The Liberal West's Authoritarian Turn

Western governments are banning social media networks, using police brutality against activists, blaming George Soros and malign foreign actors for protests, and freezing the bank accounts of NGOs

Almost exactly a decade ago, Turkey’s then-Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan briefly banned Twitter. The news was accompanied by international outrage. Some memorable political cartoons came out of it – Twitter’s blue bird logo in a birdcage comes to mind – along with the expected denunciations of autocracy and reminders about the supposed sanctity of freedom of expression. The decision was also met with ridicule by liberals in the West: those macho autocrats in non-Western countries think they’re so tough; in reality they’re thin-skinned and can’t take any criticism! This was the general tenor of that chorus. Erdogan’s Twitter ban lasted two weeks. The constitutional court of Turkey quickly decided that the block breached freedom of expression, and the ban was lifted.