A few months ago, a study conducted by researchers in Switzerland on Twitter trends, exposed  that at least 47% of local trends in Turkey and 20% of global trends are fake. According to the research, trends between 2015 and 2019 were created by bots due to a vulnerability in Twitter’s algorithm that could be exploited to achieve political gains via promoting specific content. This research, the first to uncover the manipulation of Twitter trends on this scale, discovered that 108,000 bot accounts were involved in such operations.

According to the study, the main fake trends included topics of illicit ads, politics, and people seeking political change. A manipulated hashtags exposed by the research was #SuriyelilerDefolsun (Syrians Out). This fabricated hashtag was picked up by many news reports, other social media platforms, and academic papers as Tuğrulcan Elmas, the co-author of the study, claims.

Why Twitter trends?

Twitter trends are influential as they immediately attract public attention and make headlines on conventional media. When international media outlets report these trends, Twitter trends become more credible.

However, influence operations could incite public anger. Fake social media hashtags can deepen social polarization. These campaigns fuel hate speech and provoke xenophobic sentiments against refugees – as is happening in Turkey – and, thus, pose security threats.

If it’s true that lies travel faster than the truth, then social media platforms provide a fertile ground for lies to spread. To amend this requires major technology companies, such as Facebook, Twitter, and others, to regulate communication through digital platforms without harming human rights, freedom of expression, and access to communication.

Terry Eagleton contends in Why Marx Was Right: “Marx thought that those who controlled material production tended to control mental production as well. The claim has even more force in an age of press magnates and media barons than it had in his own time.” Analyzing today’s conditions, Eagleton continues from what Marx wrote in The German Ideology that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, and argues that the mobility of mass media is even more effective in spreading the ruling ideas to the masses in today’s world compared with previous centuries. Considering the patronage of global media outlets and the capital owned by companies like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we see that Eagleton is quite right in his argument. 

New internet technologies have introduced a series of transformations to conventional media structures. For instance, twenty years ago, audience movie watching habits were shaped by television and cinema. But today, digital platforms that provide online streaming services seem to have taken hold of these habits. Therefore, such platforms, which have a considerable number of active subscribers, have a major impact in the spread of ideas. Aside from positive impacts, inappropriate content such as terror propaganda, hate speech or child pornography could also be spread via online platforms, proving that this is a delicate issue requiring a profound analysis. For this reason, the supervision of online platforms is a vital issue in today’s world. In the absence of a global institution or international legal infrastructure authorized to supervise online streaming persons or companies, countries are compelled to take their own measures to fight against the harmful content.

Amid the lack of structural supervision, and excluding clearly unlawful and illegitimate streaming mentioned above, online outlets overall reflect the ruling ideas as pointed out by Eagleton. It is true that Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services are still required to adhere to state laws and are not devoid of regulation. But such ever-growing networks and platforms convey content to viewers on a global scale. The main problem with these streaming services is that they are not neutral spaces, they inculcate an ideological position or worldview through “soft” manipulation. They have the power to instill marginal ideas that can be harmful and problematic, both on an individual and social level.

Debates on RTÜK Regulation

In Turkey, the new bylaws introduced to regulate online radio, television, and on-demand broadcasting have recently spurred public controversy. In line with the legislation approved by the Turkish Parliament in March 2018, the “Regulation on the Web-Based Presentation of Radio and Television Broadcasts and Video On-Demand Services“ entered into force upon its promulgation in the Official Gazette of August 4, 2019. This regulation aims to establish a control mechanism for on-demand and web-based platforms that have recently grown in popularity in Turkey such as Netflix, BluTV and PuhuTV as well as other radio and TV stations performing online broadcasting. Said to be prepared with the aim of “preventing the exploitation and manipulation on the internet”, the regulation has been viewed as censorship by some people, whereas some others have welcomed it as a regulation that guards Turkey’s economic interests since it has introduced a control mechanism and enabled authorization through licensing. The main reasons for enacting this regulation seem to be the necessity of bringing a set of legal measures that will protect the Turkish market in terms of competitiveness and the need to control inappropriate broadcast content especially on Netflix via a body established within Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK).

Criticisms of the Regulation

The biggest criticism directed to the regulation revolves around the concern that the control on press and broadcast media in Turkey will also encompass the internet and this might restrict freedoms. Another commonly expressed criticism is that dissident platforms who provide alternative broadcasting on the internet might be affected by the new regulation and might confront some challenges in maintaining their activities. Another criticized aspect is that on-demand platforms will be subject to content control and their broadcasting activities will be authorized through licensing, which raised concerns that such platforms might leave the Turkish market and Turkey might be evaluated in the category of countries imposing censorship. All the criticisms are based on the presupposition that checking online content is a kind of censorship and freedoms will be restricted through this way.

Despite these criticisms, after being subjected to the regulation, Netflix issued the following statement: “Turkey is an important country where we want to continue to create joy for our members, partner with Turkish talent and invest in the economy and film industry,” hinting that they aspire to keep their presence in the Turkish market. So, there is a contradiction between the statements of a business organization directly subjected to the scope of the regulation on the one hand and the concerns expressed by critics based on some presuppositions on the other. The former expresses its wish to maintain its broadcasting activities in Turkey by complying with the regulation while the latter brings forward a discourse of censorship and restriction of freedoms without taking note of the regulation. 

The Aim of the Regulation and Similar Cases in Europe

The regulation aims to protect the competitive environment in Turkey by controlling and licensing web-based television and radio broadcasts. The regulation reads: “A set of measures, such as enabling parent control for media content that might harm the physical, mental or moral development of children and youth, will be taken in the web-based presentation of radio and TV broadcasts and video on-demand services,” which indicates the purposes of the content check.

From a comparative perspective, it can be seen that various counterparts of RTÜK are operating almost everywhere in the world and checking the content of web-based broadcasts. For instance, the EU, which does not limit its activities to web-based platforms like Netflix, regards the supervision of all the internet media that enable video sharing as an important factor. With the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, the EU is expanding the scope of its legal regulations of social media companies and web-based broadcasting platforms, particularly against the threats of terror and radicalization, child pornography, violence, hate speech and fake news in light of new developments. Similarly, following Netflix’s launch in France, the French government issued several declarations on the rules to be observed by Netflix. Netflix is also required to pay tax on its turnover in France and asked to contribute to a support fund for the film and audio-visual sectors.

In the UK, a set of regulations has been made to fine or block websites that do not take necessary measures to prevent harmful content such as child abuse and terrorist propaganda. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and the Home Office recommended that a guideline addressing technology companies should be prepared by an independent supervisory authority. Stating that companies do not take necessary steps to prevent harmful content on the internet, government officials said: “the era of self-regulation for online companies is over,” stressing the significance of the supervision issue for the UK. The UK officials stated that the subjects like terrorism, sexual abuse, threats, hate crimes and trafficking of illegal substances are in the scope of the related law, adding that the regulations will also apply to the social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google and Snapchat.

In the final analysis, this new rule, which has entered our lives with the RTÜK regulation, is an important initiative towards resolving the supervision problem that has been discussed for a long time, although it still has some ambiguous points. The regulation introduces a control mechanism in the Turkish market and regulates the conditions of competition accordingly. Characterizing such regulations as “censorship” without considering their scope and content makes it difficult to understand the rising protectionist and regulatory trend around the world. As Eagleton points out, states regard the legitimization of ruling ideas through the use of media as a cultural problem, therefore, we need to understand governmental practices via regulations from a broader perspective.

Last week, the Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) prepared new by-laws authorizing the regulation and monitoring of digital media platforms in Turkey. This issue is debated among a wider public. While the opponents of this decision perceive it as a “censorship” of prominent digital media platforms in Turkey such as Netflix, Blu TV, and Puhu TV; the defenders claim that this regulation aims to monitor the content of these platforms to prevent harming “the physical, mental and moral development of children and young adults.”

It is crucial to understand the concerns of both sides joining the discussions. The claims of both sides show that there is a lack of information to make a full-fledged evaluation. The recent by-law enabling the RTUK to regulate digital media platforms is based on a legal amendment made in March 2018. This law enabled the establishment of these platforms at local and national levels in Turkey. Furthermore, in accordance with this law, these platforms had to get a license from RTUK. Thus, the latest by-law implements the law accepted one and a half year ago.

What is the reason behind this regulation? Since these platforms started to be a significant alternative to the conventional media platforms, the lack of monitoring and regulation mechanisms on these platforms became a hot topic of discussion. Indeed, the skyrocketing increase in the number of people preferring these platforms sparked this debate last year. According to the latest Netflix data, the number of Netflix paying streaming subscribers worldwide increased from 21.5 million in 2011 to 151 million in 2019. In Turkey, there have been 170 thousand subscribers since 2016 and approximately 75 thousand of these subscribers are still active members.

When it comes to Blu TV, even if it is not possible to give the exact numbers, more than 1.5 million people have subscribed to this platform since 2016 according to the statements of the CEO. Thus, since these platforms are quite popular among the masses, the content of these platforms have been questioned by some circles.

There has been a worldwide discussion that Netflix promotes homosexuality by adding high number of LGBTQ characters to its movies and TV series.

The main concern of the defenders of latest regulation is the notion that this platform promotes morally objectionable content. There has been a worldwide discussion that Netflix promotes homosexuality by adding high number of LGBTQ characters to its movies and TV series. Furthermore, because Netflix marks some of the programs with sexual content as “they are appropriate for general audiences”, parents question editorial policy of the company.

Nonetheless, the opponents of this regulation perceive it as a challenge to their freedom to watch any kind of movie or TV show, at any time, by paying its subscription price. A 27-year -old male subscriber of Blu TV and Netflix states “every month, I pay the price to these platforms to watch whatever I want. If RTUK interferes with them, I will not pay for them anymore”.

The opponents also claim that there has never been any state intervention into these platforms before. Nevertheless, Netflix itself has changed its content on a couple of occasions with formal applications from specific countries. For instance, Netflix removed an episode of the “Patriot Act” discussing the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi from its service in Saudi Arabia.

At the end of the day, it is important to strike the right balance between freedom and public regulation. Since it is obvious that digital media platforms also need to be regulated, keeping this balance may also improve the quality of digital media content presented to the society.

In his work The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, German sociologist Jürgen Habermas, a leading name in social theory, states that mass media is a key component of the public sphere. According to him, with the emergence of mass media (press, newspapers etc.) in the 17th century, the bourgeoisie gained a medium through which they could freely express themselves. Thus, new discussion spaces and news platforms independent from political power emerged. Newspapers, which originally created an active discussion opportunity in the public sphere, evolved into the mouthpiece of certain classes with commercial interests within time. Mass media’s control of the public sphere and the market dominance of certain organizations via mass communication tools have been conceptualized as the “re-feudalization of the public sphere.”

This new phenomenon, called re-feudalization by Habermas, means the destruction of the public sphere that is based on conciliation on the basis of ethical principles, rationality and negotiation. It is argued that the public sphere has evolved and lost its function due to the commercialization of newspapers and control of the market forces. The fact that newspapers, which have been among the key components of spreading ideas and the notion of the public sphere, have been affected by the capitalist commercialization and entered into the domination of private benefits was interpreted as a destructive invasion of the public sphere. Caused by commercialization and monopolization, this situation rules out the media’s effect in the creation of the public sphere. The structural changes introduced by new internet technologies, which added a new dimension in the public sphere debates in social theory, brought up the possibility of resuscitating the public sphere.

Democracy and communication

The active use of social networks in a number of social movements such as the Orange Revolution, the Iranian Green Movement, Occupy movements, Arab uprisings and Gezi Park protests heated the debates regarding the role of media in the public sphere. A comprehensive body of literature emerged in this context with the reestablishment of a positive relationship between democracy and mass media. As a result, the most common approach asserted that the novelties introduced by internet technologies would contribute to democratic processes and support democratization. It was also projected that the novelties would remove the barriers before the liberalization of societies and consolidate the transparency principle.

This approach mainly contends that internet technologies that are regarded as an instrument for transformation would offer more autonomy, equality and democracy opportunities to societies through the 21st century. In a study conducted during the early 2000s, when the internet had just started addressing large masses, it was argued that the electorate would unite with other nations and create an unprecedented global political presence thanks to electronic communication means, and that the internet would be used more effectively thanks to this. In this framework, the opinion suggesting that internet technologies, new media and social networks raise consciousness in society and contribute to democratic processes by easing organization activities has been approached through different lenses.

Effects of the social media on politics and the public sphere can be divided into two periods: first, fostering democratization movements in authoritarian regime, but second, enabling interfering with politics through manipulation.

Viewing the effect of social media on politics and the public sphere, it is possible to categorize the effect into two different periods. During the first period, social media’s positive role was visible particularly in starting democratization movements in authoritarian regimes and raising public awareness on liberties in many countries. During the second period, on the other hand, which reached its pinnacle during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, new media tools started interfering with politics while socio-political life has been manipulated through these tools.

In reference to the trending notion of post-truth, we can say that we are living in a world of simulation where the truth has lost its value and perceptions overcome realities. According to this view, the current societal environment is a place where perceptions created in digital platforms have replaced reality and social factors have been pressed upon by technology. In his classic work The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, Evgeny Morozov states in a striking tone that internet technologies in fact do not contribute to democratization, but contrarily serve to consolidate authoritarian tendencies and suppress liberalization discourse. Criticizing the all-positive approaches that praise technology and internet and calling them “cyber-utopianism,” Morozov manifests in his work that the other side of the medallion is pretty dark.

Gustave Le Bon’s arguments are particularly seminal in analyzing the prevalent atmosphere in web-based social networks from the perspective of mass psychology and rising lynch culture. In his book entitled The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Le Bon defines the crowd as a community where different individuals gather and assume a new character. The individual, who is relatively rational in his/her own world, starts acting with a different psychology in the crowd and engages in actions that are in line with the character of the crowd. According to Le Bon, the individual’s conscious character disappears with his/her inclusion in the crowd since collective consciousness replaces individual consciousness.

We are living in a world of simulation where the truth has lost its value and perceptions overcome realities.

Sharing fake contents and subjecting some institutions or persons to lynch campaigns without questioning them are among the most distinct features of the mass psychology seen on web-based social platforms. Without feeling a need to question the validity of any content, individuals are steered by the political communities they belong to and being party to the lynch culture. The social networking sites, blogs and other popular internet platforms in Turkey comprise a power domain where a specific worldview is dominant and diversities are repressed with the lynch culture. Those who share contents that do not comply with the views of the dominant forces are subjected to the most sophisticated forms of lynch culture and end up being marginalized. The fact that the groups who accept the beliefs of their own communities as the absolute truth display minimum levels of lenience towards the others shows that these platforms, which are claimed to be democratic and all-encompassing, can be highly exclusivist.

The sociological panorama of Turkey within the discourse of polarization does actually demonstrate that Turkey’s social structure has been unipolar so far. Considering the synchronized and full-scale manipulation activities and the close interest that foreign media outlets have had in Turkey in the recent period, it can be seen that social networks and conventional media outlets play a major role in the organized attempts to disrupt conservative politics and lifestyles. The news that target the current government (such as the latest debates on cultural hegemony) are systematically and simultaneously put on the agendas of similar circles in dissident and foreign media outlets and social networks, which shows the synchronization of such attacks.

Internet platforms are far from being public spheres that enable the free expression of diversities and different opinions.

All the dimensions of this full-scale attack can be seen in the manipulations by ostensibly impartial public figures, which have millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook, through fake contents and the repeated publication of such contents by dissident websites. In the run up to the Istanbul mayoral election, the disinformation produced in social networks has been targeting reputable institutions, which manifests the political motivations of the circulating strategies. All in all, social networks, which were initially introduced as the public spheres where different views can be expressed without any oppression and which was expected to make great contributions to democratization, are the most effective instruments threatening democracy and participatory culture today.

When the popular virtual platforms and ostensibly anonymous content sharing sites in Turkey are viewed, it is seen that all kinds of radical tendencies can freely express themselves whereas characters such as inclusiveness and lenience are hardly present. Especially groups who have different political opinions are subjected to all kinds of manipulation and debarred from the means of self-expression in psychological ways. Therefore, the positive correlation established between social networks and democracy must be scrutinized and reconsidered.

Currently, internet platforms are far from being public spheres that enable the free expression of diversities and different opinions. As Hubert Dreyfus contends in his work On the Internet, it is impossible for the internet, which does not make inter-corporeality possible and where almost everyone can express opinions on anything without taking any risk, to create an “electronic public sphere.”

Faruk Yaslıçimen, Politics Today’s Editor-in-Chief interviewed Dr. Hakkı Öcal, a renowned senior Turkish journalist and a regular contributor for Milliyet daily and also a faculty member of Ibn Haldun University Faculty of Communication about the increasing activeness of foreign media outlets in Turkey.

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Dr. Öcal, as you know there are foreign media companies that are recently opening branches in Turkey and making publications in Turkish. I would like to ask first of all, do you remember similar examples of such concentrated efforts in the media sector in history?

Years ago, I remember almost a similar case. All major American and British media companies and government corporations had all of a sudden started their Kurdish broadcasts and publications in print in Iraq. Months later we found out that the U.S. was going to invade Iraq. So, the fact that foreign media companies nowadays are showing keen interest in Turkey and are publishing in Turkish makes me feel edgy. I don’t feel comfortable not because that anybody is going to invade Turkey but the logical extension of what they did in 1991 signals a kind of intervention. For instance, before the invasion of Iraq, the Voice of America (VOA) started its Kurdish broadcast overnight. In Turkish we have a saying, “fol yok yumurta yok,” and VOA created a publication company named Middle East Broadcasting House in Maryland (MERNA) that targeted Iraqi Kurds via satellites. The signals were downloaded and distributed through U.S. naval ships in the Gulf to Kurds. So, they established direct communication. Jokes aside, this little anecdote has nothing to do with Turkey right now.

This is a very serious joke indeed…

I don’t want to alarm anybody but that is just a historical fact. Anyway, in the BBC’s founding corporation document it states that the people of the United Kingdom need to communicate directly with the corners of the world where their own government does not provide independent, verified and multi-faceted communication for their own people. By the same token, the United States of America stopped VOA broadcasting in Turkish after Turgut Özal allowed private media broadcasting and they said ‘now Turkish people have an independent and verified information and communication system in the world therefore we don’t need to communicate with Turkish people directly.’

Aren’t Turkish citizens informed independently about what’s happening inside and outside of the country? This is what it means if foreign media outlets start broadcasting in Turkish for Turkish people.

So, they are both aware of and state that they are deliberately communicating not with the governments but the people, citizens of a country and manipulate…

Well, they don’t say manipulate because it does not sound nice or democratic. The word is to allow them to respect the people’s right to information and if their government is not providing this we are doing that. This is also in the VOA Charter that was passed in 1942.

Why have they all of a sudden started communicating directly with the Turkish people now? Is the Turkish media not doing this? Aren’t Turkish citizens informed independently about what’s happening inside and outside of the country? Don’t they get information from any other local sources? This is what it means if they start broadcasting in Turkish for Turkish people. They are giving the message that “Turkish people! You don’t have independent information channels where you obtain information about what’s happening in your country and in the world. So, we are going to provide these for you.” It also means that “Turkish media companies online broadcasting and publication outlets are not doing this. But we do.” Is this really the case?

We have to accept that recently media ownership changes are frequent in Turkey. Most of the time the reason is economic and print media is not profitable anymore due to online publications. So many traditional publishers are getting out of printed media and switching to other lines of business. Internet publication in Turkey is very rich and plural but not paying well. When you run a website, yes you may survive, but this is not going to make you rich. Traditional publishers used to make a lot of money out of the print journalism business. But now they don’t find online platforms profitable enough and prefer to concentrate more on the mining industry or transportation in order to make more money.

Unfortunately for the last fifty years in Turkey as elsewhere, traditional print media bosses have not been journalists themselves, but businessmen.

Unfortunately for the last fifty years in Turkey as elsewhere, traditional print media bosses have not been journalists themselves, but businessmen. Their first priority has been to make money. So, when diminishing returns become the case, they can get out of the industry easily. Some investor groups get together and create pools to take the ownership of such businesses. These are not the traditional media bosses as we know, but they are what we emphatically call Anatolian Tigers or their sons who represent the second generation. Since they don’t have enough money to buy such huge multimillion-dollar conglomerates, they pool their assets to purchase them. Due to this method, they are disparagingly called “the pool media,” which accounts for companies supporting the AK Party government or the Erdogan Administration.

There is of course a pro-government media but wrongly put into one basket. The real problem is that it is only the ownership that the Turkey’s political opposition doesn’t like. I mean look at some new media people, some came from Trabzon to Istanbul with their business partners and become a newspaper boss. However, the age-old Istanbul capitalists, the Istanbul bourgeois don’t like seeing someone from Malatya or from Çankırı owning a media company. They never pay attention to its content or take interest in the large variety of opinions in these newspapers. Who can say Yenişafak for example is 100% pro-government? There is also very harsh criticism in newspapers, which are unanimously labelled as pro-government.

So, the heart of the problem as far as I understand from what you are saying is that the overall approach to the media hasn’t changed. There are structural problems in regards to  media ownership in Turkey. But now we are living in the twenty first century. Our lives are occupied with social media and the internet. Now we have a plural atmosphere and there are pro-government as well as opposition media outlets, which are indeed influential. Given the fact that we have influential opposition media in Turkey, there is still the question as to why foreign media companies are investing in Turkey. Or as in the case of +90, they are uniting their forces and founding a YouTube channel or take Independent Türkçe. Why is this happening?

There is no historical precedence for this. I mean BBC, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle and France 24 never got together even during the Second World War. Yes, during WWII, there was no internet but many other channels that these could cooperate. The western alliance did not do this. Why are they doing this now? Especially now. What’s happening in Turkey is the answer of this question, I think. It must be something they don’t like. I guess it is a new Turkey that is becoming more active internationally. So far, Turkey was a docile member of the Western alliance. It was so pliant a member of alliance. Yes, from time to time it caused headaches like the resistance to the U.S. request to stop the opium poppy cultivation during the Bülent Ecevit period, and Turkey’s Cyprus operation caused an arms embargo but all in all, Turkey has been a quiet member of the western alliance.

To convince the Western states to lift the embargo, Turkey tried hard to explain why they had to act in Cyprus by producing arguments like saving Turks from Greek cruelty that was taking place on the island, etc. But take Ecevit’s photo later taken with Bill Clinton – that was a shameful one. From that Turkey, we came to a Turkey, a new Turkey which says “how come you can talk about embargos or sanctions?” The country now demands its rights and questions unjust treatment in contrast to the Ecevit period, when the country was trying gently to explain Turkey’s position. But Turkey today simply says “You can’t do it. If you do, I will reciprocate.” And it does.

This Turkey is different and can successfully reject the U.S. attempt to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. No other country has objected before Turkey did. Turkey gathered the The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) general assembly in Istanbul and following the convention almost all countries in the UN except six rejected the U.S. move. Turkey singlehandedly opposed the U.S. policy decision. It is the people of this new Turkey foreign media outlets try directly reach and communicate with. What are they going to say? Partly fake news that now spreads all over the place.

Are they really spreading fake news or misinformation?

Not necessarily. They are telling a version of the story in order to give a message. As you know Marshall McLuhan says in his book titled “Understanding Media” that medium is the message now. You need to reach certain conclusions from the format. For instance, you read a mainstream U.S. newspaper that the story is attributed to an “unnamed official” you may be sure that this story is fed by a government official. It is not an ordinary news story, but a targeted message. They want to install certain ideas into people’s mind; they want to have them think that the Turkish government is wrong, but the U.S., Germany or France even the whole world is against Turkey. The content of the news story is not important anymore, it is the fear that they want to transmit.

I am not simply saying the BBC, Voice of America and others spread fake information about Turkey. But the way they editorialize news items carries a message.

Nowadays, the U.S. is threatening that Turkey will be excluded from the F-35 fighter jet program. As many U.S. experts testify Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 Air Defense System is not incompatible with F-35s. But the tone of the threats, the wording of the statements, and their timing make is so clear that it is not a simple technical matter. The western media outlets and the Gulf-financed websites are going to emphasize the U.S.-based strategic opinion that Turkey is siding with the U.S.’ enemies. That’s editorializing the content. This is what they are going to do. Do not look for the age-old dictums of the free and independent phrases that the information should be balanced, that you have to carry contrary opinions in your story. I am not simply saying the BBC, Voice of America and others spread fake information about Turkey. But the way they editorialize news items carries a message. The news stories you carry as well as those you don’t also matters.

You are following these media outlets closely. Can you tell us how and what they choose to publish or how they tend to editorialize their content?

You don’t see anything coming from the Erdogan administration. The words of the Turkish side are always in the second or third paragraph. At the very top you always see accusations coming from unnamed sources or very selective headlines. The research shows that on the internet people are not going to read below the fold. They read the headline, the first paragraph, and that’s it. All the “positive” sections about the Turkish government are below the fold. People don’t read them. Therefore, when they say that they present a balanced story it is not really meaningful. Nobody ever reads the second page. The headlines are very selectively editorialized news items.

Turkish people got accustomed to the publications of BBC Türkçe, DW Türkçe and others but there is also Sputnik Türkçe, which is Russian. Even though Turkey and Russia have been on good terms for some time and are pursuing joint investments, Sputnik Türkçe still publishes a lot of anti-government content. How do you explain this?

Russia, politically speaking, has never been a hundred percent friend of Turkey. We are nowadays discussing Turkey’s full membership to the EU and NATO membership. This mechanically leads people to think that if Turkey distances itself from the Western alliance, the country will quickly align itself with Russia. I think that shouldn’t be the case and won’t be the case. Turkey will not leave the Western alliance soon or ever; I can say ever. Because since early Ottoman expansion, the orientation was towards the West. The primary aim of the Turks has always been westward expansion. Turks are western oriented.

Russia, politically speaking, has never been a hundred percent friend of Turkey. Turks are western oriented.

But let’s assume that S-400 air defense systems are placed and activated on Turkish soil and Turkey is kicked out of the F-35 program and plus in retaliation the country purchased Russian SU-57, fifth generation jet fighter. NATO cannot expel Turkey but can make life so difficult for Turkey that it leaves the Alliance. Anybody thinks that such a scenario would end with Turkey’s alignment with Russia. I think this is not going to be the case. Because Turkey and Russia have never historically been friends.

So, you mean that Sputnik Turkey’s publication policy is related to the preferences of the Russian state?

They accuse Americans, but they do exactly the same. Look at the Idlib situation right now. The Assad regime is bombing Idlib despite the agreements reached during Sochi and Astana summits. Russians are bombing Idlib too. What’s happening? Haven’t we reached to an agreement in these summits? Idlib was under the protection of Turkey, which promised to stop any violations and terrorist infiltration to Syria. They argue that Turkey is not guarding Idlib as supposed but Turkey asked them to show one example of terrorist infiltration. Indeed, there is no proof of such terrorist infiltration or activities from Idlib.

What’s happening in Idlib is not acceptable. Russia has much more stake in peace in Syria or as much benefit as Turkey does from the peace in Syria. According to some unconfirmed press reports, in the middle of the night, the Turkish Ministry of Defense had to call the Russian Ministry telling them that they had to stop the bombings. These things are not supposed to happen in an ideal partnership. Sputnik or another Russian website is not supposed to be anti-Turkey. You can well be anti-government and Russian experts or statesmen can criticize the acts of the Turkish government in Syria. This is part of freedom of information and conscience. Any Russian news outlet should be reporting this. Here, the editorializing matters. But look at the people working for Sputnik Türkçe, they are either workers of former FETO-owned news outlets or some imbalanced critical individuals.

I am following Sputnik for a long time. I have been its very vocal critic on Twitter. Whenever I catch non-journalistic behavior from them, I expose it.

There is such a thing as press freedom and freedom of expression. But the overall tendency in the Russian media, I mean the editorializing and biased selectiveness matter. I have been following Sputnik for a long time. I have been its very vocal critic on Twitter. Whenever I catch non-journalistic behavior from them, I expose it. Well, because we have to. I am a former journalist. If I were an active journalist operating in the editorial board, I would expose their non-journalistic behavior as much as I could. The first and foremost duty of journalists is to upkeep the profession’s ethics. We have to warn anybody who abuses our ages-old conventions in journalism. Everybody knows what these conventions are. What Russians are doing now is not proper journalism. It is selective mouthpiece of certain opinions, always against Turkey, always biased, always against the Erdogan administration.

So, they are falling into the same pitfall with Western media outlets when it comes to news on Turkey? They criticize the imbalanced nature of the western media, while showing and representing another example of such behavior.

Oh, yes. I am sure Voice of America would be very happy to have Sputnik on their YouTube channel!

Do you think they are influential in Turkey?

Thank God, no! First of all, computer penetration is still low in Turkey. Yes, cell phone penetration has almost doubled during the last two years. Everybody in Turkey has 2.8 cell phones now. When it comes to desktop web penetration, the number is lower than the European average. Again, in modern Turkey, people are not totally out of oral tradition. I’ll give you an example. Boğaziçi University is an age-old modern university and anyone may presume that people enroll their kids are also very modern, rich, Istanbul bourgeois with experiences abroad. However, as the registration dates are announced in newspapers, parents start to call the university switchboard and ask “Is that the correct registration date that I read on the newspaper?” This oral tradition is still very much alive. In communication theory, we call them gatekeepers. Gatekeepers are people who should hear something and convey information to real people. Even if you read something on the internet, they don’t automatically believe it. They discuss it with real people and try to confirm the information from mouth of another real person. This is the oral tradition.

But we have a young population and Turkey is among the top social media consumers in the world. Turkish citizens spend much more time than many countries in the world and these foreign media companies in Turkey are using social media very effectively and exercise influence over the younger generations. Might this have an effect in the upcoming years?

It might in the next ten years. Young people are not political as such. They are out of touch with daily political developments. An impact on this audience is not overwhelmingly important as to change Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy preferences. A) They do not talk about politics among their peers. This is quickly observable. They are mostly engaged in music, arts, culture, but not politics.

This is true but let me object right at this point. Politics per se is not one of their enthusiasms but occasionally certain topics can immediately appeal to their interests and young people might get politicized for certain issues for a specific time. We experienced this during the violent Gezi Park protests. Those people who were thought to be apathetic to politics got politicized all of a sudden and occupied the streets. Will this partial politicization change the course of Turkish politics or not? Does social media increasingly influence the Turkish youth and lead them to politicization – especially with the satirical language of a politically charged media outlet for example?

You are right. I agree with this portrayal of Turkish youth and this is already happening. There are lots of internet-based organizations, gathering in virtual or actual spaces in which is filled by young men and women together. The Gezi Park event was organized on the internet and got out of hand because of the internet’s non-controllable character. I agree with this but this is not widespread. It is not happening all over the place. This happened only in Istanbul, a bit in Ankara and Izmir. But other than these, we did not have such an exposition in other provinces.

Gezi was an exception. Gezi happened all over Turkey. Now we have learned that the Gezi Park event took place as a result of months of preparations. I think it is not going to repeat itself. But you are right. There is grave potential there. The only thing to balance this is the family structure. In Turkey, young people are much more independent and exercise an influence on young people. A traditional Turkish family structure, for example, would tolerate a young person’s participation into a political rally, whether pro- or anti-government. I believe that +90, Gulf sponsored websites and Sputnik Türkçe are not fundamentally or single-handedly effective over the Turkish youth. They might eventually be influential, but not soon.

There are some in Turkey who regard these developments as a potential national security threat. Are you agreement with this opinion? Or do you believe that the gatekeepers can keep the gates?

The gatekeepers will keep the gates. And Turkey is a big country. Its army, its police force, satellites, etc. provide enough intelligence to maintain security. The issue concerns not national security but national politics. Maybe because I earned my life as a journalist, I don’t see anything bad that could come from free expression. No harm can come from talking, writing or making a film. It is communication, which is one of the assets among many others. Turkey is strong enough to defeat ill-effects of disinformation. If the whole world gets together and creates an anti-Turkey and anti-Islam communication in Turkey, it is not going to work. People will go to mosque, run to rallies of political parties and listen to their leaders.

These +90 and other Gulf-sponsored media outlets are targeting Turkish politics but Turkey is strong enough to resist them.

I am sure no political leader or opinion leader in Turkey, even those totally against the AK Party government, is ever going to allow anything that threatens Turkey’s national security. So, let them talk and speak. As the famous saying goes, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” No harm can come from free communication. But we need to know, who is doing what and why. These +90 and Gulf-sponsored media outlets are targeting Turkish politics but Turkey is strong enough to resist them. There are also websites being founded spreading correct information against misinformation.

So, the media is a legitimate field of contestation

It has been and it will be. It does not scare me at all. What is scaring me is politicians. Now we have John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and an inexperienced U.S. president. The world has become more dangerous not because of communication but because of politics.

Thank you very much Dr. Hakkı Öcal.

MALKOVICH: I gotto know the truth, Kevin.
BACON: Truth is for suckers, Johnny-Boy
— Charlie Kauffman (in the “Being John Malkovich” movie)

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee whom friends emphatically call TimBL, invented the World Wide Web in 1989 when he was working for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), and left it in 1994 to create a standards-body for the Web. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT/LCS) accepted to be the host for what later became known as W3C to set standards and protocols to operate within the WWW network.

I attended its second international conference in October 1994. The first conference was held in May 1994 at CERN in Geneva. It was sort of a founding meeting with public notaries and partners; the real—and first—discussions on the technology, tools and applications took place at the Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Chicago. Trying to throw in my two cents’ worth with the small gathering (W3C has as of this year 444 members; then I think there were less than 44 people in the room), I said “Wild Wide Web” instead “World Wide Web.” It could be due to an understandable ecstasy of breathing the same air with TimBL, or a premonition of the social network and social media that we have a quarter century later, today.

Wild New Media

Perhaps, for a person who has been witnessing all that development (if I may say so) since day 1, all that had happened in these years was not that catastrophic, at all. But today what we have especially in the new media arena is definitely wild.

There are three views on what is happening now:

1. We have incarcerated ourselves in an echo chamber, that is, we are only hearing what we are saying.
2. The “Echo Chamber” theory is a myth; we can still hear all voices if we want to.
3. It is an echo chamber we are confined in; but this is not necessarily a bad thing.

In a conference I participated in May 2007 in Banff, Canada, W3C standard-bearers discussed ways to tame the upcoming social networks under the very insightful title of “Step Two: Harnessing the Wisdom of the Crowds.” Step One has already been taken and crowds began filling Facebook since 2004 and Twitter since 2006; and the world needed a way to search and index all that information on the Internet that was really getting wilder by every second. I remember Deepayan Chakrabarti and Ravi Kumar from Yahoo! Research discussed how to see identifying structures (all items on the Web page is no longer text only; the search engines need to have standards to recognize non-textual content) in Web pages; Ziv Bar-Yossef from Google Haifa Engineering Center handled the issue of “crawling different URLs with similar text” (“Crawling is the technical term for a search engine going and getting a Web content and indexing it; and yes, Google’s main engineering center is in Israel).

Have people entered into an echo chamber, where they only hear what they say in social media? Or do we still hear other voices if we want to? 

Is the Echo Chamber Theory true?

Many other issues discussed and the W3C committees created protocols for all social media content. That is how YouTube recognizes a video used in your Twitter message if it is not licensed; with these protocols, all the technical standards are set so that your Facebook image appears in a Google image search.

On this technical foundation the Internet (Web sites on WWW, blogs and microblogs–Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and 60 plus other social networks) has expanded the amount of political, social and cultural information. That is the positive side that created a pluralistic public debate on anything and everything. But the proponents of the “Echo Chamber Theory” say that greater access to information may lead to selective exposure to ideologically similar channels. In other words, like-minded people find each other, and hear what they want to hear. This over-exposure to similar voices puts the person in a position of hearing himself in an “echo chamber,” which simply reinforces sometimes dangerous and harmful behavior. Sociologist and communication psychologists call this “developing tunnel vision” and find it extremely harmful to individuals and to social capital of societies.

Even if you want to have access to a variety of opinions and ideas, Google’s search engine customizes a search model for you depending on your “like” and “dislike” behavior and the content you create. A simple experiment of sending a Gmail to a friend of yours with a text laced with words like “Islamism” and “Jihad” would make you a target of Google Ads on guns, Arabic courses and graduate study offers in Afghanistan. Because in today’s tethered world you are what you write, read and purchase; all these are indexed and registered so that you can have a “customized social media experience.”

Proponents of the “Echo Chamber Theory” say that greater access to information may lead to selective exposure to ideologically similar channels. Like-minded people find each other, and hear what they want to hear.

In addition to this “technical” customization, we too select our buddies and friends from among people you like, and you follow the people you like. There are many research showing that only 5 percent of Facebook users follow people they hate! Again, 18 percent of social network users block/ban/unfriend people who post messages they don’t like. Robert Sunstein, the Administrator of the White House Office of Information from 2009 to 2012, wrote “Although millions of people are using the Internet to expand their horizons, many people are doing the opposite, creating a Daily Me that is specifically tailored to their own interests and prejudices.” They would live in ‘echo chambers,’ leading to greater polarization in a country’s politics. Even if we share the opinions of other people, there are selected from the sources we trust; we let “our people” read the articles of those whom we like most. We act as filter for our friends, and thus we create what experts call a “filter bubble.”

In short, we are creating our own cocoons on Facebook and Twitter; and rarely, if ever, go out of it for feeding. After all, “networking” is supposed to be just like that. Is it not?

David Robson, (@d_a_robson on Twitter) last year in an article written for the BBC answered this question begging to differ. He says, “contrary to popular belief, we now hear more diverse voices than ever before.” He cites studies that suggest that most people do not live in Facebook or Twitter echo chambers and ‘filter bubbles.’ In his article, Robson cites a research by Seth Flaxman, Sharad Goel and Justin M. Rao on Web-browsing histories for 50,000 U.S. users who regularly read online news. These researchers found that while social networks and search engines are associated with an increase in the mean ideological distance between individuals, somewhat counterintuitively, these same channels are also associated with an increase in an individual’s exposure to material from his or her less preferred side of the political spectrum. The research shows that the vast majority of online news consumption is accounted for by individuals simply visiting the home pages of not only their favorite news outlets, but also opposite news sources which means that people expose themselves to a more extreme world view.

Robson also cites PEW and University of Ottawa surveys confirming these findings. A survey of 2,000 British adults, for instance, found that “the majority of people already reach outside their political comfort zone: they actively seek out additional sources that convey diverse views that do not match with their preconceptions.” In this survey only 8% of the participants had just one or two news services without other perspectives. This small number of people happens to be the most hostile online because of some behavioral theories: a motivated reasoning makes us surer of our opinions when faced by opposing views. But most people do not have minds set on certain emotions. Anonymity is also a factor making people act hostile online.

Robson, accepting the facts that false news spreads much more rapidly than verified information from respectable sources, and that people may be target of deliberative manipulation on social media, concludes that digital literacy efforts are making people act intelligently.

We are creating our own cocoons on Facebook and Twitter; and rarely, if ever, go out of it for feeding. After all, “networking” is supposed to be just like that. Is it not?

The third group think that social media echo chambers might actually be a good thing. That is, you are not a partisan out of ignorance but because you fundamentally disagree with something knowingly. Scholars who take this road usually point to the fact that we are living in a post-truth age; people, born and raised in postmodernism’s identity politics, are already partisans of certain values.

The research teams from Duke, Princeton and NYU asked 1,652 self-identified Republicans and Democrats to follow a bot for one month and actually read its tweets. They did not know if they were getting tweets from a liberal bot or a conservative bot, but they received 24 messages a day from notable political personalities, pundits, and elected officials. At the end, Democrats getting tweets from the conservative bot, and Republicans receiving messages from the liberal bot expressed change in behavior. Democrats were influenced in a “statistically significant way” by the Conservative messages, but the Republicans strongly opposed to the tweets they received. If you hold an opinion as a result of identification process, familiarity with the opposite ideas might weaken your attitude. If you believe in what you believe in as a result of a strong ideologization process, no matter how much other opinions you are exposed to, you will stick with your story. Why is it a good thing?

Tristan Greene, who writes on political policy concerning technology, evaluating this research argues that despite “all of our olive branches and … bridges, maybe we should just let our votes do the talking when it comes to political discourse, and do not worry too much on nests, cocoons and hives we live on social media.”

What I come to after observing the wild race that we call social media is a question: Would it be different if we didn’t have a “new” media but continued with the old, traditional, mainstream media? How many of us today would be getting two newspapers of opposing political and editorial behavior? Wouldn’t we be judging people with the newspaper they had folded under their arms?

Human beings are the same despite all changes in the media.

French President Emmanuel Macron has waged war on “fake news.” In his new year’s speech to journalists at the Élysée Palace, Macron said: “If we want to protect liberal democracies, we must be strong and have clear rules,” adding that they would strengthen their legal mechanisms to protect democracy from fake news. Although the law, which aims to fight fake news during election campaigns stirred many debates in all political spectrums, it still went through Parliament last week.

While Macron believes that the Press Law of 1881 is not enough to fight the spread of fake news through social media in today’s world, the new law especially targets social media networks and media outlets that are controlled from outside of France.

According to the new law, political parties or candidates can commence expedited legal proceedings about speculative or fabricated news during the three months before the general elections. In case of the spread of speculative or fabricated news, the news will be deleted after the proceedings, the membership of the user can be suspended, or other serious sanctions can be imposed such as banning access to the site in question.

The French audiovisual CSA (Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel) will have the authority to suspend the licenses of France-based media outlets controlled by other countries.

Just like in Germany, social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, will be responsible for removing fake news as soon as possible in France. When news outlets release political campaigns or propaganda tools that manipulate the electorate in a way to disrupt the election period, they will have to explain its source and the budget for endorsement.

More, the French audiovisual CSA (Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel) will have the authority to suspend the licenses of France-based media outlets controlled by other countries.

While Macron believes that the Press Law of 1881 is not enough to fight the spread of fake news through social media in today’s world, the new law especially targets social media networks and media outlets that are controlled from outside of France.

Although the law objectively draws attention to the modern dangers posed by social media networks and press organs affiliated with or run by foreign states in terms of shaping opinions, it substantially targets Russia and Russian media outlets. In a press meeting he held with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in May, Macron complained about Sputnik’s and Russia Today’s propaganda through speculative or fake news, although he refrained from giving any specific example. As can be remembered, during Macron’s presidential campaign, Sputnik and Russia Today alleged that Macron has a so-called “double life,” reporting a series of news alluding that Macron is financed by a wealthy gay lobby and that he has dubious relations with some American banks.

In addition, during an interview with Russian newspaper Izvestia, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stated that Hillary Clinton’s emails comprise some interesting information on Macron. Following this, the Washington Post commented that the Russian media strived to intervene in the French presidential elections by spreading rumors. In addition to this, Macron’s campaign spokesperson complained about the “influence of websites that are completely under Russian control and Russia’s cyber-attacks” in France. In response to Macron’s complaints on the Russian media, Russia’s Foreign Minister implied that these complaints are groundless suspicions and refused the accusations by arguing that such complaints are the consequence of the spread of the U.S.’s anti-Russia propaganda across other countries during the Obama period.

In a press meeting he held with Vladimir Putin in May, Macron complained about Sputnik’s and Russia Today’s propaganda through speculative or fake news, although he refrained from giving any specific example.

Is Macron a paranoiac? No. This is the very reason why the new law introduced in France is regarded as Macron’s personal law. It also signals that Macron is likely to run for president in the next elections.

On the other hand, a month before the April 2017 elections, a journalism project was initiated under the leadership of First Draft News of CrossCheck, which has been supported by the BBC. Many fake news that appeared during the French elections were refuted in collaboration with various news agencies based in Europe. Some head titles of these fake news included, “Emmanuel Macron received financial aid from Saudi Arabia for his election campaign,” “The French state will purchase hotels and houses worth £100 million to house immigrants,” and “The French state will replace the Christian religious holidays with Muslim and Jewish religious holidays.” More, a map shared by a social media user depicted that the acts of violence peaked in France. However, the map was actually portraying the period of the 2005 French riots, which started after Zyed Benna and Bouna Traore died by electrocution while running from police during ID check in November 2005. Soon after, protests escalated and turned into violence, involving the burning of cars. This led to the declaration of a state of emergency.

Is Macron a paranoiac? No. This is the very reason why the new law introduced in France is regarded as Macron’s personal law. It also signals that Macron is likely to run for president in the next elections.

Except for the first one, the other three incidents undoubtedly posed threats against social order. Is it possible to yield results from the attempts to shape politics, stir up chaos or manipulate society with fake news? Of course it is possible; opinion-shaping by disinformation is a common practice in the current context. Overall, such fake news did not work out in France, and did not reach the levels to threaten the societal peace or state governance. Yet, there are many countries where disinformation works, including Turkey. In the case of Turkey, the extent of fake news does not only consist of a bunch of news spread through social media. For the past five years, Turkey confronted severe threats ignited by thousands of lies spread through Twitter and Facebook, including the attempts to start a civil war and stage a military coup attempt, abetted by a superpower and its allies in the West and the Gulf countries.

According to a piece recently published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung daily, which based its data on a report, most German journalists have a left-motivated political orientation. This is not a new finding, for someone who follows German media outlets on daily basis and spots on any Turkey-related views and opinions.

The report, which was published in 2017, argues that most media representatives are politically aligned to the left-wing circles. Although the report points to the lack of enough empirical data, earlier studies (2010) had made similar conclusions, too. Namely, that most of the people working in the media sector support either the Greens, the social-democrats or the Left Party in Germany.

Of course, one might ask whether for journalists or media employees the ideological or political orientation is important or required for being successful in their jobs. Actually, it is not a deficit or even an obstacle of having a political stance while working as an active or even investigative journalist. Moreover, it would mean more diversity and an additional motivation factor for having various employees who represent different points of view. But as one notices, according to the above cited report, this idealistic expectation does not reflect the German –or most likely the Western– media landscape in general.

One should remember that most of the leading German media outlets and their head figures generally criticize, for instance, the Turkish media by insisting on certain arguments. However, it’s not very common that there are actual discussions that critically address the one-sided bias and the domination of certain staff members within the German media sector. Personally, I wouldn’t actually prefer right-wing oriented journalists in Germany for a daily piece. However, that’s not the point. The wrong expectation of German media outlets and journalists with regard to foreign countries’ media landscape, which has to be diversified according to them, does actually not reflect the alleged German standards per se.

It became a structural reality that German journalists are sometimes biased to write with an unnamed superiority complex in particular with regard to right-wing or conservative circles. As a consequence, though, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone if some right-wing oriented citizens even distance themselves from these kind of “main-stream” media representatives. Of course, the general mentality of right-wing circles does not welcome a freedom-friendly societal perception, nevertheless, on the other hand, the apparent leftist bias of the media does also not contribute to the mutual understanding of society.

Furthermore, the tough language of certain German media pieces becomes more obvious if a country such as Turkey is being addressed. But in such cases the usual and crucial questions arise as to whether the expertise or even the relation of each journalist is as enough in order to cover a certain country perhaps for a long period of time? Unfortunately, this weak and lacking knowledge especially in analyzing or commenting very difficult issues deteriorates certain conditions even more.

But despite several incidents, the biased behavior of some journalists is generally not being problematized by the employers, editors or heads of media outlets. Of course, this does not mean that people who work in the field of media do not get fired. It’s also the case in Germany, for instance, the case with Steingart, who was fired in February of this year. But these incidents are unfortunately not addressed in solidarity whether one accepts it or not.

In Turkey, on the other hand, despite the widespread narrative that only conservative-minded people and certain circles, who support the current government, are employed in the media sector, this does not actually reflect the reality. The main point which has to be stressed here is the fact that in contrast to Germany, where leftist people are dominantly preferred and even pushed into the foreground, employees in Turkey’s media sector are very multifarious.

In addition, if one compares particularly conservative media outlets with secular ones, one notices that while in the first one a great number of non-conservatives are working, the same cannot be said in the left-wing secular Turkish media. However, this interesting detail has not been addressed and displayed by foreign media as well.

Thus, the above-mentioned study should not be surprising for those who are familiar with German media and its political stance. Interestingly, similar pieces and studies do not find a reflection on the media landscape perhaps due to the dominant leftist media itself. But the real problem lies in the fact that the media in Germany is not representing diverse political outlooks of German citizens proportionally. This has to be carefully elaborated and critically studied.

The opposition in Turkey is now trying to polarize society through statements made by artists. Does every artist have to be a blind opponent of their country’s government and why does Turkey’s opposition throw a tantrum when artists call for unity?

There is a topic that has been keeping Turkish media busy these days: statements made by prominent artists about contemporary Turkish politics and how these statements have angered the opposition.

Ahmit Umit, a crime fiction author, Bulent Ortacgil, and Mazhar Alanson, both songwriters and singers are famous and reputable in their fields.

Nevertheless, they are not mentioned in Turkey’s opposition media outlets with a favorable connotation due to statements they made in interviews during the past month. Not only media outlets, but social media users were also busy lynching these artists on Twitter.

But what exactly did these artists say, which unleashed such a storm of criticism?

In an interview a month ago, Ahmet Umit made statements such as;

“I believe that we will be able to overcome the problems in our country by accepting each other for who we are and keeping in mind that ‘this is our country and it will be to our benefit if it develops and grows.’ We will never get anywhere if we separate each other. If we unite and start to show empathy towards each other, we become a strong country and nobody can divide us.”

“You can’t be the opposition by only criticizing the government, their deficiencies should be criticized, but their positive policies should also be supported.”

“This country belongs to all of us, we are all on the same ship. If you try puncturing a hole in the lower surface of the ship, we’ll all go down. If there is no Turkey, there’s no us.”

“I love my country. I have traveled all over the world, and I have never seen another country with such a beautiful history and geography. I will live in this land as long as I die.”

A few weeks later, in an interview, Alanson stated:

“We have become polarized nowadays. We have to solve this.”

“The majority of this country is Muslim and live their lives accordingly. That’s how it is.”

“Laicism will never fade away in this land as some claim it will. No one should be afraid. If we accept the facts of our country, we will all be happier.”

“I love Ataturk, but I also love my Prophet.”

In an interview published a day later, Ortacgil made similar remarks;

“What happened on July 15th was terrible. I have been against all kinds of coups throughout my life. On July 15, hundreds of people were killed to stop the coup attempt. A great disaster happened that night.”

“We have to negotiate with the opposition as well as with the government. The results of the election must be respected.”

“When we look at the vote share as well, will you just ignore 52 percent in government? Or the remaining 48 percent in the opposition? The president was elected with 52 percent of the votes. The opposition must accept it. And if the government considers the demands of the opposition, this problem will be solved.”

All these statements are legitimate, sensible, prudent, and aim to bring a divided society together. Social media users who tried to lynch these artists on social media criticized their works and suggested that artists should always be in opposition to the government, as “so-called leftists.”

Fatih Yasli from the Turkish newspaper BirGun went further and claimed, “the new regime is attempting to push its normality on the opposing side through names that are listened to, watched, and respected, and through individuals who have not been labeled ‘partizan,’ but are accepted as ‘neutral.’”

He added that, “this regime has not been able to establish a ‘cultural hegemony’ in the past 16 years and knows pretty well that it won’t be able to do it from now on.”

“They are well aware that they do not have their own novelists, directors, poets, and musicians, or rather that all in their arms reach are below the average and have no prestige.”

This critique from Yasli raised questions – whether establishing a “cultural hegemony” was a positive thing, or what particular statements made these 3 artists pro-government and pro-AK Party. They’re already famous and well respected for the work they produce, so what would they gain from being partisan? And even if they hold a positive stance towards the government, is this enough to call them ‘toady,’ lynch them and underestimate their identity as an artist?

Support for these artists came from one of Turkey’s most popular singers, Haluk Levent, who emphasized that “the artists of this country also have the right to agree with the government. You cannot call every artist that likes the government ‘toady.’”

A somewhat different scenario: Making U-turns after coming under fire

In the above situations, the opposition tried to criticize these artists for the opinions they displayed. However, the case of Derya Koroglu, from the well-known Turkish music band ‘Yeni Turku’ shows the extent of ‘neighborhood pressure’ from the opposition.

After an interview with Sabah’s Tuba Kalcik, Derya Koroglu stated: “Do not believe the words they ‘made me say’ by intentionally putting parts of my speech together. There is no change in my position.”

The only important and ‘political’ statements made in the interview in regards to Turkish politics were, “In Turkey, the left needs to listen to the demands of the people,” and that “Yeni Turku emerged from a leftist worldview, but at the same time we can be considered as ‘conservative’ since we preserve and protect our national values.”

Sabah newspaper published a section of the voice recording of Koroglu’s speech, in which it became clear that these were indeed his own words, reflecting his own opinion. There was no addition to the interview or to the artist’s explanations.

This case is one of my examples that reflect how the opposition’s oppression can make people shy away from their own opinions.

Koroglu’s attitude after the interview clearly showed how violent the opposition can be in terms of ‘neighborhood pressure,’ which was falsely accepted by the opposition camp to be exclusive to the conservatives.

Kalcik, who conducted the interview, made the following remarks after the events took fold: “They can only keep their ideology alive with such hatred. They punish those who do not speak as ‘they’ wish by marginalizing them.”

Kalcik concluded with her final words: “They are trying to lock these artists up in ghettos. They’re trying to destroy their reputation by claiming ‘You either belong with us or you deserve to be levelled-down.’ I wonder in which direction this intolerance will go…”

*Written by Suna Nur Sarihan 

A report written by Sertac Timur Demir and published by the SETA Foundation indicates how terrorist organizations shape their communication strategies along with the technological developments.

Particularly focusing on the PKK terrorist organization, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union and Turkey, it can be stated that the report is divided into three sections.

The first section of the report examines the PKK within its own media organs. As a matter of fact, media aligned to the PKK, which has shifted from a traditional to a digital space, reveals the ideological codes and jargon the terrorist organization is based upon and wants to impose.

Following, the report assesses the way in which international media approaches the actions of the PKK, its discourse and its members.

Finally, Demir critically analyzes how parts of the center-left media affirms the PKK, while criticizing the Turkish state for its actions in its fight against terrorism. Demir highlights this topic by providing various examples of occasions where international, and even Turkish media, have failed to draw a distinction between reporting a terror attack conducted by the PKK and spreading the terrorist organization’s propaganda.

The report reveals the way in which the terrorist organization is legitimized, how its members are viewed as heroes and sacred, as well as how facts with regards to the group’s illegal activities are destroyed and how a rosy picture is drawn in order to depict the PKK as a harmless group.

Does the PKK use international media as a tool?

Report underlines the fact that certain influential international media outlets present the terrorist activities of the PKK in a soft tone. First of all, the group is labelled either as “rebel,” “Kurdish separatist group,” or “Kurdish militants.” According to the report, this labeling distorts the reality of the PKK’s existence as an officially listed terrorist organization in Europe and the U.S.

While Turkey’s war against terrorism has been continuing with the PKK for years, the PKK cannot be affiliated with a particular ethnic group. The reason for this is because not only does the PKK fail to obtain major support from Kurdish people living in Turkey, but also because over half of the Kurdish population in Turkey have been supportive of the government’s fight against the PKK.

Deliberately chosen images, twisted headlines and the use of passive voice are provided in order to give the impression that the PKK is not responsible for the illegal activities that they carry out. A couple of examples listed in the report are also listed below:

Thus, the reader gets the impression that the state is struggling with Kurds rather than terrorists. In one particular example, a PKK member was called a “legend.”In these, and many other headlines, there is no mention of what the PKK really is. In some cases the PKK is not mentioned at all – an indirect language tone is used.

In this photo used by the Economist on July 26, 2015, the PKK is reduced to Kurdish people who look helplessly in front of the armed Turkish soldiers.

Reasons why the international media reports from terrorist’s fronts

The PKK and its affiliated organizations – YPG/PYD/SDF – were considered as a major weapon in the fight against Daesh. As Daesh lost ground in the region, the PKK had the opportunity to represent itself to a large media coverage and naturally disseminate their own narratives, which concealed various illegal acts violating the rights of both Kurds and Turks. While there is a general tendency to portray the organization as “gender-equal” and “women empowering,” assuming that the female terrorists are some-what “glorified,” the report highlights the fact that this is a terrorist group – just like Daesh – that is left out. The claim that the PKK is a so-called “feminist” organization also oversees the fact that the group’s suicide bombers are in majority, women.

Turkey’s armed struggle with the PKK is also presented as the continuation of the ‘oppression’ of the opposition. Combined with the general stance towards Turkey and its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, one may wonder whether anything that Erdogan is against seems to attract the appreciation of Western media…?

In addition, over time, the updated and popular version of the phrase “Turkish state” or “Turkish army” has been transformed into a politically charged “AKP state.” One step further, it was observed that this narrative became more and more specific and that it was concentrated in President Erdogan in particular. Nevertheless, the international media’s bias towards one of Turkey’s major problems – namely terrorism – can be considered as a major concern for the future relationship between the West and Turkey.

*Written by Suna Nur Sarihan 

The various discussions that have commenced with the election of US President Donald Trump have continued on a global scale as well as within the United States. Two main reasons exist for these debates. The first is xenophobia and Islamophobic rhetoric that is prevalent in his discourse. The second is the current order who cannot accept Trump as President and the attitude of the media establishments regarding this stance. Generally speaking, it is possible to narrow this down to two focal points, with one side being in favor of Trump and the other firmly opposing his election. Media conglomerates had also been at the center of this debate during the election campaign, taking their positions with either party.

As per tradition for Presidential elections, a number of the pioneering media establishments in US media made statements supporting either the Democratic or the Republican Party. But many of the endorsements came from outlets that traditionally remain silent, and this time there was an unprecedented across the board sentiment against one candidate, Trump. For example, USA Today had announced that for the first time in its 34 year history it would weight in on an election, saying that it would stand against Trump. Foreign Policy magazine, breaking tradition for the first time in almost 50 years, said it would endorse Hillary Clinton. Another magazine, The Atlantic, published an editorial piece throwing their unwavering support behind Clinton and opposed Trump’s presidency. In its 159-year history, the only other time this had taken place was when the magazine endorsed Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. In addition, leading broadcasting services CNN and NBC were also firmly against Donald Trump. The Washington Post, one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the United States instead preferred to use the phrase “Trump is not suitable for the US Presidency” whilst The New York Times made known their position for Hillary Clinton by stating that their support for her was a result of her intellect, experience, toughness and courage spanning over a career of almost 40 years of continuous public service.

As the November 8 2016 Presidential election drew near, such statements that indicated the position of many media establishments increased substantially with virtually the entire US media showing support for Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump. The mainstream media firmly believed that the Democratic Party would win. Similarly, many of the public polls and surveys conducted throughout the election campaign predicted and in fact, confirmed, that Clinton would be victorious. The result was contrary to all expectations. Despite the propaganda campaign, Trump won the election and like the first signals that he had given during the beginning of the election campaign, his tirade of vilification and condemnation against the media multiplied substantially.

Trumps’ fury at US media

Launching a barrage of attacks on the American media, Trump’s expressions have surpassed the line of criticism with his stinging, voracious attacks that have bordered on dragging names through the mud as well as going so far as threatening to litigate legal cases aimed at shutting down some outlets. Trump has repeatedly said that the “media are the biggest liars on earth” and his repetitive use of this statement clearly is a reflection of his attitude. In his first official White House press conference, the dialogue between himself and reporters from CNN and the BBC in front of the world was a striking example of this attitude. During the press conference, Donald Trump refused to answer a question from a CNN reporter and turned to the CNN camera saying that “Not you. Your organization is terrible.”

During a press conference held at Trump Tower, Donald Trump turned to CNN executive Jeff Zucker and derided the network saying, “CNN news network is completely false. I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed….” Referring to the NBC News network and Time magazine, Trump also condemned the establishments saying “the media is trying to marginalize me by lying.”

During the Obama presidency, tradition called for the Associated Press to ask the first question at White House briefings. Trump did not allow for this to happen.

Without a doubt, photographs clearly showed the Trump inauguration had a far lower turnout than the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. A Time magazine correspondent incorrectly reported that Trump had removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval office, adding more fuel to Trump’s media fury. Regardless, despite the passing of these events, Trump’s battle with the media over Twitter has not diminished. During the most intensive Twitter rants, he continued to name names and on more than one occasion, has made many generalisations concerning the “false” reporting of the American media. On February 6^th 2017, Trump made outright attacks on the American media. Launching a Twitter tongue-lashing against the New York Times who had revealed embarrassing White House revelations, he said in one message that “The failing NY Times writes total fiction concerning me. They have gotten it wrong for two years, and now are making up stories & sources!” His vendetta against the media continued with attacks on CNN, ABC, and NBC, claiming these news organisations were making a deliberate attempt to bring people into the streets and that they wanted to replace him with a President of their choice.

Undoubtedly, media establishments outside of the US are also receiving their fair share of criticism.

When looking at Trump’s vitriol towards the media and the media’s approach to Trump, it goes without saying that it is a battle that has only just begun.

Media remembers “ethics” after Trump experience

The constant humiliation of news establishments by Trump and his treatment of reporters during the press conference have opened a new front line regarding freedom of the press, freedom of expression and the position of media within a democratic society. Gary Gutting wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, where, after painting a picture of the current climate, he concluded, “recent events, here and elsewhere, revive the worry, expressed by Plato, that populist democracy can readily pave the way to dictatorship. Resisting this threat (and this temptation) is the first duty of today’s patriots.” In his piece, Gutting essentially built a wall against the Trump administration, tying it up with the founding principles of the US and the principles of democracy.

A more direct response to Trump’s media attack came from Reuters in the form of an editorial from its editor-in-chief Steve Adler, entitled “Covering Trump the Reuters Way.” In his piece, Adler noted that the worldwide news agency operated in more than 100 countries around the world and stressed principles of neutrality and independence in the face of challenges such as censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to journalists. Adler stressed Reuters would continue to pursue critical reporting on the Trump administration because it’s part of their own journalistic principles.

In a news commentary headline, the BBC asked whether Trump’s accusation of media “not reporting terrorist attacks” was true, by running a long assessment of the terrorist attacks around the world one by one and whether they were covered by the BBC. One can ascertain that the BBC had in fact relayed news regarding terrorists attacks to its readership and that it had related this information on the basis of its professionalism of its journalistic integrity, and that Trump, whether deliberately or ignorantly, was trying to blame the media.

Evidently, media organisations around the world took issue with Trump’s accusations and found themselves defending their journalistic integrity. It is clear that these accusations against the media will increase in the future. At this point, it is necessary to examine the journalistic ethics and the universal principles of journalism. Quite frankly, leaving Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric to the side, the moral position of the language used by the US and UK media can also be debated. Have those same media organisations who have taken a stance against Trump’s humiliating and insulting discourse been able to uphold their “journalism ethic” of fairness and impartiality when it comes to different countries and peoples? What kind of general publication policy did these outlets have when Turkey, Iraq and Palestine were the subject concerned? Did they apologise for inaccuracies and false news reports then?

Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction; the BBC’s reporting of Turkey

When looking into American history, it can be claimed that it has a relatively free and neutral media. The basis of this is the principle of liberty that was relayed to the press by the first amendment of the US constitution in 1791. However an observation of this picture shows us that this understanding of freedom is limited largely to the benefit of the US. During the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and in addition to this, the illegal occupation of Palestine and the massacre of thousands of people resulting from continuous attacks by Israel, the media has either played the role of the three monkeys or have been the congratulatory fifth arm of imperialism, or has either supported or provoked attempts through propaganda like journalistic practices. When it came to covering Israeli assaults on Gaza, for instance, outlets went out of their way to give coverage to rockets being fired into nearby Israeli settlements, with almost no casualties being caused, while thousands were being killed in Gaza.

In 2003, the global public opinion on the existence of nuclear weapons and the subsequent invasion of Iraq was largely swayed by US/UK media outlets, including NYT, CNN, the BBC, and Reuters. Prior to the 1990 war on Iraq, images of badly oiled birds from the Gulf were regularly shown by CNN, convincing the world of the evilness of Saddam Hussein. The same media establishments continued this ethic throughout the occupation. In this regard, the US media could be considered an echo chamber for the White House or the Pentagon.

In this context, we can also give the example of the double standard of the Western media who used patronising language towards Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and their support for illegal attempts to topple the Turkish President, a President voted in by the Turkish people.

The publications produced by the BBC and CNN against the Turkish government are not that particularly difficult to pinpoint either. In June 2013, during the Gezi Park protests, CNN broadcast live from Gezi Park for hours, and used language that incited protests and street violence. In fact, they presented the news as if there was a civil war. If that wasn’t enough, CNN then used a public meeting attended by more than a million people at the Kazlicesme suburb of Istanbul in support of Erdogan and portrayed it as if it was something that was held in opposition to him.

In addition to this, Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s foreign news presenter cut shortthen Prime Minister Erdogan’s adviser on live television, which was seen by many as extremely offensive. Many of BBC’s broadcasts on Turkey were shaped in a similar fashion.

The personal views of many of these journalists, despite pledges to follow ethical practices of objectivity, have often come out in their writing as well as other communication.

A tweet by a BBC journalist on January 28 2017 during Theresa May’s visit to Turkey saying that there was “a lot of gold” at the Turkish presidential palace has turned into a source of mockery by many Twitter users.

In 2013, a Turkish news journalist with the BBC was similarly ridiculed for choosing to provide a platform to a small group of government opponents. The protesters, the reporter tweeted, were saying “Let’s not be the standing man, but the man that stops. Let’s stop the economy.”

When it came time to choose headlines, these media outlets have usually given space to opposition voices whose rhetoric is far from objective, again a break with what should be journalistic ethics. A December 2014 meeting between Turkish President Erdogan and Russian President Putin, for instance, was headlined with a quote from a critic who described it as the “summit of the honourable lonely ones”.

On July 15 2016, virtually the entire Western media targeted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a language that clearly indicated that it had chosen to ignore public sentiment in the country, instead taking sides with Fetullah Gulen’s army faction during the coup attempt. On July 16, Reuters described Fetullah Gulen as a Muslim preacher, and gave Gulen space in the headline, to describe the coup attempt as having been “staged.”

By way of reporting the failed coup attempt in this malicious manner, the Reuters news agency lost its impartiality and signed off the broadcast from the FETO perspective. The Reuters news agency shared these clear statements and content throughout the night of the coup attempt in its broadcast despite the clear national will of the Turkish people, and its legitimate government represented by the elected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

It is possible to expand these examples, not just in the context of Turkey but in the context of other countries as well. Therefore, the media in the US and the global media oligarchs that have put up a front in their battle against Donald Trump claiming journalistic ethics and integrity by no means absolves them of their own sins.

On the contrary, their malicious reporting and behaviour has confirmed the existence of a structure that is used unashamedly in the pursuit of their own agenda. This attitude will not surpass a double-faced standard. A coin has two faces. Trump has shown that he is on one side of this coin, taking a hard stance against the global media empires, in particular the ones in the US. This stance, in fact has been scorned and belittled by elitist circles for quite some time. On the other side of the coin are the media organisations.

Since the very beginning of the election campaign, the US media channels, by taking a position against Donald Trump, in their pursuit of their agenda have been defeated in two ways. Firstly, if to take into consideration French sociologist Jean Beaudrillard’s words, “the silence of the masses do not speak to the screens, but have turned their backs,” then without a doubt, it is clear that much of the American public has little connection with the American media, and that the media is playing its own tune with its audience being only itself.

Secondly, the widespread assumption of the American media, inspired by classical media theories, have thrown out the window the idea that they can inspire and distort the thinking of the masses. Many people in America did not vote as the media thought they would, handing Trump enough votes to win office. In the presidential election, the party supported by the US media establishment lost the election and the cold reality that emerged was that there was little relationship between the media and the people of America, and that very few cared for what was being said on television or at the very least, ignored what was being said. Without a doubt, the fury of the American media establishment is caused by this cold reality. The American media establishment should take an equitable and broadminded approach for all and that it should raise the flag of tolerance for those who are devoid of a powerful voice. Otherwise, once Trump raises his own anger and fury, it can be seen that the curtain of the American media conglomerates will fall furthermore with terrifying consequences.

Since social media first boomed, the whole discourse; interaction, methods and the way of communication have changed. Evidently, terrorism and radicalism has been benefitting from it with maximum capacity and without any control and limit.

The vital question has been asked for many years whether the media is one of the biggest oxygen suppliers to terrorism and its free publicity. So this reminds us of Baudrillard’s thesis, which claims that terror would not exist without media coverage.

The newsmakers and the media overall have to be sensitive on this but unfortunately, many examples show that the media either lost its empathy or play the “your terrorist my terrorist” hypocrisy. Instead, we observe more tabloidization in the media and ascending sympathy on violence, even legitimizing the terror and violence through free and easy publicity through social media.

Media of Terrorism vs. Terrorism in Social Media

Given the fact that it is not a new paradigm of our days, the two; media and terror have been sharing a symbiotic relationship for decades.

They both need an audience to call out, tactics to attract them and keep their attention as high as possible. These congruent aims were shaped by the technological transformation in the media in especially the last two centuries. Simultaneously, this has created a major shift in language, techniques, scale of audience, logistics and the structure of terror organizations.

Given the fact that it is not a new paradigm of our days, the two; media and terror have been sharing a symbiotic relationship for decades.

As the last chain of this process, social media has changed the dynamics fundamentally. It has eliminated the terrorists’ dependency on mainstream media, reversing the relationship by making mainstream media dependent on the radicalist-terrorist-run social media.

Throughout the modern era nothing was real unless it got published or took the attention of the mainstream media, either news agencies, newspapers or television channels. In other words, whatever was in conventional media had to be perceived as an absolute truth.

On the other hand, terror organizations always knew how to use the media and grasp the politics of news making and how it works under certain rules and logic. Terrorists adapted their actions accordingly with media strategies to take maximum views in the media before or after their terrorist activities.

In a just few years the terrorists started to use cheap portable cameras, and editing software required just a basic set of technical skills.

Today all types of terror organizations in the world use social media as one of their most influential propaganda and recruitment tools. In the early 2000s digital media arrived and dramatically altered the way terrorists operate. In a just few years the terrorists started to use cheap portable cameras, and editing software required just a basic set of technical skills.

http://thenewturkey.org/2016-facebook-transparency-report-and-turkey/

Meanwhile social media has changed the use of media by terror organizations dramatically and also the structure of these organizations, bringing a huge new power of mobility, outreach, distribution and recruitment over the digital-internet media. So we came to see in western literature the concept of “leaderless terror” and “tweeting terror.”

Social media gives terror organizations easy access to mobilize supporters, a sending a message to their “enemies.” Social media also transformed the organizations themselves, forcing them to prioritize spreading the ideology not the organization’s strength on the ground. In other words, it helps the terror organization to encourage individuals to act alone.

Overall, social media has become a tool to maximize the distribution of propaganda, to recruit new members, and communicate with and motivate rank and file members of the terrorist organization and its relevant audience.

The Example of Daesh

DAESH was born into the emergence of a new media environment and it became the first terror group to fully exploit the digital revolution. By the end of 2011 the group was sending clips of killings of Iraqi government officials, multimedia messages, and short movies on social media platforms.

DAESH uses social media to easily mobilize its supporters as well as its propaganda machine, sending a message to its enemies.

The terror group operates in multiple theaters of war and connects its members with tactical support groups outside the combat zone, eliminating geographical constraints. For instance, the San Bernardino, California attackers in 2015, were not rank and file members of DAESH but they published a post on Facebook to show their obedience towards the group’s leader Baghdadi. So older “legacy” terrorism existed alongside the less structured “new” type of hybrid terrorism, with no communicative and geographical limitations.

DAESH uses social media to easily mobilize its supporters as well as its propaganda machine, sending a message to its enemies. Social media also transformed the organizational structure in order to prioritize the ideology not the organization. In other words, through social media DAESH has encouraged individuals who are already dedicated to its ideology to act alone.

The PKK’s and FETO’s Usage of Social Media

Social media also has been extensively used by the PKK and the Fetullah Gülen Terror Organization (FETO). They use social media tools as propaganda and recruitment tools to reach out to their audience inside and outside Turkey.

Constantly, they propagate their view on current domestic political discussions and tensions, which are often not even directly related to their cause. Therefore we can easily see when PKK accounts are talking and opposing Gülenist arrests or detentions, which they ostensibly should not care about under normal circumstances.

In the PKK’s case, they use Facebook and Twitter to attack users who are mostly young people between 15-25 years old and who are also most suitable for being manipulated. Many PKK/YPG and PYD related social media accounts include devoted members, sympathizers and supporters. The groups also use automated accounts, called bots, to flood the media sphere with repetitive messages, accounts often managed from outside Turkey.

According to recent security analysis and reports on PKK social media activities, the number of accounts is declining as a result of the rapid dissolution of the organization on the ground. So this is an important finding, that if the security apparatus is successful on the ground, that reflects positively on social media as well.

This is the same case for FETO, whose media relations are more complex because they did not need social media, as they once had their own propaganda tools in mainstream media. They were financing many media outlets, including newspapers since the mid 1980’s. They owned TV channels until they were closed right before the failed coup attempt. After then FETO has become more heavily active in social media, mostly from outside Turkey. Some of their most prominent thinkers and personalities have formed anonymous accounts which portrayed themselves as whistleblowers, apparently even knowing and calling the date and details of the coup attempt.

The terror group has continued propaganda for the success of the failed coup afterwards. The members of the outlawed organization used social media with bot accounts this time because many rank and file accounts were suspended.

Currently, they lead social media mostly overseas because Turkey has started to detain thousands of people controlling bots or anonymous accounts related to FETO. By December 2016, 1,263 FETO-related account users on Twitter and Facebook had been detained.

The twitter account @jeansbiri has become a phenomena on Twitter among all the opposition groups including prominent politicians and actors in Turkey. However they were not the only ones who celebrated this account, because it helped other opponents block accounts to get a blue verification mark on Twitter. There was also PKK members and sympathizers among them. In November 2016, the owner of the @jeansbiri account, Ahmet Kemal A., was detained and charged with being a member of the Fetullah Gülen Terror Organization. During that time @jeansbiri has also spread the hashtag #aksilahlanma or “AKArmament” which claimed the governing AK Party “was getting conventionally armed against the opposition in Turkey”. This hashtag was supported by PKK related accounts by then.

http://thenewturkey.org/how-feto-works-as-an-intelligence-network-and-criminal-enterprise/

According to the latest research, both terror organizations have a tendency to collaborate on social media, as do other terror organizations such as DHKP-C. So this is another fact, that these organizations work on the ground as well as on social media to maximize the effect of their anti-state propaganda. Therefore each terror organization’s propaganda content may share common characteristics and sentiments even if their political factions differ.

For instance, since the PKK uses very current political discussions in regards to the HDP members’ detentions, it is seen that the same PKK accounts are promoted by FETO member’s accounts. Since the FETO members tend to use a religious tone more than the PKK in their messages, they try to be seen as just another opposition block in Turkey.

What to do with terrorists in social media

Many studies find it is often taken for granted in popular discourse that the internet and social media play significant roles in radicalizing youth, and giving extra oxygen to terror and its propaganda, rather than being judged on newsworthiness or being a source of positive change. So in this regard besides preserving the technology’s beneficial social aspects and fundamental freedoms, countering social media requires collaboration with other disciplines and institutions, including the state, security apparatus, and academia in all aspects.

The latest studies also indicate that there is no effective communication and information exchange between the state and security apparatus and social media. It leads to a further dilemma for media, to make a choice between terror propaganda and news worthiness and the public interest. In fact, defending everything with freedom of press blindly and carelessly no matter what human and state security requires, without any exception under any circumstances, would cause a more disastrous environment for all stakeholders.

After the purge of such a bloody military insurgency, Turkey, as a respectable member of the international community, which had held national elections since the 19th century, expected a positive reaction from its Western partners and Western media. This was an understandable expectation since Western countries represent themselves as markers of democracy, advocates of the supremacy of the will of the people, and guardians of legitimately elected governments, which may be discharged only again by elections.However, Turkey’s Western partners failed to raise a powerful voice against the July 15 coup attempt. They failed to raise even a feeble voice. After thirty-nine days, US Vice-President Joe Biden visited Ankara; no high-level politicians from Germany, France, or the UK visited Turkey. Most of the statements after the coup attempt were of the nature of expressing regret that the coup had failed.

Specifically, during the last days of July, James Clapper, the Director of US National Intelligence, complained by saying, “Many of our interlocutors in the Turkish Army have been either purged or arrested”; in the same vein, Joseph Votel, the Commander of US Central Command, was “concerned” about, not the coup attempt, but how US operations in the region will be affected by the attempt. Such statements raise the suspicion of whether the US might have been behind the coup attempt. A few days after the coup attempt, John Kerry, US Secretary of State, made a statement to the effect that operations against FETO members should not go too far, which was sufficient to establish a background for the criticisms directed at the US. Tens of articles of the kind supporting the failed coup were published in the mainstream Western media such as the New York Times, the Guardian, Time, CNN, the Washington Post, BBC, the Times, and Der Spiegel. It is no wonder that such publications led to deep disappointment in Turkey.

Anti-Turkey Stand of the Western Media in History

As one considers the background of perception management in the Western media against Turkey, it is seen that this disappointment goes far back into the past and has been practiced for decades by contemporary media outlets. Western media, to a large extent, has positioned itself against Turkey on many issues. For instance, Kemal Karpat, in his book entitled Politicization of Islam, in a section on press, talks about how European countries used the Western press against the Ottomans, helping us understand better the current state of affairs with the following example: “The foreign powers used their ‘free’ press to excoriate and condemn Abdulhamid without causing diplomatic incidents except on rare occasions. The French used Le Figaro, while the Russians enlisted Le Nord, a Brussels newspaper, into their service and financed the famous salon of Madame Olga Novikov in London, in which Turks were described as unfit for Western civilization and as promoters of ‘Muslim fanaticism’.” The excerpt underlines the fact that, since the 19th century, Western countries have sought to keep the Ottomans under control by using the press and financing certain lobbies to demonize the Turks.

A similar assessment is made by Orhan Koloğlu, in his book entitled The History of Press. Koloğlu recounts that, during the period 1828-1829, the beginning of the Greek uprising, thousands of Muslim children, women, and elderly were massacred by the Greeks; yet, the Western press pointed at the Ottoman State as the side that committed the massacres; such a blatant and overt disinformation campaign by the Western press was astonishing to the Ottomans. In the 19th century, the same attitude was exhibited by the Western press in the cases of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Armenia.

The Western media’s anti-Turkey publications after the July 15 coup attempt, and the two examples I presented from the 19th century, demonstrate that Western media outlets target the victimized rather than the guilty. As one traces back over the vital issues Turkey has faced, it is clear that the Western media has continued incessantly with the same publication strategy, unless the West had a direct self-interest at stake.

Edward Said’s Diagnosis

The anti-Turkey campaign conducted by the European and the American mainstream media is in perfect agreement with the emphasis made by Edward Said in his book Culture and Imperialism. In his work, Said tells about “the existence of an international media that invades insidiously an incomprehensively vast land.” Because, the matter of transforming many different events in many different places around the globe into news, after filtering them through Western interests, has begun to establish another method of hegemony.

To illustrate this, for example, the operations conducted by Turkey against the terror organizations DAESH and PKK have been distorted by both the New York Times and Der Spiegel to claim that “Turkey is killing civilians, invading the region, and killing the Kurds.” As visual misinformation, pictures of people killed by the Russian bombardments in the region were used non-factually. The increasing dosage of such publications after the July 15 coup attempt is proof that the anti-Turkey campaign is being escalated deliberately. On the night of July 15, NBC announced that “Erdogan, refused landing in Istanbul, is reported to be seeking asylum in Germany,” which was certainly a lie; yet, the channel has not apologized for this misinformation. The cover of a special Der Spiegel issue on Turkey on September 11, 2016, carries both visually and content-wise stamps of orientalism. On the cover, the magazine uses such expressions as, “Ein Land verliert die Freiheit” (a country loses its freedom) and “the dictator in fight with his own cities,” and pictures the minarets of the Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Mosque) as fired rockets. In tone with Said’s emphasis, a typical distortion and otherization has been committed by the magazine. That is, the news is veiled as it is propagated.

Journalism as Fictionalism instead of Objectivity

The above excerpts from historians Karpat and Koloğlu show that the Western media has a long and prejudiced history against Turkey, which still continues today. In this historical stretch, it appears that there have been many politically charged, manipulated, and constructed news stories published and disseminated by the Western media against Turkey. Thus, disregarding the principle of objectivity, and other principles and regulations that define the realm of professional ethics are ignored when it comes to Turkey.

No doubt, Turkey has to respond to such campaigns and these efforts must include both public diplomacy and lobbying activities. However, deep prejudice and the absence of objectivity exhibited by the Western media against Turkey are major problems mostly related to the administrators of the biased newspapers and to their cultural capitals. It is difficult to find a direct remedy for this, because the manipulation of the media is a result of conscious and deliberate choice. In spite of this, Turkey should never give up in the attempt to remind prejudiced media managers of the fundamental principles of journalism and the simple facts and rules of democracy.

I would like to answer your question with offering a different perspective. I think that this is right for a segment of German mainstream media, for certain ideologically driven media outlets and for those who want urgently sell copies. Because presenting the Turkish government in a critical way is very easy and there are always customers for such an approach. But there are other serious publications, not just necessarily the daily press, but also radio and television as well as specialized press which try to maintain a more objective view and have at least a balanced view.Given the recent agreements between the European Union or – respectively – the German and Turkish governments, there is an understanding that Germany now, either voluntarily or reluctantly, needs Turkey and Turkey needs Germany. On the governmental level, there is a balanced situation now. Coming to the other part of your question as to why there is a more critical view on the Turkish government: simply, the reason is mainly that Turkey has become more independent, more powerful and more incisive.

Coming to the other part of your question as to why there is a more critical view on the Turkish government: simply, the reason is mainly that Turkey has become more independent, more powerful and more incisive.

With regard to the religious or conservative values of the Turkish people, I think, yes, this is very important: one should not forget that everything that president Erdoğan did when he was a prime minister was on the basis of the secular constitution from 1982. Even though, Erdoğan is very unfairly portrayed as a “Sultan” or an “Islamist,” he clearly followed secular politics. There is neither an Islamic constitution in Turkey nor even is it likely one will come soon. So the constant mentioning of Islam and of the Muslim identity of the Turkish people does not reflect the true course of things. Commentators and journalists in Germany should know this fact well but just prefer to ignore it. I definitely agree with you that for a section of our media landscape there is a radicalization and polarization.

So, do you think the reason behind negative attitude is bad journalism or deliberate manipulation? Are we talking about ideologically charged and detached quarters, commentators or journalists?

I think we have both. We have definitely a dissolving and a lowering of journalist professional standards and equally an economic pressure in the production of media. This is definitely one reason and I think this an important one. But not all media is under financial pressure. Money is not always the chief reason. It also has something to do with the domestic politics of Germany as well as with ideological motives. There are ideologically driven people who color or taint the coverage of Turkish issues in accordance with their ideology. That is definitely true.

I think when people write about Turkey, they are actually writing about themselves.

I might be wrong but I think that when people write about Turkey, they are actually writing about themselves. You know the famous legal axiom that “the enemy is one owns’ question as ‘Gestalt’”. That means, when we deal with issues regarding Turkish politics, we put Islam and Muslims into the same package. Of course, these questions are not irrelevant for European and German identity. Since German society is in an identity crisis, it is easier to deal with this crises by reflecting it on the other.

And yes, we have ideologically charged and entangled writers, commentators and journalists. I don’t want to list them one by one, but we certainly have them. They have been to Turkey, they wrote and commented about it. Reasons and intentions are mixed. Some of those people come from the former conservative right. Maybe the background of their negative handling of Turkey is also related to the issue pertaining to Islam, to Muslims, to immigration. So it is a kind of proxy war. You see? We have people, who come from a left wing background. For them it is easier to relate the issue to “international solidarity” and supposed “human rights.” We should also keep in mind that some people just report what you perceive negative or critical because that is the truth as they perceive it.

When it comes to making news about foreign countries, do you think German media prefers to act in unison with the German government? Or how frequently do they diverge? As far as I remember there were plenty of negative news and comments about the Iranian government when economic sanctions were applied to Iran just couple of years ago. It was a habit, in this regard, to lift up the voices of Iranian opposition vis-à-vis the Iranian government officials. But now Germany is trying to establish a good relationship with the Iranian government and German officials and private companies are signing economic agreements during their visits to Iran. Did the perspective of the German mainstream media changed accordingly with the change of the government policy towards Iran? And importantly, can you compare reflections of the former Iranian and current Turkish cases on German mainstream media?

That might have been the case in the fifties and sixties when we still had remnants of old German authoritarianism in the German society during the post war period. But nowadays, I don’t see it. I think it is rather the other way around. I think rather the politicians are interested in finding a public mood. To find it, they go to the media. And they diverge quite often. German media has its blind spots.

We all know the situation in Turkey over the past decade. I cannot remember in the nineties and eighties that the issue of human rights or even the issues of Kurdish minority was a big subject for the German policy, not at all. They didn’t care about it. Turkey was a NATO member, Turkey was a foreign state, Turkey was important for defense of the southern NATO front and we didn’t care about the rest. I find it quite hypocritical that suddenly they are interested in human rights in Turkey. It is very hypocritical.

Now suddenly the Saudis are becoming the bad guys. Two or three years ago, Saudi Arabia was the best friend but suddenly they’re vilified.

You’re giving the Iranian example. It is actually a very interesting one. I realize when I speak to people from the region that the change of the perception of Iran is not something exclusively German. This process is initiated by American foreign policy. The Obama government pushed the lifting of sanctions. They want to draw back from the Gulf. They want to engage now their limited forces in East Asia. The Americans accepted Iran as being a limited hegemon in the Persian Gulf region and this is an overall Western thing and nowadays I think with some unjustification, now suddenly the Saudis are becoming the bad guys. Two or three years ago, Saudi Arabia was the best friend but suddenly they’re vilified.

I think the case is more representative. Let’s say for modern media or western media, then of international media because that’s actually the position of the Russian and Chinese media too. That would be my comment of it. But also it does not necessarily mean that they embrace Iran or the Iranian policy. They just shift their positions in a way so Teheran could be a partner of interest because Iran is a big market. Some people say that it could become the biggest steel producer in the world. Everybody is waiting that the doors are opening so they can invest and make a lot of money while the Saudi market is saturated and also the Saudis now announce a reform program that they want to produce more and more of their own stuff.

After the nuclear deal, Germany was one of the first countries to sign economic agreements with Iran, which shows where their concerns lie. Right?

Ethical foreign policy only applies to weak governments. Our president, for example, was in Myanmar and didn’t mention the treatment of the Muslim minority in Myanmar with a single word.

It’s one of the arguments to show that the so called ethical foreign policy which was initiated by Joschka Fischer only applies to weak governments. You cannot or do not apply it to places like China, or to any country where you have strategic and economic interests. I mean for example the behavior of the German foreign policy towards Uzbekistan, which is a dreadful government. It is a case in point. Or Myanmar, our president was in Myanmar and didn’t mention the treatment of the Muslim minority in Myanmar with a single word. The German foreign, let’s say, the human rights oriented German foreign policy is quite selective.

There is a recent debate on the Böhmermann affair and this happened after you submitted your very article about the same subject for Insight Turkey. Would you like to comment on that? None talked about what he said. Do you think the press freedom can be debated separately from the content of the news itself?

This case needs a bit of clear thinking. Let’s take politics and diplomacy out and try to consider the issue only from a legal perspective. The offended party is the Turkish president Tayyip Erdoğan. According to law he has the right to go to trial himself. None can do it for him. I think the president has very good cause and reason to do it. And that’s it. I think that would have been the best situation. I don’t want to comment on the content of what he said. Because it leads to a kind of interpretation. Some people say no, it was just a media comment. Imagine what would happen, if the same thing would have happened with Benyamin Netanyahu!

Imagine what would happen, if the Böhmermann affair would have happened with Benyamin Netanyahu!

In Germany, normally – except some rare cases – politicians don’t go to trial with satirists. Helmut Kohl, for instance, had a lot of enemies and for sixteen years he was viciously attacked. But he never put someone to trial. Bringing the issue to the court was an option as much as keeping silent. Because what these satirists cannot stand is silence. You just don’t mention or comment on them. Just silence. Alternatively it would have also been an option to bring issue to the court and then remain silent. No statements to press, no comment, just say – this is a legal case. In German inner politics it would have functioned like this.

Do you think press freedom can be debated separately from the content of the news?

I am very much in favor of press freedom. But I like to see strong libel laws. It’s basically the old British model that they had for more than a century or two. They have total press freedom, but they also have libel laws, which means if a person was libeled s/he could go to court with quite tough sanctions like money and prison sentences. On the other hand, if we do not separate it, then the law could become subjective. Then one can make rules arbitrarily. This is a dangerous road. I am speaking as a German Muslim, because there are attempts to silence us and to limit our freedom of speech. And I don’t want my freedom of speech limited. So I have to give the same freedom to the opponent. In Germany, when Muslims speak freely, they are not put on to trial, but there is a media campaign against them. But there is nothing to do against such media campaigns. I think it is good as it is. One can and should stand it.

And how about the question from where one has to draw limit or how to limit power of journalist?

We really wish financially powerful Individuals or companies in the Muslim world like Turkey or Malaysia would invest in genuine European Muslim projects.

In Europe, there are certain tendencies in the legal system. For example, there were, as far as I know, between seventeen and twenty cases who went to the European court in Strasbourg concerning the competing rights of religious and press freedom. And in every case, press and media freedom won. This is almost a tradition. Even if the lower echelons of the law might give you positive decisions, the upper one will not. Because that is how it is. I think at the end, the only way to do it is by hard work – and by good PR work. Even by buying a newspaper. There are some newspapers on sale in Germany. Buy a newspaper and turn it slowly into the direction you want! That is a legitimate thing. There is nothing illegal. Just make your own media presence. We really wish financially powerful Individuals or companies in the Muslim world like Turkey or Malaysia would realize this and invest seriously in genuine European Muslim projects.

And coming to our last question, what is your prospect for future where the position of “oppositional” German media is in sharp contrast to Turkish government or critical and revisionist outlook is predominating?

It depends on certain issues like the outcome of the Syrian refugee crises or the handling of the EU-Turkish accord. How it is handled, how it is dealt with, how it is practiced. I think Turkey is successful. And success is itself always a good argument. If the economic policies continue and the numbers remain positive, the Turkish government can make the use of it.

When people speak about the government of president Erdogan, they never mention his quite successful fight against inflation, which is the biggest killer of the small people, of the poor.

Say whatever you think about us, in fourteen years Ankara created a far more adjusted society compared to the decades before of corruption and mistreatment of resources and politics, and inflation.

I mean one interesting thing is, when people speak about the government of president Erdogan, and then prime minister, they never mention his quite successful fight against inflation, which is the biggest killer of the small people, of the poor. Likewise, they won’t mention a large chunk of the foreign debts, which is in fact a huge success and should be promoted for a greater public. I mean look where Turkey is and where Greece is. You have to understand that media is not a global vending machine, where you go and want something. If you want something, you need to get it done yourself.