[danharaj]

A media industry outside of the control of the government isn't required to be part of the "first world". Turkey is part of NATO, as first world as it gets, and their government is increasingly curtailing rights like freedom of assembly and the press.

You are first world if the first world says you are first world. You are second world if the first world says you are second world. You are third world if the first world says nothing about you. Ideology serves geopolitics, it does not determine it.

[frandroid]

There are a few NATO countries which don't quite qualify as "First World", and Turkey's crackdown of freedoms is a recent phenomenon.