Concern in Turkey over social media law
The Turkish government has been working for some time on what will be yet another chapter in the censorship that has characterised Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he came to power. What they are trying to disguise as an attack on disinformation and fake news is a new weapon that the government will use to silence the criticism received by the population. The umpteenth attack on freedom of expression is nothing new, but it has provoked the country's different media, as well as well-known Turkish journalists, to denounce this measure and ask for explanations about the details of this new law.
The specifics of a law that will make disinformation a crime and includes penalties of up to five years for the dissemination of false news through social networks are still unknown. In addition, the draft envisages the creation of a new body similar to the Supreme Council of Radio and Television, which is in charge of regulating the media in Turkey. "Fighting disinformation is as important as fighting terrorism" is what the vice president of Erdogan's Justice and Development party, Mahir Unal, said in July. President Erdogan himself claims that "Turkey is incomparably free".
The reality is that, far from wanting to combat fake news or disinformation, the government's objective will be the same as it has always been in the country, to combat criticism from the population. And this is something that is very clear to the Turkish Journalists' Association. President Turgay Olcayto says that anyone who criticises the government or any of its decisions is seen as "an enemy". Olcayto spoke out about the law at a press conference of the Journalists' Association along with four other media unions and rights groups, held to show their opposition to the new measure.
The "not free" rating given by Freedom House's Freedom on the Net report, with a score of 34 out of 100, has a clear justification. Only a year ago, Turkey already applied the first regulations to social networks and their content, forcing each site to have at least one Turkish representative. In just one month, Erdogan's government applied sanctions to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook for an estimated 10 million liras - just under 1 million euros - according to Reuters.
Despite the precedents in Turkey, Turgay Olcayto says he is confident that the new law will not pass in Congress. However, he says that if it does, "they will continue to fight". Another of the most important representatives of journalism in the country, Uğur Güç, the Istanbul representative of the Association of Progressive Journalists, said that "the media have been under pressure for a long time, and 90% of them have been under the control of the government", which has made it very difficult for the rest of the journalistic sector to do their reporting work outside of government control.
Güç believes that social media had done a great job in democratising information and opinion, but the measures taken by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government have put an end to much of this. He adds that "in the last year, at least 30,000 people were investigated and 5,000 were convicted. We are talking about huge numbers", referring to the censorship in his country. Moreover, he himself has suffered persecution by the government, being investigated in 2019 for insulting certain institutions, although he was acquitted a year later.