Speaking to the Milliyet daily, Director of Communications Fahrettin Altun made remarks on the use of social media, digital awareness, and the ‘Guide on the Use of Social Media,’ prepared by the Directorate of Communications.
Social media has become one of the most important means of communication, in terms of both speed and power. How correctly is this channel used?
In digital communication, what you say is as important as its content and design and the social media platform that you use. The quality of social media content and the effectiveness of the design play a part in the power and success of your discourse and the extent to which it reaches the masses. With this perspective, as the Directorate of Communications, we produce reliable, qualified, and informative content sufficient to be passed on the future in order to avoid getting lost among social media posts and being defeated by the speed of social media. We present these contents to our nation and the international public.
There is interaction inherent in social media. Accordingly, the feedback we receive from our citizens is very valuable for us. We receive our citizens’ demands, suggestions, and complaints, evaluate them, forward them to the relevant institutions, and ensure the coordination of this process. 54 million social media users in Turkey can access competent authorities, organizations, and individuals quickly and easily thanks to the interaction opportunities offered by such platforms. In parallel to a rise in internet penetration, we see that there has been a substantial increase in the number of applications made by our citizens to the Presidency’s Communications Centre (CİMER). Likewise, our citizens can also submit their opinions, suggestions, and complaints intensively through the social media accounts of our Directorate of Communications as well.
On the other side of the coin, some malicious circles seek disinformation by using social media for the purposes of mind control, spreading made-up news, character assassination, propaganda, psychological warfare, and perception management. Their main purpose is to spur chaos in political, social, cultural, and economic terms and create an unstable environment in Turkey over such chaos.
At this point, as part of your call for "digital awareness," you have said, "We have to be careful to reach the truth." Is it getting harder to reach the truth now, what should we particularly pay attention to?
There are 62 million internet users in Turkey and such a population spends an average of 2 hours and 51 minutes a day on the internet. Since these numbers are above the world average, "digital awareness" is one of the issues that we attach importance the most. We recently drew the attention of our nation to this critical issue by turning digital awareness into a current issue.
Social media users face information bombardment in their daily lives. Choosing the right information from a wide variety of sources has become one of the most difficult actions. The spread of social media-centred information into large masses in a short time and the opportunity of receiving instant feedback offered by social media also brings along “digital siege.” In this context, the social media-centred agenda both affects and gets affected by the socio-political reality, whether it is for disinformation purposes or not.
Today, boundaries between the fact and fiction have begun to disappear. While the perceptions override the facts, people were drifted to a point in which they are unable to see the difference between the facts and lies due to the use of social media for manipulation purposes. At this point, we think that social media should be used consciously.
Beyond media literacy, we should now seriously focus on the topic of “digital media literacy.” The digital awareness of people should be expanded before that of the children and young people and they should be conscious of digital media literacy.
You have also published a comprehensive Guide on the Use of Social Media. Do you consider taking steps to generalize and socialize the project with regard to such issues as the social media literacy and effective and correct use of social media in a bid to start from education in schools?
We, as the Directorate of Communications, try to raise the awareness of our nation on the use of social media, while carrying out the strategic communication of our state. The Guide on the Use of Social Media is a valuable output of our effort. As the state, we are aware of the positive and negative power of social media, and thus we are working hard to raise the awareness of our nation in this field. We promoted our guide with the hashtag and slogan #YaşasınHakikat (long live the truth). In order to increase the awareness of our nation about the use of social media, we incorporated the “Dictionary of Social Media Terms” into the end of the guide.
In our country, media literacy has been taught as an elective course by the Ministry of National Education since 2006. Our state has a visionary attitude in this field. We will carry out new and integrated studies in the field of social media literacy. We also attach importance to civil initiatives for the correct and effective use of social media. The issue of “digital bullying” is another important topic. We will continue to inform the community on the use of new technologies and social media so as to protect our children and young people from digital bullying.
We will soon take another step by sharing on the social media accounts of our Directorate of Communications the meanings of concepts and terms, which entirely encompass the digital communication that has become a part of daily life. Hence, we will try to contribute to the development of digital awareness.
Do you think that legal regulations are necessary for social media?
The biggest problem on social media is the reliability of the source. Furthermore, fake, misleading, and incomplete information also spreads faster than accurate information on social media platforms. Nowadays, the accuracy of the information has become controversial, as each user has become a content creator. This leads to manipulation and disinformation. In order to avoid information pollution and to rehabilitate accurate information, legal regulations should be implemented not just in Turkey, but on a global scale.
I recommend that our newly graduated lawyers specialize in the field of digital law. We are entering a period, which will further focus on IT law studies and require substantial human resources.
Aside from legal regulations, social media users should be mindful of the legal liability regarding their posts. Individuals should not forget that they are responsible for their posts on social media.
Twitter has taken down more than 7,000 allegedly “government-led and AK Party-led” accounts in Turkey. Why do you think the Twitter company has adopted such an approach towards Turkey? Do you think that this is a company-specific move?
First of all, I must say that the allegation that the accounts closed by Twitter are the “fake accounts” that were opened to support our President and the AK Party is completely unfounded. Another aspect of the scandal is that the decision was based on documents created with biased and political motives. We reject and refuse the compilation of several unrelated social media accounts under the same category in a hypothetical manner in an attempt to bring our country, our President, and the AK Party movement under suspicion. The efforts aimed at showing this decision, which is evidently political and ideological in all aspects, in the disguise of transparency are tragicomic. It is certainly publicly acknowledged by the Turkish public that Twitter has taken such a step against Turkey and failed to make any arrangement regarding the accounts that support such terrorist organizations as the PKK and FETÖ and sponsor their black propaganda.
I am amazed at the lies told by the CHP-HDP media about me during this period. We will not allow fraud, manipulation, and disinformation on any platform. We advocate the truth in the digital world just as we do in politics, foreign policy, international order, and all other fields. Under the leadership of our President, we have eliminated injustice and tutelage in many stages. Our concern is to ensure that the socio-political reality is reflected on social media while also shaping the media policies. We would like to see the socio-political reality find its perfect place in the digital world as well. This idea lies behind the efforts that we have recently focused on for digital awareness.
Political polarization spreads very rapidly across various social media platforms. People turn against each other, regardless of the accuracy of information. What advice would you give to prevent this?
Cemil Meriç says, “We have become the captives of slogans or the slaves to ideologies because we do not know the entire story.” This assessment actually refers to divergences that emerge through social media.
Political actors and other users also aim to achieve rhetorical superiority over their rivals in their social media discourses, depending on socio-political developments. There is an eclectic approach to the strong relationship between socio-political reality and the social media agenda. We can say that social media has become an essential component of political polarization with the effect of digitalization.
Individuals become happy and have a clear conscious when they defend the views they believe, express their opinions and play a direct or indirect part in influencing politics as a psychological satisfaction in the relationship between politics and social media. We call this digital activism. The sociological outputs of paradigm shift caused by social media have brought along the differentiation of customary practices in politics, and thus the political conflict and polarization have begun to deepen on social media.
Social media has become a battleground for various political and social actors. In this respect, digital platforms have developed the concept of ‘digital democracy’ and contributed to the strengthening of democracy. Social demand is the very core of democratic politics. Remaining insensitive to the social demand, expectations, and undercurrents narrow the political sphere. Being aware of this fact, social media users put up a political fight on social media by expressing their opinions, creating an agenda, and reacting to social and political developments.
Accordingly, no concessions should ever be made on moral principles on social media, either. The opposing ideas should not be insulted. Accurate information should be pursued. The truth should be investigated. The privacy of personal life should be taken into account. Different opinions should be listened to and the efforts towards comprehending them should be exerted. People should be aware of the legal liability regarding their posts. A marginalizing and discriminating language should be avoided. Hate speech should be abandoned and racism should be fought against. Our national, moral, and cultural values should be preserved.
What is your take on the recent plans regarding the allegations on character assassination against you and your family and a detailed strategy towards this end in the communication system of a political party?
I would like to begin by saying that I am saddened to see that social media has become a malicious means of politics because a political party gives hope to society and offers a perspective for people’s peace, security, economic conditions, and future. It calls for support from people in return. Nevertheless, I have sadly read in recent days that the main opposition party has been drawing up a strategy to carry out a character assassination against me and my family for being in the close circle of our President, instead of working and preparing plans for society. Our country has reached an outstanding place under the leadership of our President, and I, as an individual of this country, am saddened by these parties having such shallow visions and malevolent ideals. Particularly, as the director of an institution that works for social media to become a cleaner, more constructive and beneficial place, I also find it quite wrong that the social media is used for character assassinations by the main opposition party. In this sense, we have witnessed that all the attacks against me and my family, all the harassments against my home and the character assassinations on social media are conducted by a single centre. On this occasion, I would like to state that I find it terrifying that the politicians who are volunteering to govern this country are attacking the citizens of the country in a systematic and organized manner.