Turkey Says It's Investigating 10,000 Social Network Users (engadget.com)

Turkey has been cracking down on internet activity at a frenetic pace ever since an attempted military coup in the summer, and it's now clear that there are a lot of people caught in the dragnet. From a report: The country's interior ministry has revealed that officials are investigating about 10,000 social network users suspected of backing terrorism. About 3,710 people have been questioned in the past 6 months, authorities say, and 1,656 were arrested. The rest were let go, but 1,203 of them are still under watch. There's one inescapable question, however: just how many of those internet socialites really support terrorism?

Comments

As Someone Actually In Turkey

[dryriver]

Turkey is very far along on the way to becoming both a non-Democracy and a repressive Theocracy. After the ruling AK party forcibly turned about 90% of the country's mainstream media outlets into its mouthpieces over the years, tens of millions of secular Turks flocked to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to be able to talk to each other, to be able to get "unfiltered news", to be able to express themselves freely and to also openly criticize the direction the country is being dragged in. Now THAT too is being cracked down on. VPNs are currently non-functional in Turkey. If a website is blocked, you're not gonna find a way to access it anymore. Well known websites get blocked or slowed down all the time (last week Youtube and Twitter were quite often slow or inacessible). This, unfortunately, is what Turkey's future looks like. Few rights for people, very little self expression allowed (at least not without consequences), many bans on the internet, ideological pressure on all media outlets and citizens. That is the overall picture in Turkey, and it doesn't look like it will change anytime soon.