17
votes
BTK-gate, Turkey's massive surveillance state: Internet activity, identity, and personal data of all users in Turkey is collected
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- Authors
- Turkey News
- Published
- Jul 21 2022
- Word count
- 2349 words
As far as I know, this is the main reason why Starlink is not allowed to operate in Turkey despite having ground stations already built around the country. I remember Medyascope's interview with Füsun Nebil shortly after the earthquake. The interview was about the censorship of certain websites like Twitter during the critical hours of the earthquake but she also said that she knows first hand the reason the government doesn't allow a service like Starlink to operate, even as a means of relief in a time of dire need, was because they had no mechanisms in place to monitor it.
Just think how vile and hostile this is: everyone on the ground is dealing with the aftermath of the greatest earthquake in the nation’s history, yet the government's communications authority prioritize their unconstitutional capacity to surveil citizens rather than ensuring uninterrupted communication. I shudder to think how many lives have been lost because people under the rubble couldn't make their voice heard on Twitter, which was used extensively during the early hours of the earthquake.
Yeah, a lot of victims under the rubble were tweeting their locations after the earthquakes. Then Turkey's government stepped in and killed Twitter for a day or so. They said it was something about disinformation on Twitter.
After some time, it opened, but then hate speech toward "looter Syrian refugees" flooded Twitter, and buried the sound of the victims again. This was, likely, either facilitated by anti-refugee ultranationalists that hoped to gain ideological leverage from the situation (Turkey's general elections were closing in, and it was going to be a tough one), or by state actors that hoped to channel people's anger toward refugees instead of themselves.
There were also other things the state did, like piling on and trying to prevent the non-state actors from helping people (NGOs that weren't on the government's side). They said it made the state look weak, which I guess supposedly was more important than saving lives.
It's extremely disillusioning what the internet became compared to the visions of early developers. Their hopes that cyberspace would be free from government and corporation meddling turned out to be a huge disappointment. This is, of course, not a binary situation, and there still are many spaces that are free or relatively free from their meddling, but it's increasingly becoming harder.
A related example is the use of social media. In 2013 Gezi Park Protests in Turkey happened, and at the time Turkey's government had no idea on how to control social media. This made it possible for people to organize on social media. But throughout the years they increased both formal control mechanisms (laws and such) and informal control mechanisms (paid trolls and other bad faith actors).
You can see both mechanisms play out in the earthquake situation. Formal control banned Twitter, and informal control flooded it with distracting, hateful narratives. They worked, and the Erdogan government won the 2023 elections.
This wasn't just due to covering up the mess they made in response to the earthquakes. The government's extreme leniency toward building codes for over 2 decades was seen as a major factor in the number of deaths by many people. But these control mechanisms helped them control the narrative, and let them get away from the burden of responsibility.
There are, of course, many other factors that contributed to the government's getaway. But the point about (big) social media's role still stands. Once it enabled democratic protests, now it's increasingly controlled and used by right-wingers to suppress dissent and manipulate people.
Indeed, there were inevitably a lot of misinformation and more crucially disinformation circulating on Twitter at the time and as you said, particular groups and individuals like Ümit Özdağ, an ultra-nationalist politician went so far as to spread rumors about refugees cutting off the arms of people under the rubble to steal their jewelry, all of which were of course lies. If the government had actually cared about misinformation, it would've sued these people but they haven't. Because what they care about is not creating or nurturing an environment in which verifiable information can flow freely, but rather curtailing the extent of their incompetency.
I largely agree with the second part of your comment except for the part where you put the blame on losing the 2023 election to social media, though I'm sure you don't think the result was monocausal. I'm aware of the blatant lies propagated through not just social media but Erdogan's own gatherings, but I personally think they had little to no effect. Though my read of the situation differs from most, so I don't know. It's hard to know these things for sure. (I'm purposely not getting into more detail.)
I saw the news on Discord ban in Turkey, and got reminded of this news piece from 2 years ago. As far as I know, there hasn't been a new public development on this surveillance since then, therefore the title in present tense.
@myckerforvirrad @deimos
Why did you change the title to use the version of the country's name that they implemented to appease their dictator who is scared of being compared with a Turkey? Essentially no one uses that spelling, most media organizations actively choose not to use it, it's not really pronounceable in English, and they are the only country with diacritics in its name other than a tiny island that like 99% of the world doesn't know exists.
It's just going along with their nationalistic agenda and I don't see a reason to kowtow to Erdogan.
How often do you call Iran "Persia" or Thailand "Siam"?
"Türkiye" is now the correct name for official and diplomatic usage in the United Nations, the United States, and Canada. So, I don't see the big deal. Countries requesting more official usage of their endonym is not new. Adjusting tags and titles on Tildes to reflect a country's name as it is officially used in English seems like a very normal way to handle things.
Let's frame your question differently:
or
Suddenly, @mycketforvirrad's decision seems perfectly normal, and not "going along with a nationalistic agenda" or "kowtowing to Erdogan".
I get it, Erdogan is bad, nationalism is problematic, but please try to be nice or charitable when asking someone why they edited this or that. If you have concerns about a person's edits to a topic, raising them in a confrontational way like this is so much less likely to lead to anything changing.
This ain't official, diplomatic use. And not only to they want us to use ü, which doesn't exist in English, they want the English all caps name to use a freaking dotted capital I: İ. Nope.
Simply following existing formatting on Tildes. I'll defer to Deimos on a final decision either way.
I don't feel strongly about it. There seem to be arguments for either side, as well as prominent organizations using either (for example, Associated Press is still using "Turkey"). I'd probably lean towards "Turkey" personally, since it feels a little odd to try to expect people to write the country name using a character that isn't easily accessible on a standard English keyboard layout.
When it comes to submission titles though, I think it probably makes sense to just use the same form that the source page is using. The author can make that decision for themselves, I don't think that we need to change it (and I'll change this topic's title back).
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Turkish speaker say Türkiye in English, even in Turglish groups with frequent code-switching.
Not as a political choice but a practical one, really.
Super unrealistic example conversation:
It really seems like pretty much everyone uses whichever language they are speaking...except Spanish speakers (at least in America). It's always especially funny to me when they are speaking Spanish at the speed of light and then they suddenly stop and slowly pronounce an American name, then immediately blast off into another galaxy.
I have a coworker who grew up in Mexico and it's always funny hearing her talk about when she lived in Móntàna. The first time I heard it, I thought that maybe there was a Mexican state called Montana just like how they have their own Californias!
I just think it's funny because when I speak French, I don't even feel comfortable saying my own name without a French accent, but my Spanish-speaking friends won't even say "cilantro" without putting on a thick accent.
Obligatory
Also obligatory
I don't think @mycketforvirrad's decision to use "Türkiye" on Tildes is "politically-charged" or "inappropriate", especially considering that:
As for the article itself, it was posted a whopping two months after the Turkish government made its request for a name change to the United Nations. Even if that site was going to start using "Türkiye" in their English articles, it's very easy to think they wouldn't have made that decision within two months. Of course, the site does persist in using "Turkey" in their English articles, but your claim that:
Has a big [citation needed] looming over it.
If you have an opinion on how topic edits should be done differently, you need to actually write out what you want done differently and why, not just post criticisms.
For example:
I'm not sure using "Türkiye" instead of "Turkey" is the best way to handle the name change on Tildes because, per this United States State Department explanation:
"Turkey" has broader public recognition and understanding.
Of course, over time that may change, especially since many governments and international organizations have acquiesced to the Turkish government's request to use Türkiye in an official and diplomatic capacity, despite the historical English term for the country (even when it was the Ottoman Empire) being some variant of "Turkey".
Having said all that, this isn't a hill I'm going to die on, and "Türkiye" or "Turkey" or even "Turkiye" without the umlaut, I think those are all acceptable choices for how to tag and title topics about the Turkish nation on Tildes.
I genuinely think the exact same thing about your other comment.