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.

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.”

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.