Turkey’s complicated relationship with social media: how authoritarianism and platforms can clash

Turkey’s election is only 3 weeks away and, during the recording of this episode, the Turkish regime has detained 150 people including activists, lawyers, and journalists. Gürkan Özturan talks about this context and Turkey’s fraught relationship with the media. 

Welcome to the Trust in Tech podcast, a project by the Integrity Institute — a community driven think tank which advances the theory and practice of protecting the social internet, powered by our community of integrity professionals.

Gürkan Özturan is the coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom. He is the former executive manager of rights-focused independent grassroots journalism platform dokuz8news.

Talha Baig returns as host and talks to Gürkan regarding different intersections regarding social media and activism. For example, Gurkan mentions how he despises the WhatsApp 5 reshare limit, and he also mentions how the removal of a government sanctioned troll army made his life easier on Twitter.

On top of this we learn how the Turkish government controlled the media landscape, and what happens if a social media algorithm has to comply with authoritarian regions. 

If you enjoy the episode, please subscribe and share with your friends! If you have feedback, feel free to email Talha at tbaig6@gmail.com. His linkedin is: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talha-baig/.

Links:

Arushi Saxena’s episode on Digital Media Literacy

Disclaimer: The views in this episode only represent the views of the people involved in the recording of the episode.

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Credits:

Produced by Talha Baig

Music by Zhao Shen

Special Thanks to Rachel, Sean, Cass and Sahar for their continued support