Media, Culture & Society
2016, Vol. 38(4) 606­–618
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0163443716643013
mcs.sagepub.com
Social media and the nation
state: of revolution and
collaboration
Ergin Bulut
Koc University, Turkey
Abstract
This article examines the legal infrastructure of social media governance in the
politically contested context of contemporary Turkey. It looks at how social media
companies (specifically, Twitter and Facebook (FB)) and the nation state (Turkey) have
negotiated power in the aftermath of Gezi Uprising in Summer 2013. I argue that while
today’s concerns regarding online surveillance might echo the calls for a new world
information order of the 1970s, the world system model based on the core–periphery
distinction has considerably changed. The useful insights of cultural imperialism fall short
of explaining the geopolitical context within which Turkey finds itself in the aftermath of
the Arab Uprisings and the sub-imperial relations within which she struggles to establish
hegemony in the region. Findings suggest that the Turkish state tries hard to establish
the legal and material infrastructure for these companies’ operations. FB is more open
to cooperation with the nation state, while Twitter has chosen to legally negotiate with
the government. There also seems to be major risk for activists given the contradictory
articulation of nation state and corporate interests.
Keywords
Facebook, cultural imperialism, nation state, social media governance, Turkey, Twitter
Introduction
This article investigates the relationship and negotiation of power between social media
companies (specifically, Twitter and Facebook (FB)) and the nation state (Turkey) in the
aftermath of Gezi Uprising in Summer 2013. Two specific debates inform this analysis:
Corresponding author:
Ergin Bulut, Koc University, Rumelifeneri Yolu, Istanbul 34450, Turkey.
Email: ebulut@ku.edu.tr
643013MCS0010.1177/0163443716643013Media, Culture & SocietyBulut
research-article2016
Crosscurrents Special Section: Media Infrastructures and Empire
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Turkey’s geopolitical self-positioning as a ‘role model’1 in the aftermath of the Arab
Uprisings, the international communication critiques with respect to media and cultural
imperialism (Schiller, 1991/2006). While I draw from the original and contemporary
insights of these traditions (Fuchs, 2010; Jin, 2013), there seems to be a more complicated
conditioning of media and society relations than assumed here. This original model
seems to marginalize the relevance of geopolitical struggles as manifested in places like
Turkey. Today’s global resistance movements are not necessarily carried out with the
assumption that national governments in the South protect its citizens against the
advanced capitalist countries of the First World. While contemporary concerns regarding
online surveillance might echo the calls for a new world information order of the 1970s,
the world system model based on the core–periphery distinction has considerably
changed; today’s citizens place their global demands not through their governments but
from and beyond them. There is a fluid and complex relationship between imperial (read
United States and the European Union (EU)) and sub-imperial zones (read Turkey and
the Middle East). In other words, the insights of cultural imperialism fall short of explaining
the geopolitical context within which Turkey finds itself in the aftermath of the Arab
Uprisings and the sub-imperial relations within which she struggles to establish hegemony
in terms of sectarian politics based on Sunni Islam.
The roadmap of this article is as follows. First, I situate Turkey in the historical context
of the Arab Uprisings. What so quickly gave Turkey ‘the role model’ of democracy
status in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and how did the state position itself in this
context? How has Turkey, as ‘the role model’, been struggling to exercise hegemony in
the ever-shifting geopolitics of the ‘New Middle East’? What do we make of the contradictory
claims of the ‘role model’ when the new Prime Minister (PM) Ahmet Davutoglu
paternalistically says, ‘If any journalists are under threat, they can turn to my office and
we will provide protection’ (CPJ, 2014)? This contextualization will be followed by an
analysis of the relationship between social media companies and the Turkish state. By
way of examining the interaction between the legal terrain and the societal context, I will
demonstrate how the state is forcing social media companies to comply with its own
political framework.
While there have been studies on Internet freedom or cyber crackdowns (Comminos,
2011; Howard et al., 2011), we need investigations of how the state is making social
media companies comply with its own national legal infrastructure, as well as how social
media companies are emerging as serious political actors of US soft power in the New
Middle East following the Arab Uprisings (Herrera, 2014). Indeed, despite assumptions
that social media companies are neutral agents, they consider themselves and intervene
as significant political actors. There is of course a politics to how social media platforms
are constructed (Gillespie, 2010) within what one might call informational imperialism.
I understand informational imperialism as our contemporary condition where data generate
value, surveillance, and resistance. In this sense, informational imperialism reveals
the ways in which state and corporate power are interlinked. It brings forward the global
character of resistance movements against the national security discourse of oppressive
states and how information is vital for political organization.
Then, this article examines the legal infrastructure of social media governance in the
highly politically contested context of contemporary Turkey. On one hand, as the social
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media advisor to pro-Kurdish HDP expressed in an informal conversation, platforms
such as FB are like shopping malls within which activists open a shop. In return, activists
bring value. In other words, ‘social media governance, both in terms of code-as-law and
the rule of policies and user terms, is driven by necessary commercial consideration,
namely, monetization’ (Youmans and York, 2012: 317) and social media architecture
might even solidify oppression within what Jodi Dean (2009) calls ‘communicative capitalism’.
Because social movements challenging the nation state will be highly impacted
by ‘changes in platform architecture’ of social media, which ‘may introduce new or
expand previous constraints for activist users’ (Youmans and York, 2012: 317), it is
important to examine the evolving relationship between social media companies and the
state, especially given Turkey’s relationship with the United States, the EU, Israel, as
well as its own regional aspirations in the construction of a ‘New Middle East’.
Geopolitical relations of the ‘role model’ and freedom of
speech
Since 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, and AKP (Justice and Development Party) coming to
power in 2002, Turkey has been hailed as a ‘role model’ of Middle Eastern democracy
by many in the Western press. Yet, after meeting with the Turkish President Tayyip
Erdogan, Joel Simon (2014), the Head of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ),
noted the extremely poor level of political respect for freedom of expression in the country.
In this section, I consider the following questions: How had the ‘role model’ of the
region come to occupy this space of ‘neoliberal media autocracy’ (Akser and BaybarsHawks,
2012)? How did the ruling AKP, partly linked to anti-imperial roots in relation to
the United States and Israel, negotiate politics in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and
make ‘their peace with Turkey’s sub-imperial role in the region, as a bulwark of the
NATO order’ (Tugal, 2012)? Specifically, these questions can pave the way for situating
Turkey in the region by interlinking its economy, diplomatic relations with the region
and its own Kurdish problem and help us understand the conflicting positioning of the
country in terms of freedom of speech, control of the Internet, and its negotiation of
power with FB and Twitter.
According to political scientist Kemal Kirişçi (2013), the ‘role model’ discourse goes
back to the collapse of the Soviet Union when The Economist announced Turkey to be
the ‘Star of Islam’ in relation to the need for democratization and reform in the region.
The discourse was revitalized during George W. Bush. Yet, it was actively deployed by
the Turkish state only after the Arab Uprisings. As Cihan Tugal (2012) argues, ‘after a
decade of AKP rule, an international consensus has portrayed Erdogan’s Turkey as the
successful alternative to both secular Arab authoritarianism and the revolutionary
Islamism of Iran’.
The key to the AKP’s success is in its articulation of ‘big business, Pentagon, and
Islam’ (Tugal, 2007). On one hand, the party came to power right after the economic
meltdowns of 1999 and 2001 and achieved economic growth,2 albeit at the expense of
urban inequality. This economic growth cannot be thought independently of the ‘record
flows of foreign direct investment (FDI)’ from the Gulf States. Moreover, despite political
ups and downs, Turkey has enjoyed a massive construction economy in Iraqi
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Kurdistan. While Turkey’s NATO membership is valuable for its relationship to the
West, Tayyip Erdogan’s populist anti-Israel and pro-Palestine remarks foregrounded
Turkey’s relationship to the Middle East. After the decidedly pro-EU 2002–2007 years,
the AKP’s politics took a different path. This path would rely on the discourse of Turkey
as a major regional and global player. PM Davutoglu promoted a ‘zero problem’ foreign
policy, which emphasized reintegration with former ‘Ottoman lands’ and diversification
of Turkey’s foreign policy goals with the intent of ‘bringing a new pax Ottomana’(Tugal,
2012) in the region. To that effect, Turkey increased its economic and diplomatic relations
with North Africa and Syria and the Gulf. Indeed, ‘by 2010, trade with the Middle
East and North Africa was substantially greater than it had been in 2002 – up threefold
with Syria, nearly fourfold with North Africa, fivefold with the GCC and Yemen and
sevenfold with Egypt’ (Tugal, 2012). Added to this was ‘a welcome relaxation of visa
restrictions for Arab-state visitors to Turkey, putting them on a par with tourists from the
EU and Russia’ (Tugal, 2012). At the same time, Israel is a major part of the geopolitical
picture. Despite Israel’s Mavi Marmara flotilla offensive and Erdogan’s ‘1-minute’ reaction
to Shimon Peres in Davos, military and economic relations with Israel have been
kept mostly intact.
The Arab Uprisings brought seismic changes to Turkey’s relations in the region. With
Egypt, the initial strategy was to urge Husnu Mubarak to step down whereas due to Saudi
Arabia, Turkey would ignore the suppression of protests in Bahrain. Libya was an example
of constant foreign policy fluctuations in that Turkey initially reacted to a NATO
intervention but then tried hard to be part of it. Here, we witness a highly contradictory
performance of politics in that while Turkey had developed alliances with the Western
World and Saudi Arabia, it was also expanding its influence through economy and diplomacy
with Libya or Syria. Indeed, despite being on quite good terms with Syria, organizing
joint governmental meetings and even Erdogan going on vacations with the Assad
family, Turkey’s politics took a sectarian shift against the Assad regime in line with
Saudi interests in mid-2012. The Syrian conflict has further been complicated by ISIS’
regional war with Kurdish forces in Kobane, which presents a difficult case for Turkey
because of its own Kurdish problem, the international recognition of PYD (PKK’s3 Syria
branch) against ISIS and Ankara’s unwillingness to fight against ISIS. Kobane is also
a difficult case for the Western world due to its resistance to energy colonialism
(Minio-Paluello, 2014). It is self-explanatory to remember that US State Department
Spokesperson Jen Psaki, during one of the peak moments of Kobane war in October
2014, mentioned that ‘there are some strategy objectives that we’re focused on. We’ve
gone after refineries. We’re going after strategic locations’.4
The Turkish state has been negotiating its complex relations with the United States and
the EU alongside a series of regional movements including PKK and the Gulen5 movement
– both with transnational aspirations.6 Gulen movement used to be the primary ally
of AKP to reduce the political role of army. Erdogan crushed on the movement’s media
and financial branches after corruption tapes involving ministers and Erdogan family –
arguably by Gulen movement – were leaked (Tugal, 2013a). Finally, the Gezi Uprising of
Summer 2013 brought to the fore a youth movement mobilizing around urban commons,
media censorship, and citizen rights. More than the other ongoing movements, analysts
have highlighted the importance of contested social media presence in the country. In
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addition to heavy presence on FB and Twitter, ‘47% of 15-to-24 cohort got their news
from social media – all despite the fact that fixed broadband and mobile broadband rates
are currently only about half of OECD averages’ (Freedom House, 2014). However,
despite these numbers, regulation of the Internet and social media has limited the use of
these media by activists and the public at large. As a ‘swing state’, Turkey ‘was only one
of only three countries to vote in favor of a new set of International Telecommunication
Regulations (ITRs) that Russia and China had backed and that argued for expanding the
state’s role in Internet governance’ (Freedom House, 2014).
Against this background, let us move on to three cases that examine the struggle over
‘Turkey’s Internet control regime’ (Yang, 2013). These cases reveal important tensions
where social media presence relies heavily on US dominated spaces. And yet, Turkey’s
aspirations and interests seem to be going beyond the United States and are expanding
toward the Middle East with neo-Ottomanist feelings which in turn complicates the operations
of FB and Twitter aiming to protect and expand their market share in the Middle
East and North Africa (MENA) region.
‘The role model’: we will eradicate Twitter
The branding of Turkey as ‘role model’ has been replaced by skepticism in the Western
media due to the political and economic uncertainty in the country. Freedom of speech
has been under major threat due to not only media concentration but also the government’s
concentrated efforts to create its own media (Aladag, 2013) in order to curtail the
power of the army and pacify dissident journalists (Kurban and Sozeri, 2012). Even
when this article was being written, counter-terror police targeted Fethullah Gulen–
linked media – the same outlets that once helped Erdogan attack the opposition. The
level of pro-government journalism is such that state’s channel TRT promoted this
hashtag (#edenbulur, meaning #thoseresponsiblewillpaytheprice) right after targeting
Gulen-related media. Social media too have been severely restricted as an outcome of
corruption scandals that erupted on 17 December 2013. Following a power struggle
between AKP and Gulen Movement, alleged phone talks of Erdogan, his son, and some
ministers regarding money transfers and expensive purchases were leaked to the public,
along with Erdogan’s direct calls to media outlets for censorship. As an outcome, Twitter
and YouTube were banned in the country.
However, the state’s concentrated efforts in regulating and censoring social media go
back to Gezi Uprising.7 This strict control regime has implications for the future operations
of social media companies. Indeed, regulations regarding social media are tied
personally to President Tayyip Erdogan, who stated ‘If necessary, we will shut down
Facebook and Youtube (Hurriyet, 2014) and ended up declaring ‘We’ll eradicate Twitter.
I don’t care what the international community says’ on 20 March 2014. It was only a
couple of hours later that access to Twitter was blocked.
As part of this emergent control regime, there are moments to be underlined that
reveal how the relationship between social media companies and the state can be reformulated
in a highly restrictive way. The following legal cases provide clues about how
FB and Twitter have strategically chosen to act in accordance with national policies, even
though Twitter is slightly more resistant to cooperation.
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Case 1: it’s the law! – legalizing censorship
On 19 February 2014, Internet law (5651) was amended as a response to corruption
scandals in the country. European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that this law
‘lacked a strict legal framework for blocking orders and their contestation’, implying that
the framework was arbitrarily political (Freedom House, 2014).
The amendments introduced Internet filtering so that to operate in the Turkish
Internet market, one needs to be a member of a new ‘Union for Service Providers’. In
practice, the Union for Internet service provider (ISP) is able to block URLs as
demanded by the state’s Telecommunication Information Directorate (TIB) and keeps
records of Internet traffic for up to 2 years. Web hosting providers can be blocked
even if they are abroad and change their Domain Name System (DNS). Additionally,
‘Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms defined as “hosting providers” under the law
will also be required to obtain a certificate in order to operate in Turkey’ (Freedom
House, 2014: 6).
This new law opens the door to what one might call ‘centralization of content supervision’
where the government will have the final call on what exists online. Indeed,
although this organization comprises private businesses, the constituents are told by the
government what to provide and not to provide online in terms of content. In other words,
there is direct state intervention in content provision within a supposedly free-market
democracy (Nebil, 2014).
There has already been a controversy regarding the operations of the Union and one
of its members. A couple of days after the Twitter blockage on 20 March 2014, TTNET
– the largest service provider and a subsidiary of Turkish Telekom – declared that some
customers in certain areas would not have Internet access due to maintenance on 25
March 2014. This created political controversy because 25 March was the day when
major tape scandals were going to be leaked, and there were rumors that the largest service
provider had already started to act in line with the government and implement censorship
(T24, 2014).
This new organization stands at odds with the discourse of social media companies
regarding Internet democracy because if a Tweet or FB page is regarded as illegal by the
TIB, then the service providers will need to shut that page down. As of now, it remains
to be seen as to how the social media giant, FB, could potentially react if ‘Union for
Service Providers’ were to ask FB to shut down a page, especially because FB has millions
of users in Turkey. Simultaneously, following the corruption scandal involving
Erdogan’s corruption charges, Twitter had to accept the government’s decision to block
certain accounts and then engage in a legal struggle with the government. This is by no
means unique for Turkey, and similar state interventions take place in India and Europe
where social media companies are more likely to accept the state’s demands as long as
there is no conflict with their profit strategies.
What also emerged as part of the amended Internet law is that the Turkish state started
forming a ‘Blue Room’ through which fake FB and Twitter accounts would be monitored.
Here, FB has responded positively to potential collaboration while Twitter did not,
and the willingness of FB to comply puts activists and citizens who may want to remain
anonymous at risk (T24, 2013).
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Ultimately, the Turkish government is legally transforming the infrastructure cyberspace
in its attempt to contain corruption scandals and dissidence through the seemingly
benevolent discourse of ‘secure’Internet and ‘national security’. Indeed, quite vague definitions
of ‘national security’ are being used for constraining online and offline protest to
the dismay of ECHR, which finds the regulatory framework devoid of sound legal
foundations.
Case 2: FB bans Kurdish pages
Following the dramatic Gezi protests, FB shut down more than 10 FB pages, between 6
July 2013 and 12 August 2013 (Basaran, 2013). These included Kurdish politicians’ FB
pages, including BDP(Peace and Democracy Party, currently HDP- People’s Democracy
Party) Central Office page. The argument was that this page included the word Kurdistan
(Figure 1).
There were also other pages that produced news regarding minorities in Turkey
(such as Otekilerin Postasi (The Others’ Press) or Yeni Ozgur Politika (New Free
Politics)). In his interview with liberal newspaper Radikal, Richard Allan (Director of
FB Policy in Europe), clearly described FB’s policy. FB completely complies with the
international definition of terrorism and closes a page if it compliments an organization
or a person that is on the international list of terrorism. In this sense, Allan stated
that ‘if there is the flag or a symbol regarding PKK, then it is enough for Facebook to
decide to close that page’8 (Basaran, 2013). For FB, what mattered then was the ‘internet
laws of the country within which it operates. Otherwise, the nation state has the
right to close the website’.
It was not without any reaction this censorship took place. Pro-Kurdish BDP asked
former Minister of Transportation, MaritimeAffairs, and Communication Binali Yildirim
about the link between shutting down of their FB pages right after his statement ‘Facebook
has been cooperating with Turkish authorities and we do not have a problem with them’
(Özgür Gündem, 2013). BDP’s other questions involved the extent of information sharing
between FB and Turkish government and taxation of FB.
Might there be a link between this censorship and FB’s attempts to avoid taxation?
One might only speculate on that. However, based on Richard Allan’s remarks, it seems
that FB found itself in a somewhat apologetic position after reactions from activists.
Figure 1.  The statement from Facebook regarding banning the BDP page.
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First, Allan was accepting that it was their fault to arbitrarily close one of the pages
based on claims of pornography. Second, Allan was emphasizing how they would not
just rely on algorithms but allocate ‘smart humans’ to decide whether complaints with
respect to certain pages are valid. Then, how is it that complaints regarding FB pages of
Kurdish parties and other activist groups were specifically expressed in a particular
time period and FB simply rushed to close these pages? What makes FB’s intervention
controversial is the fact that these shutdowns took place when the Turkish government
was carrying out peace negotiations with PKK. Additionally, some of the pages had
nothing to do with PKK and were related to BDP politicians. In this sense, FB was
choosing not to interpret the political context and prioritizing the interests of the nation
state and monetization.
Case 3: Gezi Uprising and corruption tapes – inviting Twitter to Turkey
Gezi Uprising constituted the first moment of regulation crisis of social media companies.
The government invited FB and Twitter to open offices in the country. Former
Minister of Transportation, Maritime Affairs, and Communication Binali Yildirim stated
that FB was collaborating with the government and had units in Turkey, whereas Twitter
did not (Hurriyet, 2013). He added,
If you have operations in this country, you need to cooperate with the judiciary and police force
in relation to criminal cases … Why don’t you be part of Turkish legal system? That would not
harm anybody. When a tax officer, a police officer or somebody else contacts us for information,
we would like to see your unit in Turkey, which would provide that information. We cannot
express our concern via phone, Internet or e-mail given the eight-hour time difference.
(Hurriyet, 2013)
The relationship between Twitter and the government took a radical turn when the
government blocked access to Twitter on 20 March 2014.
The government’s interest in having a Twitter office intensified following the corruption
scandal. After the blockage, Twitter sent a legal team to Turkey and Binali Yildirim
provocatively said, ‘While Twitter wasn’t initially willing to cooperate, they have now
hastily hired a lawyer’ (Radikal, 2014). What Yildirim mentioned is important in terms
of the learning curve of the nation state with respect to regulating social media companies.
When YouTube refused to ban videos insulting Ataturk years ago, the Turkish state
filed a complaint regarding copyrights with respect to Ataturk’s voice and images –
learning from German officials and hoping that this might actually work – and YouTube
now has a representative for Turkey (Radikal, 2014).
Twitter ban received a great deal of political attention. Using Twitter despite the ban,
former PresidentAbdullah Gul said that appointing a lawyer was a positive step, although
this lawyer cannot be described as a representative between Twitter and Turkey (CNN
Turk, 2014). Former Minister of Transportation Lutfi Elvan stated that it was encouraging
to see Twitter collaborating with the Turkish state by blocking accounts that were
subject to court decisions, adding that ‘Twitter needs to open an office in Turkey’
(Istanbul Haber, 2014).
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During the period it was blocked, Twitter emphasized its commitment to its users.
The company stated that no IP or e-mail address would be shared with the Turkish
government. It was underlined that Twitter had blocked an account related to former
minister Binali Yildirim (oyyokhırsıza – no vote for the thief) and also filed a counter
lawsuit against the local court decision that stipulated the suspension of this account.9
For the first time in Turkey, Twitter was implementing account suspension on country
basis (Country Withheld Content). What Twitter’s Law Advisor Vijaya Gadde did was
to assure activists that they were not betrayed. Gadde said that two of three claims
regarding blockage were ‘already against our principles’. However, there was another
account that caused ‘disagreement’, and this account was about corruption claims
about a former minister. ‘If political statements are concerned with corruption, this is
very important for us. Therefore, we filed a lawsuit for that account to be opened’, said
Gadde (İMC TV, 2014; Twitter, 2014). Then, the struggle for social media started
where Twitter found itself having to respond to the demands of the Turkish government
by not opening an office but appointing Emine Etili as Twitter’s Turkey coordinator.
Currently, the outcome of this legal struggle is open-ended.
Conclusion
This article problematized Turkey’s ambitions of being a role model in the Middle
East and described three moments of social media governance crisis where the state
aimed to circumvent major national crises by negotiating with FB and Twitter. The
findings reveal that FB is more willing to negotiate and comply with the state, whereas
Twitter has resisted as much as it could. One reason behind this difference is the more
flexible Terms of Service of Twitter (Youmans and York, 2012: 320). However, this
should not mislead us to assume that Twitter is a pro-activist corporation because ‘in
the first half of 2014 alone, Turkey sent 186 removal requests and Twitter complied
30%’ (Freedom House, 2014: 7). Another finding is the significance of material infrastructure
with respect to social media governance. The nation state finds it hard to
negotiate with these companies especially when they do not have offices in the country.
If we remember how important media and technology infrastructure was historically
to colonialism and (neocolonial) globalization (Larkin, 2008; Mattelart, 2010),
it is instantly clear why the state wants to define and control the emergent infrastructure
of social media governance. It is after all through these infrastructures that political
actors (via their ascribed roles or assumed responsibilities) are legally captured,
coded, and defined. Turkey’s major goal, as seen historically and today in the case of
Egypt in geopolitical terms (Aouragh and Alexander, 2011: 1347), is to produce the
social media infrastructure to solidify its political position without endangering its
economic and symbolic position in the shifting geopolitics of the Middle East. Indeed,
the current government is already planning to pass yet another Internet law to block
online access with highly obscure excuses including ‘situations that relate to public
safety and national security, general health and morality’ (Evin, 2014). This new law
will enable the PM to order TIB block access to which appeals can only be made in
24 hours. Some Turkish courts have already demanded access limitations to certain
tweets of journalists or controversial Internet figures, if not completely blocking
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access to accounts (Radikal, 2015). As national security concerns overlap with the
monetization desire of social media companies, activists are beginning to recognize
the risks of online organization. However, we do know that there is no prescribed and
guaranteed path to technological domination, and technological infrastructures may
actually produce ‘noise’ and ‘distortion’ (Larkin, 2008). Yet, that ‘noise’ needs to be
aimed at, and it seems to be a mandatory task for activists to devise new social media
platforms independent of national and corporate interests.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Notes
  1.	 The role model discourse portrays Turkey as a secular democracy where Islam and liberal
democracy can coexist. This discourse had much appeal in the Western media especially
after 9/11 and the rise of Islamophobia. This discourse regards Turkey as an antidote to both
authoritarianism and radical Islam associated with the Middle East.
  2.	 This economic growth cannot be thought independently of the ‘record flows of foreign direct
investment (FDI)’ from the Gulf states. Moreover, despite political ups and downs, Turkey
has enjoyed a massive construction economy in Iraqi Kurdistan.
  3.	 Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has fought the Turkish state for years to gain autonomy and
political rights for the Kurdish population in Turkey. Peace negotiations with PKK’s leader
have been stalled since mid-2015.
 4.	 http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/10/232676.htm
  5.	 Gulen movement is a charity organization with a heavy presence in politics, security forces
and the judiciary. They rose to prominence ‘thanks to their support for Kenan Evren’s military
intervention in 1980’ and they ‘benefited from Turgut Özal’s neoliberal policies, which were
possible only after the 1980 coup’ (Tugal, 2013b). Since 2002, Gulen movement and AKP
worked together to reduce the role of army in politics. These two actors are now competing
for political power. When Erdogan declared to close profitable educational institutions (dershane)
of Gulen movement, corruption tapes – arguably by Gulen movement – were leaked.
This was followed by massive police inspections of Gulen movement’s financial and media
institutions (Tugal, 2013a).
 6.	 The tension with the European Union (EU) is such that following arrests of Gulen media
members, the EU warned Turkey to which President Erdogan replied: ‘We have no concern
about what the EU might say, whether the EU accepts us as members or not, we have no such
concern. Please keep your wisdom to yourself’ (Orsal, 2014).
  7.	 Since 2007, the government’s interest in regulating the web (Law No: 5651) first used child
pornography and then the discourse of ‘secure Internet’ to control the web (Oz, 2011). The
final blow came when the government did not even consult social partners in revising Law
no. 5651 (February 2013, explored more in detail below).
  8.	 However, BDP’s spokesman Cem Bico made a statement that was contrary to Facebook’s
claims regarding PKK and terrorism: The main page came down following the group posting
of an interview with BDP’s Member of Parliament (MP) Sabahat Tuncel calling for political
autonomy in Kurdistan. There is no mention of armed groups. In this text, you cannot find any
specific expression, which supports PKK or terrorism as an activity (Deutsche Welle, 2013).
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 9.	 Following the corruption scandal, critics and supporters of the AKP government were
involved in an immense social media war. For a detailed discourse analysis of these tweets,
see Dogu et al. (2014).
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