January 2021 - Page 2 of 2

Report: Turkey Remains World Beater in Twitter Censorship

Posted on January 13, 2021January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Social media giant Twitter’s transparency report for the first six months of 2020 said Turkey continued to lead the world in terms of Twitter censorship in many categories, including the highest number of third-party takedown requests, court orders and accounts and tweets withheld.

Turkey had the highest number of combined requests including court orders and other legal demands, with 45,776 requests. It was followed by Japan and Russia, which made 45,776 and 30,436 requests respectively.

Turkey also at the top of the list when it comes to the number of court orders it sent to Twitter. It sent 6,513 such requests in the first half of 2020. Russia followed far behind with 2,972.

In other legal demands categories, meaning non-court order requests, Turkey again topped the list with 39,263 requests made in the first half of 2020, followed by Japan, which made 38,814 requests, followed in third place by Russia, which submitted 27,464 such requests.

Turkey also sent 347 information requests to Twitter, which did not comply any of them.

Turkey remains in number one place for the total number of accounts specified for closure/action under court orders and other legal demands. It specified 99,840 accounts for closure or other actions, followed by Indonesia, which sought action on 74,660 accounts. Japan came third, with 47,472 accounts.

In terms of accounts withheld by Twitter, Turkey again had the highest number globally with 2,501 withheld accounts, followed by Russia with 340 and India with 238.

In terms of tweets withheld by Twitter, Turkey was also number one globally, responsible for 12,135 of the total of 28,542 tweets withheld in that period. Some 42 per cent of all tweets withheld globally were from Turkey.

According to the Twitter report, 58 accounts of verified journalists and news outlets from around the world were subject to 333 legal demands in the period in consideration. Most of these legal demands originated either from India, 149, or from Turkey, 142 – together making them responsible for 291 of the 333 legal demands.

While Turkey leads in terms of Twitter censorship, and made the highest number of requests in several categories, it now aims to expand its control over social media companies with a new digital law.

Social media companies were already fined twice by Turkey for defying a new law on appointing official representatives to the country.

Experts fear that if it does appoint an official representative to Turkey, as demanded, Twitter will have to respond more often to official demands.

“The removal of content rate [based on Turkey’s requests] was [only] 0.33 per cent for the first six months of 2020. Turkey wants Twitter to come to the country [in terms of a representative] for this reason,” Yaman Akdeniz, a Turkish digital rights activist wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

“Coming to Turkey will result with Twitter becoming complicit in rights violations and would be against the current approach and policy adopted by Twitter regarding demands from Turkey,” Akdeniz added.

So far, only YouTube and Russia’s VK social media platform have appointed legal representatives to Turkey. Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has said it will not appoint a representative while Twitter is still undecided on the matter.

Romania Violated Journalist’s Freedom of Expression, Says European Court

Posted on January 12, 2021January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday condemned Romania for failing to uphold freedom of expression in the case of a local journalist who was fined by a domestic court over a series of critical articles about another journalist in the north-eastern county of Bacau.

“The case concerned the domestic authorities’ decision to order the applicant, a journalist, to pay damages for having published five blog posts criticising L.B., another journalist who was the editor-in chief of a newspaper in the Desteptarea media group and producer for a local television channel belonging to the same group,” the ECHR said in a statement.

The posts were published by Gheorghe-Florin Popescu in 2011. The same year, L.B. brought civil proceedings before a court in Bacau, which ruled that two of the articles posted by Popescu lacked any factual basis when describing L.B. as morally responsible for a murder-suicide.

The Bacau court also established that Popescu had used vulgar and defamatory expressions that affected L.B.’s honour and reputation, and ordered him to compensate L.B. with the equivalent of 1,100 euros.

Popescu subsequently appealed against the verdict, but Romania’s Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal as unfounded in 2013. The journalist then took his case to the ECHR.

More than seven years later, judges at the ECHR unanimously reached the conclusion that Romania breached Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression.

According to Tuesday’s verdict, Romanian courts failed to make “a distinction between statements of facts and value judgments” when examining Popescu’s criticism of L.B.

The verdict also said that Romanian courts ignored “the fact that the applicant was a journalist and that the freedom of the press fulfilled a fundamental function in a democratic society”.

They also ignored the fact that L.B. was a publicly known figure before the controversy involving Popescu, the verdict added.

The Romanian courts ruled that some of the content of Popescu’s articles was offensive, but the ECHR concluded that “although the satirical nature of the articles had been the main argument in the applicant’s defence, the domestic courts had failed to investigate with sufficient care whether or not this was a form of exaggeration or distortion of reality, naturally aimed to provoke”.

“In the court’s view, the style was part of the form of expression and was protected as such under Article 10, in the same way as the content of the statements,” the ECHR said.

Turkey Investigates Facebook, WhatsApp Over New Privacy Agreement

Posted on January 11, 2021January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Turkey’s Competition Board on Monday said an investigation had been launched into Facebook and WhatsApp over a new privacy agreement that forces WhatsApp user to share its data with Facebook. Users who reject the terms of the agreement will not be able to use WhatsApp after February 8.

The Turkish competition watchdog said the requirement allowing collection of that data should be suspended until the investigation is over.

“WhatsApp Inc and WhatsApp LLC companies will be known as Facebook after the new agreement and this will allow Facebook to collect more data. The board will investigate whether this violates Turkish competition law,” the board said.

The Turkish government is calling on its citizens to delete WhatsApp and to use domestic messaging app BiP instead, developed by Turkey’s mobile operator Turkcell, in addition to other secure messing apps such as Telegram and Signal.

Turkey’s presidency, ministries, state institutions and many other people have announced that they have deleted WhatsApp and downloaded other applications.

“Let’s stand against digital fascism together,” Ali Taha Koc, head of the Turkish Presidential Digital Transformation Office, said on Twitter on January 10, urging people to use the domestic BiP app.

BiP gained 1.12 million new users on Sunday alone after the new privacy agreement was introduced.

The new privacy agreement will not be in force in the EU and the UK because of its tight digital privacy law.

The EU fined Facebook 110 million euros earlier in 2017 euros for giving misleading statements on the company’s $19 billion acquisition of the internet messaging service WhatsApp in 2014.

Millions of people around the globe have abandoned WhatsApp and migrated to other messaging apps, Signal and Telegram in particular, and Signal and Telegram had server issues hosting such a large number of users.

Telegram and Signal which are accepted as the most secure messaging apps have become the most downloaded application in the past week for both Android and Apple phones users.

Share Your Experience: Violations on Social Media

Posted on January 8, 2021January 26, 2023 by ivana.nikolic

We’re looking for people who are willing to share their experience with us to help in a story we’re currently working on. Scroll down for information on how to part take.

The key things we want to know:

What type of violations have you reported?
In what language was the content?
How was the report processed?

What do we consider to be violations of social media community guidelines:

Violent threats (direct or indirect)
Harassment, which entails inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others
Hateful conduct, which entails promoting violence against or directly attacking or threatening other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or disease.

Things to note:

We are looking for social media users that reported content in the Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Albanian, and Macedonian languages. We want to hear as many different experiences from all around Southeast Europe.

Your stories will be used to help us with an ongoing investigation.

How to take part?

To submit your experience, all you need to do is fill out this form.

You can also contact us via email: readerstories@birn.eu.com.

Or you can reach us on social media…

FB: @balkaninsight

TW: @balkaninsight

We’ll need to receive your application by midnight, January 15, 2021.

Questionary is available in English, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian/Montenegrin, Macedonian, and Albanian.

BIRD Community