Unlike the dictators, deposed by Arab Spring, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a democratically elected and highly accomplished statesman. “Before first winning power in October 2002, the AKP (Erdogan’s party) spent 22 months interviewing in depth 41,000 people across the country. Now, even allies admit, Mr Erdogan listens mostly to himself,” remarked the Financial Times.
Erdogan is now counting the losses of not consulting his fellow citizens on building a shopping mall at an old park in Istanbul. The young Turks have hit the streets, keyboards and touchscreens simultaneously amid battling with tear gas and water cannons. The demonstrators have weaponized social media, notably Twitter. The Wall Street Journal said:
Use of the social networking website has soared in Turkey as the protests have gathered pace, with at least 2 million tweets on the demonstrations being sent between 4pm and midnight on Friday alone, according to a study by New York University. Even after midnight more than 3000 tweets were published every minute, according to the study, which you can read here: http://themonkeycage.org/2013/06/01/a-breakout-role-for-twitter-extensive-use-of-social-media-in-the-absence-of-traditional-media-by-turks-in-turkish-in-taksim-square-protests/
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his colleagues have lashed out at Twitter using the very microblog:
“Right now, of course, there is this curse called Twitter, all forms of lies are there,” said Mr. Erdogan, who tweets daily to more than 2.5 million followers. “This thing called social media is a curse on societies.
On Saturday finance minister Mehmet Simsek tweeted to his own 380,000 followers: “Those claiming media blackout should turn on leading news channels (e.g NTV). They are broadcasting developments in Taksim every hour!!!”
Spike of traffic has slowed access to the social media and the government has denied any interference:
The flight of many Turks to social media during the protests has elevated its role into a political issue. Many Turks have complained that social-media access has been restricted or blocked in certain parts of Istanbul where the protests have been focused. Turkey’s telecoms regulator has said the problems accessing social media sites has been to do with traffic surge rather than an official block, which would require a court order.
Meanwhile, Anonymous, the hacktivist group has attacked various high profile websites in support of the anti-government protests, as reported by RT:
As of 22:40 GMT, the website of President Abdullah Gul has been offline, together with the website of the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the websites for the Istanbul Directorate of Security and the Istanbul Governor’s Office.
The Verge has complied various messages, pictures and video clips of the demonstration. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan needs to rewrite his battle plan for a highly networked society that he has passionately built during last decade.
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