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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Turkey's twitter users silent as the grave. Need we wonder why?

I am not a Facebook user  so don't know if  FB users from Turkey are posting any news on the clampdown on freedom of speech on those who were protesting against the government.  Maybe, the dictator and friend of USA, UK, France and Israel has also clamped down hard on freedom of movement and arrested anybody and everybody who dared to oppose him. We know he ordered raids on student dorms and arrested several.   Now,  I feel very sure he has blacked out social media by at least 80% and only the benign bits will let seep out ...  but of course we in the West will condone it all because dictators are our best buddies.
The vid below is supposedly showing a  part of a protest on July 13.   

Christine Mosher writing at PCDN:
... Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration has employed a variety of assaults on media freedoms in Turkey since the protests began on May 31. In one case, legislation was adopted to restrict the use of social media, resulting in the arrest of 29 people for “inciting riots” using social networking sites.

The Turkish government then reached out to Twitter to request that the network be more accessible by setting up an office inside the country, a step that also might make it easier for officials to exert control. Erdogan himself made several sneering comments about social media, calling it “a menace to society” and describing Twitter as a "scourge." Finally, Erdogan’s administration made several public statements saying officials were coordinating with Facebook. Facebook responded swiftly, denying the claim and stating that the network had not provided any user data to the Turkish authorities.

Ironically,   Erdogan is an avid user of Twitter, with more than 3 million followers. One of his party allies, the mayor of the capital Ankara, Melih Gokcek, has written more than 40,000 tweets and has upwards of 750,000 followers. The administration also used the same online platforms that it was criticizing to discredit journalists who reported from the protests in Istanbul....

Anna Woods writing at SESTurkiye:
... While Turkey has long been a country that actively utilises social media -- it is currently ranked seventh globally in the number of Facebook users and Istanbul is the sixth most tweeting city -- usage expanded even by domestic standards. The national daily Radikal reported that at the outset of the protests, on May 29th, there were approximately 1.8 million active users on Twitter. By June 10th, that number had reached 9.5 million.......



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