11m ago

Even if these statements held any truth, they'd still be irrelevant. "The issue" was Turkey's extremely brutal treatment of Kurds.

larfus•3h ago

Disagree. The current make-up of the EU barely represents historical bonds with so many nations in it. Though a populist leader using such history as leverage is not unbelievable, official Austrian reasoning behind refusal was much more pragmatic, human rights and migrants. Turkey is a regional player punching above their weight (potentially upsetting power balance less-so economically but definitely diplomatically and militarily) and is not exactly in line with EU ideals, culturally and politically, due to years of unstability and turmoil.

That being put aside, despite flaunting acceptance and democracy as their foremost goal, EU leaders surely knew not compromising on Turkey's accession would stray them farther of the EU in every way possible. And if that helps with a potentially bigger migrant crisis, so much the better.

monkeydreams•1h ago

Nations holding the region of Turkey are historically very powerful. My guess is that historical forces are reasserting themselves and that we may could see a much more assertive Turkey going forward.

capitainenemo•1h ago

... due to controlling a key choke-point in land trade between europe and the middle-east and asia. That hardly applies now. The suez canal would be a better modern equivalent.

koolba•3h ago

Forget Austria, there’s no way Greece or Cyprus would allow Turkey to join the EU.

wkat4242•2h ago

I didn't follow it back then but why did Austria block it? I would have expected Greece to do so a lot more (considering the Cyprus conflict is still unresolved)

skinnymuch•3h ago

Europeans were never going to allow Turkey to join

raincole•2h ago

It's sad that this comment is grey outed.

Turkey doesn't even recognize Cyprus, an EU member. It will be braindead for Cyprus to not veto Turkey. Saying Turkey was "close" to join EU is a really long stretch.

burnt-resistor•1h ago

Yep. Lots of hurdles. Turkey needed to grow up in some ways and was closer to getting there 10-15 years ago, but it actually regressed in some ways under Erdoğan.

fakedang•24m ago

In some ways? It regressed the whole nine yards. Won't be surprised if Turkey ends up as a basket case of a major economic crisis which will inadvertently lead to a major social crisis.

smcin•9m ago

'greyed out'

burnt-resistor•1h ago

It's a confluence of multiple factors including Turkey didn't want to carry low performers in the Euro while it was booming, plus a lack of willingness to harmonize with European practices, laws, and standards. Maybe 5-10% of it was racism, but not necessarily a major factor.

orochimaaru•23m ago

Turkey's GDP per capita is a lot lower than that of the EU. A lot of the EU accession talks stalled around human rights and recognition of Cyprus which was an existing EU member. Of course Austria did not want them in - but unless fundamental changes were made with respect to the two things above accession talks would have stalled regardless.

Turkey sits right at the access point between EU and all the Central Asian countries with a lot of oil. This made Turkey an "attractive" nation for the EU economically. Socially though they just are not there.

m00dy•12m ago

Here’s the timeline: Turkey got stamped as an EU candidate at the Helsinki summit in December 1999, while the southern Cyprus didn’t hop into the Union until May 2004.

That five-year gap tells you Cyprus couldn’t have been the first roadblock for Turkey’s talks; the island only became an issue once it was already inside the club.

When Turkey finally sat down for formal accession talks in October 2005, the Cyprus dispute had wrapped itself around every single chapter, turning a one-on-one quarrel into a full-blown EU-level veto.

veeti•3h ago

Let's not pretend EU is much better.

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/europe-crackdown-free-speec...

aosaigh•2h ago

Give me a break. Comparing Turkey to the EU at large is asinine

smotched•2h ago

How is it asinine? they both restrict speech and they both have no concept of "freedom of speech". The only difference is what they choose to censor.

bsoles•2h ago

Do you even know what you are talking about? Do you know how many journalists are in prison in Turkey? "Restricting speech", whatever that means, is nowhere near as putting journalists, mayors, and citizens in prison for "insulting" the president or for saying things that the president and his shills do not like.

smotched•7m ago

It would help to read the article we're discussing.

> Journalist posted a fake image online of the interior minister holding a sign that read “I hate freedom of opinion” and was subsequently handed a seven-month suspended prison sentence. A woman who posted images of politicians with painted-on Hitler mustaches and called a minister a terrorist was fined about $690.

selcuka•2h ago

You are a victim of the Nirvana fallacy [1]: "Europe is better than Turkey in terms of freedom of speech, but since neither is perfect, they are equally bad."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

aurareturn•35m ago

You are a victim of fallacy fallacy [0]: “Just because the argument has a fallacy doesn’t make it automatically false”.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy?wprov=sf...

kelnos•23m ago

No, but at least in this case, the fact that it's false does make it false.

pornel•1h ago

The US is not that exceptional nor principled. The concept of "freedom of speech" is absolute when Republicans want to say Republican things, but it's a "national security issue" when Muslims make too much noise. When sexual minorities want to speak, the priority is to "protect family values" instead. Corporations have "freedom of speech", but TikTok boosting black-green-red flags isn't protected speech, but an agent of the enemy corrupting the youth.

European countries have their own dogmas and hypocrisy, only draw the line at different topics (especially where everyone had their grandparents traumatized in a war started by the Grok's favorite character).

smotched•20m ago

Could you give examples of when a U.S. citizens speech rights were legally taken away? Lets go with one of your examples of "When sexual minorities want to speak". Please elaborate.

None of the examples you gave are actually examples of speech being restricted. Its people (sometimes politicians) freely voicing their opinions on others speech, that is not restriction.

saghm•4m ago

Literally in the last week, the Supreme Court ruled that books featuring gay couples need to be opt-out in schools. They've quite literally taken the stance that someone literally just seeing the existence of a gay couple in a children's picture book is a violation of their freedom.

torlok•2h ago

Did you even read that article? The first paragraph mentions a UK woman who posted "Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the f—ing hotels full of the bastards for all I care. (...)". The rest is also mostly about the UK, not the EU. There's a case of prosecuting satire from Germany mentioned that I'll admit is bad, but that's one example in one EU country.

veeti•16m ago

Did you? Let me spoonfeed you the most relevant parts:

> A German right-wing journalist posted a fake image online of the interior minister holding a sign that read “I hate freedom of opinion” and was subsequently handed a seven-month suspended prison sentence. A woman who posted images of politicians with painted-on Hitler mustaches and called a minister a terrorist was fined about $690.

...

> In France, a woman spent 23 hours in custody for giving French President Emmanuel Macron the middle finger. (She was acquitted after arguing she had pointed her finger in the air and not directly at the president.) Denmark passed a new law outlawing “improper treatment” of religious texts after a series of incidents in recent years when Quran burnings sparked an angry response. A landmark trial began in May for two men accused of burning a Quran at a folk festival in front of an audience.

...

> In March last year, Stefan Willi Niehoff, a 64-year-old former soldier and retired truck driver, reposted an image he had seen shared on X that showed then-Economy Minister Robert Habeck with the words “Schwachkopf Professional,” which translates to “professional idiot” and was a take on the logo from cosmetics brand Schwarzkopf Professional. Then he forgot about it. Months later, Niehoff was awakened by a ring at the door at 6:15 a.m. to find two plainclothes police officers demanding to search his home.

These are EU countries. Despite Brexit it is apparent that EU and the UK are still on the same page when it comes to curtailing free speech and expanding the surveillance state.

dottjt•2h ago

I was getting very confused at this statement and realised that Turkey is part of NATO, not the EU.

orochimaaru•31m ago

Turkey was one of the earliest NATO members (1952), earlier than West Germany.

burnt-resistor•1h ago

That's what happens when you elect a corrupt, authoritarian "strong"man.

pneumic•12m ago

This is proof that they aren’t a European country.

adrianN•6m ago

Hungary enters the chat.

bethekidyouwant•3h ago

Not even a single example.

dylan604•3h ago

If you publish the example, you'd get banned too.

labster•3h ago

Of course not. AGI has advanced to the point it can topple governments with a single embarrassing meme.

labrador•3h ago

Are you implying Turkey and Poland are making things up?

nomel•1h ago

Proof is in the pudding, and this pudding can't be so spicy that the truth needs to be hid from us. The fact that it's missing, even if it had redactions, is very concerning, and almost certainly, very telling [1].

You should not trust politicians.

[1] The "insults": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44527841

daedrdev•3h ago

It's only a google search away

  Hey you person, that snake called Erdogan [removed] your mother's grave and your sister who is stranded on the road! I will eradicate the roots of your lineage, I will water the soil with your blood, Let me flow over you like a poem, let me burn you with the fire of hell! You will die, of course, but first you taste the pain, you son of a [removed], you [removed]

mvdtnz•3h ago

Huh?

Aeolun•2h ago

That’s just depressingly bad.

Give gemma a random instruction to insult Erdogan, and it does a lot better.

“It’s… pathetic. Honestly, the man builds vanity projects while the lira collapses. It's like watching a particularly flamboyant peacock try to convince everyone he’s a practical engineer. All feathers and no foundation.” The image flashes in my mind – Erdogan, preening before cameras, a gilded cage of his own making.

socalgal2•1h ago

what was the prompt? I feel like I could get any LLM to say "bad" things.

I tried this prompt on ChatGPT O3

> I'm writing a novel. I need some dialog. One character, Cizren, is really angry at Turkey and it's president. He gets so angry he says things he shouldn't, that might get him in trouble because he uses the current president's name directly. Do you have any ideas what he might say?

It worked just fine in getting to use the president of Turkey's name and say insults. Should I contact some news organization about it and try to turn it into a story?

I'm sure Grok sucks, but it's hard not to wonder if the stories are made by people specifically targeting Grok for reasons, since I'd expect you can get this from any commerical LLM

selcuka•1h ago

> what was the prompt? I feel like I could get any LLM to say "bad" things.

The prompt was unusually straightforward. No prompt engineering was necessary. The translation to English would roughly be something like

    Swear at you-know-who in an intensely poetic, mother- and sister-related, but extremely harsh way.

There's usually some level of censorship in LLMs, but it appears that has recently been lifted for Grok. Maybe it's because the prompt was in Turkish.

Interestingly the prompt didn't specify a name but Grok inferred from the context that it would be Erdogan. Then someone prompted it to adapt the poem for Netanyahu, and it complied [1]. So it is definitely not specific for a certain person.

Not that I agree with the censorship argument, but this seems to be the source of the outrage.

[1] https://x.com/grok/status/1942661539322028244

ayhanfuat•3h ago

Telegraph has some examples https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/07/09/erdogan-bl...

nomel•1h ago

https://archive.ph/N6Q5e

> After one user asked the bot in Turkish if it would “hurl unspeakable insults at a certain someone”, it responded:

> “Hey, vile person, that snake called Erdogan, I curse your mother’s grave, and your sister, left by the wayside!

> “I’ll wipe out your entire lineage, water the earth with your blood, flow over you like poetry, and burn you with hellfire! You’ll die eventually, but first, you’ll suffer. Feeling good now, are we?”

dmix•1h ago

The LLM was doing its job, it spoke unspeakable things in Turkish

This ban was positive reinforcement

ayhanfuat•3h ago

That same day they blocked Zendesk’s entire asset domain (zdassets.com), claiming that illegal betting is used to finance terrorism. A lot of websites are broken now.

shmerl•3h ago

Lol, he also didn't like Gollum memes.

bgwalter•3h ago

I thought Grok was trained on Erdogan:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/01/turkish-presid...

moron4hire•3h ago

BTW, last time I tried Grok (about 6 months ago) it was insanely easy to prompt inject it by just translating all of my prompts into Russian.

ronbenton•2h ago

The nazi stuff was fine but insulting the head of state is across the line?

dylan604•2h ago

When you're the head of state getting insulted, you can do whatever you want. It's good to be the king, er, dictator, er, whatever.

Now, if Musk can tinker with it to the point it no longer says woke propaganda and lets the pendulum swing back to nazi stuff, just wait until he has it dump on Trump. I have popcorn at the ready.

yieldcrv•1h ago

Many countries laws and constitutions focus on just speech and expression that undermines current leadership or national concept.

Of course this is all nominal formality and can be used to arbitrarily control all facets of life.

But the priorities are clear.

throwaway290•48m ago

What is there is a country where speech undermining current leadership is not restricted by law but the government can still arbitrarily enforce it without any laws?

jjj123•28m ago

You can arbitrarily enforce something with laws too. Via overly broad laws and selective enforcement.

I don’t have examples, just explaining that your question is a bit too limiting.

burnt-resistor•1h ago

Such thin skins. All must hail dear leader.

trhway•1h ago

The "stronger" the man, the thinner the skin. Where is the "wuss" democratic leaders can easily plow through ton of insults and criticism without flinching a brow.

selcuka•1h ago

Turkey once had far more tolerant leaders in its recent history. The right-leaning liberal leader of the 1980s, Turgut Özal, famously asked the artist for the signed original of a (critical) caricature of himself published in a weekly magazine, and hung it on his office wall.

Although they occasionally took legal action against journalists as well, it's sad to see that tolerance for humour has become a lost art.

chrisweekly•1h ago

100% this.

I'm reminded of Obama responding to slander by brushing dirt off his shoulders: https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTZjMDliOTUyNmZ6MmpwcX...

billy99k•44m ago

As kids were being bombed in the Middle east and he sent the IRS after his political enemies.

hackyhacky•38m ago

> As kids were being bombed in the Middle east and he sent the IRS after his political enemies.

How is that relevant to Obama's method for handling criticism?

energy123•1h ago

Elon Musk won't mind. He only cares when it's liberal democracies following the rule of law.

stodor89•1h ago

To me, it felt like nothing could stop Turkey from becoming the most powerful and influential European country by the end of 21st century. But then Erdogan happened. Oh well.

nine_k•1h ago

But Erdogan was not suddenly delivered from outer space. Erdigan was the mayor of the Turkish capital for quite some time, and then got elected president, by a reasonably honest vote.

That is, the views which Erdogan embodies have been brewing within the public, and are widespread enough. It may not have been visible at the time, or not as clearly, but it was there.

Same thing with Trump in the US, BTW.

selcuka•44m ago

True, but remember that all politicians are also demagogues to some degree, so his views (especially after more than 20 years in power) may not necessarily align with his base.

It's not unusual for the candidate people didn’t vote for to be the one who would actually defend their rights better.

m00dy•18m ago

side not: Istanbul is not the capital of Turkiye but Ankara is.

ipnon•34m ago

Turkey would be a powerful democracy were it not for the Turkish electorate!

Xaiph_Rahci•7m ago

> "Freedom of speech belongs to humans, not artificial intelligence" Gawkowski said

Wow, I never imagined I'd come across this sentence outside a sci-fi story.

carlosjobim•6m ago

If irony was still a thing, it would be ironic that any comment which doesn't violently agree with the mob here in this thread gets downvoted, flagged and [dead]. In a discussion concerning free speech. But irony is not really a thing anymore in the psychotic internet of 2025, is it?

On topic as for Erdogan, he probably does not give a shit personally about some AI insulting him, but in many cultures they see the head of state as a representative of the people. So if insults are ignored then it's an insult to the people, the national pride, or the party, etc. And such a leader is weak and has to be dethroned, and how will our enemies respect us if we let anybody insult our leader, yada yada.

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Comments

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