Week 6. Global protest, activism, resistance or uprising.
Social media platforms have played an important role in global protests, activism, resistance and uprisings throughout the world in recent years. While the platforms have played a part in message efficiency, it’s important to note that we should not get caught up in the euphoric optimism of early achievements in digital democracy around the world, especially in political related matter (Loader & Mercea, 2011). Networking democracy in some countries is fraught with its own limitations and dare I say….. dangers.
It would be unimaginable for Australian’s not having the right to vote, nor to be able to have a look at government policy or most importantly, hold their leaders to account for their actions and deeds. So, as much as we complain about the situations that affect us, such as political agendas and policies at least we ‘can’ express ourselves via freedom of speech, in any forum we may choose. This is the way we truly celebrate our democracy.
Yet, in countries like Turkey, who wanted to celebrate the potential of disruptive moments and counter opinions on networks and platforms where vital political information could be played out… well, it was shut down, swiftly. Therefore the public's degree of inclusion of authoritative meaning and the opportunities that they may have provided for competitive advantage over other groups and interests, was left in tatters (Loader & Mercia, 2011).
Turkey’s concentrated efforts in censoring social media information, goes back to Gezi Uprising. This strict control regime also had the social media companies, ‘jumping out’ of hot water (Bulut, 2016). The over-ought regulations regarding social media can be attributed to the then Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. Why all the fuss? Well, he was caught up in a corruption scandal, 10 days out from the local election, which apparently cited his possible illegal involvement in interfering with State monies, inference with media (hard to believe...) and court cases, no less…. Erdogan then stated;
‘If necessary, we will shut down Facebook and Youtube.... (Hurriyet, 2014) and ended up declaring;
‘We’ll eradicate Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says...’
…and that’s exactly what he did. Within hours of this statement Twitter was forced to shut down and Facebook folded earlier than that. In following days, Twitter was more resistant to the pressure and sort legal advice.
Source: France 24
Although Twitter did not issue an official statement on the issue, it advised its users via its official @policy feed, that Turks could get around the block by tweeting through mobile telephone text services (France 24, 2014). No win there for the PM.
Therefore to operate in Turkey now, under the new internet market laws, to be a web hosting provider one needs to be a member of the Union for Service Providers (Bulut, 2016). FB and Twitter have now acted within the boundaries of these new national policies, in cultural assimilation as ‘certificate’ holders even though Twitter was slightly more resistant to cooperation. Therefore, the government provide approvals of what can be provided online in terms of content and they have the power to ‘shut it down’. So, there is direct state intervention in content supervision within a supposedly ‘free-market’ democracy.
While this may seem a bit strange and somewhat stifling, this model shows that Turkey as a secular democracy, where Islam and liberal democracy can coexist within some guarded boundaries at least. This also appeals to Western media, especially after 9/11 and the rise of Islamophobia. Turkey also provides evidence and antidotes of how both authoritarianism and radical Islam can be associated with the Middle East.
References;
Bulut, E., 2016. Social media and the nation state: of revolution and collaboration. Media, Culture & Society, 38(4), pp.606-618. Viewed online 12 January, 2017 http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443716643013
France 24 Web. ‘Turkey turns off Twitter ahead of key local elections’ viewed onlne 12 January, 2017 http://www.france24.com/en/20140321-turkey-turns-off-twitter-erdogan-local-elections-censorship
Gürcan, E.C. and Peker, E., 2014. Turkey's Gezi Park demonstrations of 2013: A Marxian analysis of the political moment. Socialism and Democracy, 28(1), pp.70-89. viewed online 12 January, 2017 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08854300.2013.869872?journalCode=csad20
Loader, B.D. and Mercea, D., 2011. Networking democracy? Social media innovations and participatory politics. Information, Communication & Society, 14(6), pp.757-769 viewed online 12 January, 2017 http://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2011.592648?scroll=top&needAccess=true