Minister of the Interior Süleyman Soylu made an announcement on the measures to be taken during the entire election campaign at the Regional Security Meeting on Elections, stating that the social media will be tracked during this process as well. “Our related units will be at work against terrorist organization propaganda and provocations on the social media,” stated Soylu.
On the other hand, the election campaign in Turkey has spread into the social media and is striking the worldwide trends of Twitter. President Erdoğan spoke at the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Youth Branches Congress in Ankara, saying, “Dear young people, I know, you are bored.” Following his speech, the hashtag “SIKILDIK [WE ARE BORED]” became the number one worldwide trend. Previously, another statement of Erdoğan at the AKP group meeting: “In case one day our nation says ‘okay, enough’, only then we will move aside” caused the hashtag “TAMAM [OKAY]” to quickly rise to number one worldwide trend with 2 million tweets within 24 hours.
As the June 24 elections echo widely on the social media, Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) Chairman Ömer Fatih Sayan implied that such hashtags can be prevented. “Prevention is technically something we can do, but we don’t want to be in the front line with this. They are doing it so that they receive a reaction like this from us – they want to hear the words, ‘we can prevent it,’” stated Sayan. The BTK Chairman further claimed that such social media campaigns are “professional manipulations.” “We are only warning now,” Sayan said.
14.05.2018
dw.com / bianet.org