Presidency's Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun said, "A full-fledged fight against disinformation requires short-, mid-, and long-term strategic planning. Short-term planning must include putting in place necessary preparations and contingency scenarios by concentrating on specific concerns. Mid-term planning must include multi-dimensional crisis communication and management system, as well as mechanisms in place to quickly check the accuracy of the information, news, or content. When it comes to long-term planning, a focus should be placed on media literacy and digital media literacy."
Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun penned an analysis article for the Anadolu Agency titled "Politics of Disinformation and Manipulation as a National Security Threat in the Post-Truth Era". In his analysis, Altun noted the following:
"Today, the concept of post-truth relates to a situation in which subjective beliefs and emotions, rather than objective facts, are more likely to influence public opinion. The post-truth phenomenon originates from the normalisation of deceptions or distorted and redesigned realities by the media and the target audience's preference and demand for fictional facts they need or would be happy to hear rather than the truth.
Following the Oxford Dictionary's declaration of "post-truth" as the word of the year in 2016, the phrase has been associated and used particularly with concepts such as politics and society. Those who produce, disseminate, and worship post-truth politics and narratives, in which deceptions and lies are rendered aesthetic or acceptable, aspire to raise their capital, power, and spheres of influence to the highest level possible by elevating the distorted reality above the truth through deceiving the human mind and heart.
Disinformation is the communication-wise continuum of evil politics in the post-truth era. In this regard, disinformation is more than a mere campaign to mislead society and distort information. The objectives and consequences of disinformation have gone far beyond these limits, particularly in the new digital era, and have reached such proportions as to cause harm to a country and society. Any measure to be taken against disinformation must be accompanied by the same resolve and consistency that a conventional war setting would necessitate.
Disinformation is a destructive weapon that is simple to employ but difficult to counteract. The fight against organised and purposeful lies and deceptions may only be won by taking a firm stand against those who create and intentionally propagate them. Those who attempt to disguise deceptions and disinformation as unintentional errors should also turn back from this wrongdoing. Fighting lies and deception is also a personal duty for individuals who actively use social media. Every citizen who does not wish to purchase a poor product must exercise the same caution when exchanging information and take a proactive role in the fight against false and misleading information.
Oppositional political groups and media organisations, on the other hand, are required to take the appropriate steps to guarantee that their fight for power does not result in the emergence of a new battleground in the disinformation campaign launched against Türkiye. One of the tasks and responsibilities handed to the government by our nation is to impose required sanctions against those who attempt to utilise the information and influence war waged against our country to destabilise the government at the domestic political level.
Post-truth politics concept of the opposition
Political actors, individuals and media organs that alter the chemistry and modify the genetics of truth are poisoning societies in a Machiavellian manner. In the era of "Post-Truth", genetically modified truth is no longer the truth. While the opposition parties in Türkiye struggle in Machiavellian deadlocks they have hit politically at this point, they seek to manipulate public opinion by embracing a style of politics based on fake news and distorted information on all forms of media, particularly social media platforms.
By manipulating a segment of society through fake news and desk-based fake information, as well as by erasing the distinct line between what is true and what is fake, public opinion is polarised and confused. Here is where the main task of "Post-Truth" begins. The masses become susceptible to influence and indecisiveness as a result of the generated ambiguity and elusiveness. Therefore, individuals seeking to determine which information and news to believe adopt the post-truth that affirms their ideas, strengthens and validates their feelings. Despite the fact that the information, news, rhetoric and policies put forward as if real alongside the opposition's fruitless politics based on disinformation prove to be false in the short and medium-term, the initial effect and capacity to manipulate masses cause fake content to supplant the truth.
Media outlets and political actors who attempt to portray Türkiye as a short-sighted country by launching the "Help Turkey" campaign with negative content on social media platforms during the forest fires that began in Türkiye at the end of July this year and who converted a British Minister's article on temporary refugee centres for Afghan immigrants into a lie, stating "A refugee centre will be established in Türkiye." about the same time, generated the most up-to-date examples of "Post-Truth". Opposition parties and certain opposition media sought to deceive the public by creating a negative perception through entirely false news, even though the relevant article made no reference to or hint at Türkiye. Although the BBC, which published the fake news, issued a retraction in Turkish and removed the news, the opposition parties continued to declare this lie and insisted on manipulation. However, our President is conducting intense diplomacy on Afghanistan in this process, all the means of our state are being used in the fight against irregular migration, and our border security is ensured by our law enforcement agencies in the best way with the help of technology.
Strategic fight against disinformation
According to the research conducted in 37 countries for the Digital News Report of the University of Oxford's Reuters Institute published in 2018, Türkiye is the country most exposed to disinformation with 49 per cent. In the United States, this rate is 31 per cent. According to We Are Social's January 2021 data, it has been determined that internet users aged 18 and over are seriously concerned that the information they encounter on the internet may be wrong, false or misleading. 67.5 per cent of internet users in the USA, 62.9 per cent in the UK, and 61.6 per cent in Türkiye are greatly concerned about whether the information they receive from the internet is real or fake. Current data shows that users take a sceptical approach to the information they obtain from the internet.
A full-fledged fight against disinformation requires short-, mid-, and long-term strategic planning. Short-term planning must include putting in place necessary preparations and contingency scenarios by concentrating on specific concerns. Mid-term planning must include multi-dimensional crisis communication and management system, as well as mechanisms in place to quickly check the accuracy of the information, news, or content. When it comes to long-term planning, a focus should be placed on media literacy and digital media literacy. In addition, awareness should be built on disinformation and fake news through social norms to be created. This whole process will find meaning when the government, private sector and civil society work together to manage and execute it.
In this context, as the Directorate of Communications, we focused our work on a new generation verification platform, "IS IT TRUE?", that will play an important role in Türkiye's fight for truth in the national and international arena and generate resistance against disinformation and manipulation in social media. The platform "IS IT TRUE?" will fulfill the need to find out if the news and information shared on social media by actors and figures who turn non-politics into politics are true or false.
The disinformation culture has started to take root around the axis of organised deception within the opposition, which has adopted the concept of destructive politics as its goal. Those who disseminate fake news, as well as those who produce it, operate recklessly, with the sole purpose of implicating the ruling party over a negative agenda, without feeling the need to verify the accuracy of the information and without regard for the harmful consequences of the shared content on society. Opposition parties, trampling on political ethics, put aside their duties and responsibilities towards our nation and attempt to thwart Türkiye's policy of becoming a regional power and a global actor by acting as foreign circles' spokespeople in order to portray the government, and thus the state, as weak.
"Organised deception" on social networks must be prevented
Democracies must be safeguarded against subversive and abusive campaigns in all their manifestations. We must combat those who seek to destabilise our democracy through disinformation and misinformation by employing all available communication tools and techniques, as well as pursuing legal action. The steps we will take to combat influence operations targeting our country are intended to safeguard and strengthen our democracy. As with the measures we took to safeguard our democracy against coups, we are taking and will continue to take the appropriate actions to counter attempts at manipulating communication.
With his statement, "No digital medium is exempt from the law", our President underscored that no concessions would be made to those who seek manipulation via the new media, as well as to domestic and foreign accomplices who attempt to mislead our nation. In his speech at the 2021-2022 Judicial Year Opening Ceremony, our President of the Court of Cassation, Mehmet Akarca, warned users about digital crimes in new media, particularly malevolent actions and the use of fake accounts on social media, using the phrase, "Every word and behaviour that is considered criminal in everyday life is likewise considered criminal in the social media environment."
Disinformation and manipulation politics carried out together with fake and fabricated news in the post-truth era, attempt to capture public space through tactics of marginalisation, targeting, labelling, and polarisation. This radical attitude towards discrimination and antagonisation distorts the culture of negotiation, brings along the risks of socio-cultural ghettoisation, and causes individuals to consider subjective content as absolute truth.
I would like to underscore unequivocally that our most powerful weapon against the politics of deception will continue to be the truth. While disinformation and deception generate a great deal of noise and spread quickly, we believe in the power and authenticity of the truth. And we remain certain that if we speak the truth loudly and clearly enough, our fight against deception and disinformation will be significantly more effective."