Tag: Turkey

Turkish Social Media Platform to Challenge Govt Blockage in Court

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Eksi Sozluk, one of Turkey’s most popular social media networks, on Thursday said it will challenge in court a government agency’s decision to block access to its website without giving any reason.

“No content was given as a basis for the decision taken by the Presidency’s Directorate for Security Affairs,” Eksi Sozluk said on Thursday and added: “We will apply all legal processes against the decision.”

Eksi Sozluk was blocked on Wednesday by decision of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK. Since then, the platform has been trying to get information about the reason.

Although no content was cited for the decision, Eksi Sozluk was told by officials at the Turkish Presidency that the decision was made because, “especially after the earthquake, false information was given about the military and state institutions, the state was shown as desperate and it was determined that posts were aiming to create an atmosphere of chaos among the society.”

Eksi Sozluk added that officials had accused the social media platform of not reacting to “wrong and slanderous content”.

The platform has been a target of pro-government media outlets due to its posts on the earthquakes that were critical about the slow and ineffective response of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s gpvernment.

The February 6 disaster has devastated Turkey’s south and southeastern provinces, killing more than 43,000 people and leaving millions without homes.

Critics say that President Erdogan’s government is using allegedly “slanderous” comments on the handling of the earthquake disaster to silence all criticism of its disaster management.

The government previously blocked most access to Twitter and TikTok and slowed down the internet, complaining about “misinformation”, as public anger mounted about the government’s response to the crisis.

Access to social media networks and the internet was fully restored a day later, following harsh criticism of the move. Critics accused the government of cutting off a key source of communication for relatives of victims, survivors and aid campaigners.

Eksi Sozluk is a collaborative hypertext dictionary working similarly to Reddit and it is one of the most popular Turkish social media platforms and most visited websites since 1999.

Turkey Arrests 24 for ‘Provocative’ Social Media Posts on Quakes

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Turkish police on Sunday said they have arrested 24 people for “provocative” social media posts following the February 6 earthquake disaster that has killed more than 41,000 people.

“Legal proceedings were initiated against 441 account managers, 129 people were detained in line with the instructions received from the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, and 24 of them were arrested,” the Cyber Crimes department of the Police Directorate said in a written statement on Sunday.

The 24 had posted “provocative posts on social media platforms regarding earthquakes in order to create fear and panic among citizens”, police said.

Devastating twin earthquakes struck southern and south-eastern Turkey on February 6, registering 7.9 and 7.7 on the Richter scale.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, AFAD, says it now believes more than 41,000 people lost their lives and more than 108,000 others were injured in addition to millions who lost their homes. At least 2 million people have since left the quake region for safer locations.

Since the first days of the disaster, police have targeted social media users, journalists and experts who commented critically about the government’s slow and ineffective response.

Journalists’ unions and watchdog organisations have reported several incidents when police prevented journalists from reporting in the quake zones.

“We are following and recording the increasing threats, violence and censorship targeting journalists covering the earthquakes and their aftermath,” the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA, a leading NGO that monitors media freedom violations, said.

According to the government, search and rescue missions are about to wind up operations in 11 provinces hit by the quakes. Experts and officials fear the death toll will increase as the wreckage removal process comtinues.

The real death toll “is at least three to four, maybe five times worse than the announced figures. We will [have to]… and build provinces again,” Osman Bilgin, the provincial governor of Sirnak managing the earthquake response in the Nurdagi district in Gaziantep, said on Sunday.

The government previously blocked most access to Twitter, Tiktok and slowed down the internet in the country as public anger mounted about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government’s response to the crisis.

Access to social media networks and the internet were fully restored a day later, however, following harsh critisism of the move. Critics accused the government of cutting off a key source of communication for relatives of victims, survivors and aid campaigners.

Turkish NGO Sues GSM Operators, Authorities, Over Social Media Ban

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Veysel Ok, a lawyer and co-director of Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA, filed a criminal complaint on Friday against mobile network operators and the executives of Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK, following the ban imposed on Twitter and TikTok during the quake disaster.

Ok’s criminal complaint against them includes “misuse of public duty”, “prevention of communication”, “reckless killing” and “reckless injury”.

“At a time when people were literally holding onto life via social media, this kind of recklessness and irresponsibility are unacceptable,” Ok told BIRN, underlying that the application of bandwidth throttling is “a direct harm inflicted onto people”.

Monday’s massive earthquakes in Turkey registering 7.9 and 7.7 on the Richter scale have devastated the country’s south and south-eastern regions. Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, AFAD, said it believed at least 18,991 people lost their lives and more than 75,500 were injured.

“Turkey is experiencing one of the worst disasters in its history. The authorities, who are responsible for protecting the lives of citizens, but cannot prevent this, actively seek to undermine citizens’ communication, journalists’ work and, unfortunately, search and rescue efforts,” Ok said.

The government’s response to the earthquake has been criticized by numerous survivors, experts and journalists, who say it has failed to deliver assistance to several devastated areas and not used the armed forces effectively, despite having 120,000 personnel in the region.

The government has meanwhile also banned, detained and investigated journalists and experts reporting on the disaster.

On Wednesday, it also blocked access to Twitter and TikTok – main sources of communication for relatives of victims, survivors and aid campaigners. Many people were rescued after they shared their situation and location via Twitter.

Internet connection was also reportedly slowed down by the authorities in what it calls a fight against misinformation.

“The responsibility of GSM operators and BTK officials should not be forgotten in the dust cloud of this disaster,” Ok said, adding that it is the duty of the state to effectively investigate related deaths and bring those responsible before the courts.

“We expect our criminal complaint to be processed promptly and investigated effectively,” Ok concluded.

Twitter was restored in Turkey on Friday following a meeting between government officials and Twitter on Thursday. According to Turkish officials, Twitter pledged to cooperate and to support “Turkey’s efforts to combat disinformation”.

Turkey Blocks Twitter After Public Criticism of Quake Response

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Turkish government has blocked most access to Twitter following growing public anger towards President Recep Tayyip Erdogan government’s response to Monday’s deadly earthquakes.

“Twitter has been restricted in #Turkey; the filtering is applied on major internet providers and comes as the public come to rely on the service in the aftermath of a series of deadly earthquakes,” NetBlocks, an internet observatory that follows global net freedoms, announced.

People now cannot access Twitter at all via two of the three main internet providers. TurkTelekom and Turkcell have completely blocked access. Vodafone still allows slower access to Twitter.

Days after the most devastating earthquake disaster in modern-day Turkey, the government has so far failed to deliver assistance to several areas devastated by two major quakes registering 7.9 and 7.7 on the Richter scale, leaving thousands dead.

The government has not announced or commented on the Twitter ban. The government previously restricted social media access following disasters, terror attacks and protests.

Experts, politicians and people criticised the ban, saying that Twitter was the main source of communications for many people searching for survivors and victims as well as for local and nationwide aid campaigns.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP said they will continue to use Twitter with VPN. “I told my friends in the field to use VPN for cooperation coordination. This insane … the government cut off social media communication,” Kilicdaroglu said.

His anger is shared by many people. “By restricting Twitter at this time, you are preventing or delaying help from reaching people who can reach it. You are killing people on purpose,” Ali Gul, a lawyer and activist, wrote on Twitter.

According to official figures, at least 8,574 people lost their lives, more than 49,000 people were injured and thousands of buildings were destroyed in the quakes.

President Erdogan visited quake-hit cities on Wednesday and asked for patience from people due to the government’s slow response.

Journalists, Opposition Slam Turkey’s Proposed ‘Censorship Law’

Posted on by birdsuperadmin

Journalists’ unions, human rights groups and opposition parties have condemned the Turkish government’s proposed disinformation law and deemed it a further blow to media freedom, naming it the “censorship law”.

“While the draft bill … claims to be about combating disinformation, the contents cited in its articles target pluralistic independent media atmosphere, and it has a massive potential for silencing alternate voices in society,” Gurkan Ozturan, coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, told BIRN.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, and its ally, the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, MHP, brought the law to parliament without losing any time after the new legislative year started.

Ozturan deemed the draft bill an attempt at “censorship”. “Such laws are unacceptable, and so is censorship. They defy the European Convention on Human Rights,” he said.

The draft law for the first time defines “spreading misinformation on purpose” as a crime. It will increase government control and censorship in media and social media platforms.

“No matter how much the governing alliance might claim that this is to guarantee information safety and point to European laws, the threats we already see appear to disprove these claims, moreover, the draft bill has nothing to do with the existing laws on similar subjects in Europe, except for a law in Greece that is not being implemented,” Ozturan added.

The proposed law introduces penalties for anyone who “publicly disseminates false information regarding internal and external security, public order and the general welfare of the country, in a way that breaches the public peace, simply for the purpose of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the population”.

“The purpose of introducing the disinformation law is so that no one can write about the corruption of the palace [of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan] and its company,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party said in his parliamentary speech.

Huseyin Yayman, AKP president of the Parliamentary Digital Media Commission, dismissed the criticism.

“We are making a regulation on disinformation. Blocking or restriction of social media is out of the question. The AKP  is a party that fights against censorship and bans,” he said, the pro-government Daily Sabah, reported.

Dozens of journalists and opposition MPs gathered outside parliament in Ankara on Tuesday, holding placards that read: “No to the law of censorship” and “Free press is a condition for democracy”.

“If this law is implemented in this form, there will be no freedom of press, expression and communication in our country,” said Kemal Aktas, chairman of the Turkish parliamentary reporters.

Under the proposed law, people who spread misinformation can be jailed for up to three years. If a court rules that a person spreads misinformation as part of an illegal organisation, the jail sentence will increase by 50 per cent.

Journalists can also be charged under the new law if they use anonymous sources to hide the identity of a person spreading “misinformation”.

The discussions and voting on the proposed law are expected to continue in the following days.

Turkey’s Communications Chief Accuses Reuters of ‘Manipulation’

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Fahrettin Altun, head of the Communications Directorate under the Turkish Presidency, has accused Reuters news agency of “systemic manipulation” and “fake news” after it published a special report on how he and his staff control the newsrooms of Turkish media.

“This is not the first time that Reuters, an apparatus of perception operations and systematic manipulation targeting Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey, publishes misleading and fake news,” Altun wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

A Reuters special report prepared by Jonathan Spicer wrote on Wednesday that from an office tower in Ankara, officials shape the nation’s news – and always to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s advantage.

The report added that the Communication Directorate often calls journalists and editors by phone and sends WhatsApp massages to instruct the media about their coverage.

Altun dismissed the claims and insisted on their good work. “Being targeted by the UK-based news agency Reuters is a sign that we are on the right track and a badge of honour,” Altun said.

Altun also accused Reuters of manipulation and fake news on certain topics, such as distorting Erdogan’s statements, Turkey’s military operations in Syria, the country’s economic crisis and the failed coup attempt in 2016.

“This is the sort of news agency that attempts to target the Turkey Communications Model and the Directorate today. We know perfectly well Reuters’ intentions, the purpose it serves and what it is doing for that purpose,” Altun said.

Altun, who has no previous media experience, was appointed to head the Directorate of Communications in 2018 under the new presidential system, in which there are almost no checks and balances.

“The Directorate, with an annual budget of around 680 million lira ($38 million), was tasked with coordinating government communication. It grew out of the old Directorate of Media, Press and Information, whose main role was issuing press cards to journalists. But its responsibilities reach much wider, including countering ‘systemic disinformation campaigns’ against Turkey through a unit the Directorate established this year,” Reuters wrote in its special report.

The directorate employs media monitors, translators, legal and public relations staff in Turkey and abroad.

“It has 48 foreign offices in 43 countries worldwide. These outposts deliver to headquarters weekly reports on how Turkey is portrayed in foreign media,” Reuters wrote, quoting an insider.

Altun and his Directorate are often accused of intervening heavy-handedly in the media.

“The government strategy is to make everyone see, hear and read only the government line,” Osman Vedud Esidir, a journalism professor, told Reuters.

Since the 2016 failed coup attempt resulted in a major crackdown on dissenting voices, the Turkish media and press have come under increasing government control.

Turkey ranked in 149th place out of 180 countries in 2022 in the latest press freedom index of the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders, RSF It classifies the Turkish government’s control over media outlets as high.

Turkey Condemned for Expelling Greek Journalist

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Turkey has come under criticism after deporting Evangelos Areteos, a journalist working for Greek news outlet Real, on August 25 and forbidding him from returning, citing “public order” concerns.

Gurkan Ozturan, coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, said that the decision should be reversed.

“Setting up barriers against media freedom is unacceptable. We call upon Turkish authorities to lift this restriction and allow journalists and media organisations to operate freely and to allow the people in Turkey and Europe to enjoy their right to access information and news,” Ozturan told BIRN.

Areteos wrote on Monday on Twitter that he believes he was deported because of a reporting trip he made to northern Syria in 2015 and his travels and connections throughout Turkey.

He described the Turkish decision to deport him as “a deeply saddening development that leaves me with grief”.

“After 23 years, during which I lived for eight years and then travelled and worked in Turkey, the Turkish authorities decided to deport me and forbade me to return for reasons of ‘public order’,” he said.

The decision has also been condemned by other media freedom organisations.

“Greek journalist Evangelos Areteos’ long history working in Turkey should not come to an unceremonious end due to authorities’ disapproval of his work,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, programme director at the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York.

“Authorities must allow Areteos to return to Turkey, where he should be able to report freely and without fear of retaliation,” de la Serna added.

“The expulsion of Areteos, the writer of the Greek-based daily Real, from Turkey, where he has lived for many years, sadly points to the threshold of the [Turkish] authorities’ intolerance for criticism,” Erol Onderoglu, Turkey representative for Reporters Without Borders, wrote on Twitter.

Areteos is well known on both sides of the Aegean Sea. As well as working for Real, he is a non-resident research fellow at the Diplomatic Academy of the University of Nicosia, Cyprus and a research associate with Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy’s Turkey programme, a think-tank based in Athens.

Alexandra Voudouri, a Greek journalist and analyst with Macropolis.gr and Athina 9,84FM told BIRN that Areteos’ work has been invaluable for “bridging” Greek and Turkish societies, “something that is missing nowadays”.

“And what is really sad is that Turkey is essentially ‘burning’ this bridge as well,” Voudouri said.

Turkish political scientist Seren Selvin Korkmaz expressed a similar opinion.

“While the government builds a wall around itself, it also closes Turkey to the world,” Korkmaz wrote on Twitter.

“Journalist Areteos has been travelling to Turkey for 23 years and reporting meticulously, he was also trying to break the prejudices about Turkish society. The government has proven itself by expelling him,” she said.

Turkey’s ‘Disinformation’ Law Will Devastate Media Freedom, Experts Predict

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Turkish media experts said the country’s new disinformation law which is awaiting adoption in the Turkish parliament will be the last nail in the coffin of an independent media.

The so-called disinformation law will increase government control and censorship in media and social media platforms, Orhan Sener, head of the Journalists’ Union of Turkey’s academy, said.

“I do not believe that there are good intentions here. One must be very naïve to believe that the government is doing this to prevent misinformation. Their record is known, as is what they are capable is known,” he said.

Sener recalled that Turkey ranked in a lowly 149th place among 180 countries in terms of press freedom in Reporters’ Without Borders latest Press Freedom Index.

The draft law for the first time defines “spreading misinformation on purpose” as a crime.

It introduces penalties for anyone who “publicly disseminates false information regarding internal and external security, public order and the general welfare of the country, in a way that breaches the public peace, simply for the purpose of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the population”.

Baris Altintas, the chairperson of the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA said: “The basic question legally is here how we define fake news and lies. According to this law, it is definitely not by any objective or scientific standards. It is clear that it [the law] is going to an abuse when and if it passes in October.”

According to the proposed law, people who spread misinformation can be jailed for one to three years. If a court rules that a person spreads misinformation as part of an illegal organisation, the jail sentence will increase by 50 per cent.

Journalists can also be charged under the new law if they use anonymous sources to hide the identity of a person spreading “misinformation”.

“Turkey is the worst example, but it is definitely [part of] a trend we can notice in our region or elsewhere,” Marija Ristic, regional director of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, said, referencing the new law.

Ristic noted a recent example of this trend in India. “However, in our region, many countries are trying to impose similar although less restrictive laws,” Ristic said, underlining that Balkan countrie rank poorly in many surveys and rankings on media freedoms.

Turkish journalist and political scientist Sezin Oney said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government aims to use the new law in its favour before the next elections, as Erdogan’s popularity in election polls tumbles.

“In this grim autumn, as the economy gets worse, … they [authorities] may continue to lose more votes,” Oney said. He added that one of the new law’s targets will be economists and economy-related news reports.

“The new law will also target economists. If you say something or tweet about something about the official inflation statistics, it will be deemed a lie and there may be a court case against you,” Oney added.

On Thursday evening, during Balkan Insight’s Twitter space discussion, more bad news for media freedom in Turkey arrived, when access to Turkish language services of Deutsche Welle and Voice of America were blocked by a court decision following the Turkish government’s licence demands.

“Since Russia had denied licence to Deutsche Welle [in February], I was wondering when Turkey would follow,” Gurkan Ozturan, the coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, said. “This is an incredibly illegitimate and horrible development,” Ozturan said.

Balkan Insight regularly organises Twitter space programmes to discuss trending issues in the Balkans. The full programme entitled “Censorship fear in Turkish media the new disinformation law” can be listened here.

Turkish Journalists Urge Govt to Drop Disinformation Law

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Thousands of protesters from journalists’ unions and NGOs gathered in Istanbul and other cities across the country on Tuesday to call on the government to drop the disinformation law which is due to be passed by the Turkish parliament soon.

“It is called the ‘Press Law’, but it has been prepared without being asked for by professional media organisations. There is no article in it to protect journalists or protect the news,” the journalists’ organisations including the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, the Turkish Journalists’ Association and the Press Council said in a statement.

“On the contrary, prison sentences, closures, censorship and heavy controls over internet media are coming,” the statement added.

The legislation was presented to Turkey’s parliament on May 27, aiming to increase government control over the internet, media and social media.

“We are describing this law as the heaviest censorship law in the history of Turkey which will completely destroy the freedom of the press and freedom of expression,” the media organisations said.

“A journalist who does not disclose his news source under the name of ‘fighting disinformation’ will be given a prison sentence. Prosecutors and judges will decide which news is ‘false’ and which news is ‘true’ in line with the vague regulation,” they warned.

The law was prepared by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP and its far-right partner, the Nationalist Movement Party, MHP.

The law, which is expected to pass soon, for the first time defines the crime of “spreading misinformation on purpose”.

It envisages punishment for anyone who “publicly disseminates false information regarding internal and external security, public order and the general welfare of the country, in a way that breaches the public peace, simply for the purpose of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the population”.

According to the proposed law, people who spread misinformation can be jailed for one to three years. If a court decides that a person spread misinformation as part of an illegal organisation, the jail sentence will be increased by 50 per cent.

Journalists can also be charged under the new law if they use anonymous sources to hide the identity of a person who is spreading misinformation.

Internet Freedoms in Turkey Continue to Deteriorate: Report

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA said in a report published on Friday that internet freedoms continued to decline in 2021 due to increasing censorship and surveillance.

The Free Web Turkey 2021 Annual Report funded by the Netherlands shows that at least 11,050 URLs were blocked in Turkey in 2021.

“While 1,593 of the blocked URLs contained news articles, a total of 49 news websites were banned during the monitoring period, some even more than once,” the report said.

“The project’s findings bring to light that 53 per cent of blocked news articles pertain to information directly related to Turkish President and AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his family, and to mayors or officials of the AKP,” the report added.

According to Mumtaz Murat Kok, project and communications coordinator at the MLSA, the situation is not getting any better in 2022.

“The results of this report, which covers a period of only one year and reveals the dimensions of digital censorship in Turkey, becomes much more frightening when considered together with the ‘disinformation bill’ submitted to parliament very recently,” Kok told BIRN.

The new disinformation bill currently waiting to be considered by parliament makes ‘disinformation’ a crime that can lead to a jail term and paves the way for an even more repressive and coercive media environment, he said.

“As the report reveals, there is the intent to strengthen censorship practices that currently aim to protect a certain group and further violate the public’s right to receive information. In a country where there is almost absolute uniformity in media ownership, social media – on which many journalists rely on to report and many citizens rely on for news – is also being stifled,” Kok said.

The report also recommends that awareness of censorship and surveillance should be increased and social media platforms should bear the responsibility of being ‘media’.

According to a report published by Google covering data from the first six months of 2021, Turkey requested the removal of a total of 4,776 items. The majority of the requests were made on the grounds of ‘defamation’.

Google removed 1,686 of these items for legal reasons and 219 for company policy reasons.

“Considering the censorship practices that the government aims to increase, and that social media companies have so far submitted to the demands of the government without resistance, I think the next report [by the MLSA for 2022] will not be a more pleasant report,” Kok said.

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