A Digital Coup

All powerful Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is currently under a cloud of suspicion with allegations of possible corruption. Social media have been blasting away, albeit most folks who routinely access online social media are not his conservative constituency, the latter being mostly those with traditional Islamic if not Islamist leanings. It’s the younger, more sophisticated crowds, folks who have demonstrated heavily against his iron hand, who have been using this aggregation of social criticism to point out unpleasant evidence of wrongdoing. Enlisting his conservative courts in his fight to contain the spread of his purported misdeeds, Mr. Erdogan has escalated his battle by shutting Twitter out of Turkey.

“Erdogan was scathing about the service on [March 20^th]. ‘We will wipe out all of these,’ he said. ‘The international community can say this, can say that. I don't care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is.’” Reuters, March 21^st. Whoa, dude, that little recording, which you deny was you talking to your son about how to stash large sums of money, has already flown all over the web. And if you really think you have the slightest ability to shut down social media short of becoming North Korea, think again.

“Tech-savvy Turks - President Abdullah Gul [oddly in the same political party as Erdogan] apparently among them - quickly found ways to circumvent the ban, with the hashtag #TwitterisblockedinTurkey among the top trending globally on [March 21^st]… ‘One cannot approve of the complete closure of social media platforms,’ Gul tweeted, voicing his hope that the ban would be short-lived and setting himself publicly at odds with the prime minister.” Reuters.

“The minute the Turkish prime minister announced the block on the service, many users were finding - and sharing - ways around the ban… With Turkish internet providers ordered to send Twitter traffic to a dead end, computer users found they could change the Domain Name Settings (DNS), which form the internet's address book, to get back on the right track.

“Those using mobile phones to tweet were advised to download Virtual Private Network applications of the kind used by web users in countries such as China to access blocked sites… And Twitter itself sent out advice, suggesting that users revert to an old method [SMS], which allows them to post updates to their account via text message.” BBC.co.uk, March 21^st.

At a time when many in Turkey cry for a more modern movement back towards the European Union (a tiny part of Turkey is actually in Europe), the traditional Islamist factions, represented by Erdogan, are pushing in the opposite direction. “In Turkey, the government holds most power but the president can veto laws, appoint officials, and name judges... The European Union said it was worried about the move to block Twitter, with Stefan Fuele, the EU commissioner for enlargement, saying he was ‘gravely concerned’ by Prime Minister Erdogan's policy on free speech… European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes described the blocking of the site as 'groundless, pointless, cowardly.'... Turkey's lawyers' association asked a court to overturn the ban, arguing it was unconstitutional and violated Turkish and European human rights laws. Turkey's main opposition party also said it would try to have the decision reversed.” BBC.

What is it with Islamic leaders and banning social media? “Erdogan's attempt to stifle social media isn't working, and may even be inflaming the opposition… This is hardly the first time a government has responded to a crisis by cracking down on the Internet. Tunisia's Zine El Abedine Ben Ali tried it and later got overthrown. Same goes for former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. In Syria, the violence has only worsened since President Bashar al-Assad's attempt to smother the Web.

“How do these leaders keep making the same mistakes? Don't they learn? ... It shouldn't surprise us that these leaders have more in common than just an affinity for dropping the hammer on the Web. Many are also isolated, says Steven Cook, a Middle East scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations who met with Erdogan last April.

“Erdogan ‘is surrounded by young people who are quite afraid of the prime minister and not willing to fill him in on what's going on,’ said Cook. ‘These are yes-men — the people he takes counsel from are a very small group of people.’… ‘As a Turkish Islamist, he has reason to be paranoid,’ [Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina who follows Turkey closely] said. ‘There is a long history of the old elite of the secular state repressing pious Muslims. He sees it as similar to that — even though he accuses a Muslim cleric’ of stirring up trouble.

“If Erdogan is convinced that he's the victim, and sees enemies everywhere, shutting down their ability to associate might seem like a perfectly rational move — at least in the moment. It's an age-old move out of the dictators' playbook: Control the flow of information, and you control the people.” Brian Fung, writing for the Washington Post, March 21^st. And of course, the “wipe out” was anything but effective.

“Nonetheless, the ban appeared to backfire, fomenting a loud and raucous backlash on Twitter, with the hashtags #TwitterisblockedinTurkey, #occupytwitter, #turkeyblockedtwitter, and #dictatorerdogan quickly becoming popular trending topics globally… According to Twitturk, which records the statistics of Turkey’s roughly 12 million Twitter users, more than half a million tweets were posted in just 10 hours, despite the ban. Statista, a New York statistics portal, lists Turkey as the fourth-largest Twitter community in the world after the United States, Britain and Japan.” New York Times, March 21^st. In the end, if recent events are any indicator, Mr. Erdogan may have just accelerated his own demise.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am recalling the laughter in the musical recording of “Wipe Out.”