180 Final Country Report: Censorship in Turkey Under President Erdogan

I. Introduction

Turkey has experienced the influence of government censorship to some degree since before the establishment of Turkey when it was a part of the Ottoman Empire. However, the last decade has seen the increase in violation of human rights in Turkey while the rest of the world has taken steps to recognize and emphasize the importance of freedom of expression.

According to the World Freedom Press Index, Turkey places at 153 out of 180 countries, and the country has been steadily placing around the same ranking for the past ten years.¹  The “authoritarian policies towards critical media and its use of the judicial system for political ends” have hurt the international reputation of Turkey’s protection of freedom of expression, and beyond the control over news media and journalists, the government has taken steps to further control the human rights by passing the Social Media Law in 2020.¹

The news article I am focusing on talks about the effect of the new Social Media Law on the social media platforms and Turkish citizens.² The author states that the critics of the Turkish government see this as a threat to the citizens as the law can potentially curtail the “people’s privacy and access to information.” For my final country report, I would like to look into the censorship in Turkey and what the Social Media Law would mean to the attainment of freedom of expression for the Turkish citizens in the future.

II. Current Censorship under Erdogan Administration

a. Domestic News Media (News Media, Journalists)

After 2007, Turkey’s single political party—the Justice and Development Party (AKP)—has gained its influence on the judiciary and the bureaucracy of the nation as Erdogan has kept his power on the state legislature.³ The censorship on newspapers were increasingly seen after some newspapers reported on the government corruption.³ The government imposed a $2.5 billion fine on one of the media group companies that reported against government “to sell off two of its newspapers to a pro government company.”³ This set the basis and limits on the coverage by news media.

Currently, “over 90% of mainstream media are owned by pro-government companies,” which are relatives or allies of the President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.^3,4 Moreover, the role of newspapers is significant in Turkey. Even though television is the main source of news in Turkey instead of newspapers, a good portion of news stories are “usually produced by newspaper correspondents” and “the main analysts and experts who comment on television are usually leading newspaper editors and columnists,” allowing for the government’s intervention beyond their direct control.⁵ This indicates that well over the 90% of news that the Turkish citizens receive in their everyday lives are reported from a pro-government perspective; they are vulnerable to misinformation and fake news produced by the state because it is hard to reach a media that is not controlled by the government on their own.

One of the ways that the government keeps its power over the mainstream media is through advertisements. The report composed by the Reuters Institute states that “most media outlets including newspapers, television, digital and radio rely heavily on advertising revenue, so any threat to withdraw such funding can create pressures on the news media to comply with government demands.”⁵ Without the government’s compensation for the advertisements, it is difficult for the media outlets to maintain their business. For some news media companies, staying pro-government and reporting in favor of the president are the only ways to survive. Not only this system affects the media contents that Turkish citizens are involved with, it also sneaks into the everyday life outside of the media and affect the overall political view of the citizens. A columnist of New York Times writes, “Erdogan is on TV and the radio so often—even a quick pop-in for a container of milk at the sore means having to hear his voice—that it is very likely many Turks get their news directly from his mouth.”⁶

In 2016, the number of journalists in prison peaked in Turkey, making the nation the world’s top jailor. Erdogan “regularly vilifies journalists as ‘terrorists’ while stoking fears of terrorism among his voters,” imprisoning any journalist that would speak against the government policies and the party. In 2015, when the government’s military action on Kurdish community sparked polarization among the citizens, “Erdogan’s us-and-them rhetoric had severe implications for the press,” demanding them to be “a patriot, not a journalist.”³ The notion of “terrorist” and the criminalization of journalists encouraged by the president have put the journalists in danger and under oppression. On top of the imprisonment, journalists have faced the fear of violence and attacks, further complicating the situation.

b. Internet (Wikipedia, Social Media)

Under such harsh censorship of mainstream media, many citizens have turned to internet to obtain less biased and less controlled information. The first internet law—Law no.5651–was passed in 2007 mainly to protect the citizens from harmful content and for national security.⁶ However, this quickly turned around to the censorship of media contents on internet. By the end of 2018, “Turkish authorities had banned access to a total of 245,825 websites and URLs, with only 11,879 of them censored by court decisions,” banning access of the Turkish citizens to the contents without going through the proper procedure or providing valid reasons.⁷

The government banned access to Wikipedia in 2017 when Wikipedia pages included headers that included contents that were considered offensive regarding the government’s cooperation with ISIS and Syria.^6,8 Since Wikipedia would not remove the applicable articles, the government announced the banning of total access to the site. It took 2.5 years for the “Constitutional Court to rule that ban was a violation of freedom of expression” until the access was retrieved again in 2020.⁸ Although the ban of Wikipedia went through the proper procedure, the public was left skeptical on the necessity of ban.

President Erdogan has remained hostile to social media since it started to gain its attention of the citizens, being the gateway for them to speak up their opinions and obtain news. The government shut down websites and media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook multiple times to warn and show off that they have the ability to block access in Turkey. Similarly to how journalists were punished for reporting against the government, now the entire population that has the means to use social media as an outlet for their thoughts against the government was up to be judged.

In 2020, the Turkish government amended the internet law and passed the Social Media Law “to require popular social media platforms to have a legal base in Turkey with an in-country representative to respond to content removal requests.”⁹ “Popular social media platforms” such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook have agreed to block contents upon request by localizing the data, and the representatives can “potentially be subject to retaliation for non-compliance with a disproportionate order” with the current state of “Turkey’s rule of law and democracy deficit, and lack of independence in the judiciary.”¹⁰

The Social Media Law has further limited the freedom of expression among citizens, and the thousands of citizens have been accused of defaming the president, because it is illegal to insult the president “according to Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code.”⁴ The government watchdog has used surveillance to find any implications and criticism of the government at both the individuals and the media platforms, even when the president or the government are not directly mentioned.⁴ It can be summarized that the government is utilizing fear to control the information flowing on social media within the nation.

c. International News

The Turkish government has gone beyond controlling the national news, seeking “a court order to block access to the Turkish language services” of international news media sites such as Deutsche Welle(DW), Voice of America(VoA), and the Euronews through licensing.⁴ The announcement stated that the media sites that “refused to apply for a broadcast license” would be subjected to their contents blocked in Turkey since the “governments have a recognized responsibility to regulate the spectrum to ensure it is used in the broader public’s interest.”⁴

III. Responses of the Turkish citizens

Despite the government’s increasingly authoritarian ruling, the Turkish citizens have kept looking for ways to let their voices heard. In 2013, the citizens carried out the Gezi Park protests, where “thousands of people all across the country demonstrated against environmental destruction and police violence.”⁶ Social media was one of the main tools that was used for communication, and this event threatened Erdogan’s position and his ruling.

The citizens are also constantly searching for ways to obtain correct information through websites and articles that are not censored or blocked. Some that are more privileged and educated with financial means have better chance, as they would have access to VPNs and news sites that are in foreign languages.⁶ Others would resort to private social media platforms such as WhatsApp to share information.

Even though the government has advertised the administration in order to gain its popularity, according to a survey, 70% of the respondents answered that they thought the media in Turkey “presents biased and untrustworthy information.”¹¹ Although the sample of the respondents tend to be more educated, this shows that the citizens are rather critical of the media and their access in Turkey.

IV. International Response

Self-censorship has not only been unpopular among the citizens within the nation, but also among the other neighboring nations and the international audience.

The international media outlets are critical of the Turkish government’s movement in blocking their websites, stating that it “would open up the possibility of censorship” for restricting “the reporting of international media services.”⁴ To many, the government’s effort with bringing up the licensing for a reason of blocking access only emphasizes the control of media and censorship the government has been committing, receiving unpopular attention from the media sites.

Although the social media platforms were against complying with the Social Media Law at first in having a representative blocking contents, Twitter eventually joined Facebook and Google “in appointing a legal representative to avoid its Turkish users getting cut off.”² Since the social media platforms are profit-seeking companies, they opted to compromise rather than to lose the Turkish user customers.

A report expresses that “the current media environment should be troubling for Turkish foreign policy experts and Turkey’s NATO allies,” raising the fact that an independent media “can serve as a check on foreign policy decision-making” while current pro-government media would fail to report on information that would affect the national security.¹¹ In addition, the Council of Europe and different international organizations primarily based in Europe condemn the deficiencies in Turkey’s democratic institutions and protection of human rights, serving to put pressure on the government’s performance to be up to the standard with other countries.

V. Conclusion

Censorship under Erdogan administration controls both mainstream media and social media, putting the basic human rights—freedom of expression—of Turkish citizens in danger. Since government is performing the self-censorship under the single political party with authoritative rule, we are not foreseeing change in domestic rules in near future unless the ruling administration is changed.

The Turkish citizens are and have been critical of the media controlled under the government, and some people seek information from independent media platforms, which is becoming increasingly difficult. The international response is also largely against the violation of human rights and deficiencies of democracy in Turkey, but social media platforms are not incentivized to work against the Turkish government for them being profit-seeking companies, making it even harder for the transnational companies and organizations to intervene.

VI. Works Cited

1. Reporters Without Borders. (2021). 2021 World Press Freedom Index. Retrieved from https://rsf.org/en/taxonomy/term/145.
2. Yackley, A. (2021). Turkey’s social media law: A cautionary tale. POLITICO. Retrieved from https://www.politico.eu/article/turkeys-social-media-law-a-cautionary-tale/.
3. Weiss, Z. (2018). How Did Things Get So Bad for Turkey’s Journalists? The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/destroying-free-press-erdogan-turkey/568402/.
4. Geybullayeva, A. (2022). In Turkey, media watchdog uses licensing to attempt to censor foreign media. Global Voices.  Retrieved from https://advox.globalvoices.org/2022/04/01/in-turkey-media-watchdog-uses-licensing-to-attempt-to-censor-foreign-media/.
5. Yanatma, S. (2016). Media Capture and Advertising in Turkey: The Impact of the State on News. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/research/files/Media%2520capture%2520and%2520advertising%2520in%2520Turkey..pdf.
6. Hansen, S. (2019). Finding Truth Online Is Hard Enough. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/13/magazine/internet-turkey.html.
7. TurkeyPurge. (2019). Turkey censors more than 245,000 websites since 2014, including TurkeyPurge.com. Retrieved from https://turkeypurge.com/turkey-censors-more-than-245000-websites-since-2014-including-turkeypurge-com.
8. BBC. (2020). Turkey’s Wikipedia ban ends after almost three years. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51133804.
9. Newman, N. (2021). Turkey. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved from https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2021/turkey.
10. Rodriguez, K and Temel, H. (2020). Turkey Doubles Down on Violations of Digital Privacy and Free Expression. Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/turkey-doubles-down-violations-digital-privacy-and-free-expression.
11. O’Donohue et al. (2020). Turkey’s Changing Media Landscape. Center for American Progress. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/article/turkeys-changing-media-landscape/.