In the run-up to the Turkish presidential election, Twitter is said to have censored certain content in the country at the request of Turkey.
Twitter would block certain topics in order to keep its platform up and running in Turkey. But critics talk about censorship. It therefore appears that the social medium has met the country’s demand to censor certain topics in the sensitive period surrounding the presidential elections. This is reported by the news website The Hill.
Twitter in Turkey
“As a response to the legal process and to ensure that Twitter remains available in Turkey, we have taken action to limit the action to certain content in Turkey,” tweeted the company’s Global Government Affairs account. “We have notified the owners of the affected accounts as required by our user policy. This content will continue to be available in the rest of the world.
On Saturday, this caused a smear among many users, who noted that this action goes against freedom of expression, one of the hobbyhorses of outgoing CEO Elon Musk. The tech guru defended the decision by responding to the concerns on Twitter. But that caused even more anxiety. For example, Musk implied that Twitter was approached by the Turkish government after a user inquired about the blocking of his tweets. “We could post what the Turkish government sent to us. I will,” Musk tweeted. That information has not yet been shared with Twitter users.
Censorship at the request of Erdogan?
He also responded to criticism from Bloomberg columnist Matthew Yglesias, who accused the CEO and his platform of giving in to Turkish President Erdogan’s demand for censorship. “Has your brain fallen out of your head, Yglesias?”, tweeted Musk. “The choice is this: restrict Twitter in its entirety or restrict access to certain tweets. Which of the two do you want?”
It seems very likely that Musk gave in and opted for the smallest impact to prevent Twitter from becoming inaccessible in Turkey. In 2016, part of the Turkish army (supported by activists on social media, of all things) planned to stage a coup and remove Erdogan. That failed. The Erdogan government now gives the impression that it wants to nip influences by activists on Twitter in the bud.
