Figure 2
Observations were verified with a bots analysis report released by a major internet security company, Norton (November, 2016). Turkey is one of the top countries in automated bots usage; see report at https://uk.norton.com/emeabots
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This article focuses on AKTrolls, defined as pro-government political trolls in Turkey, while attempting to draw implications about political trolling in the country in general. It examines their methods and effects, and it interrogates whether (and how) Turkish authorities have attempted to shape or counter politically motivated social media conte...
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... The political/informal networks of attack include the use of government-paid internet trolls who actively implement these intimidation tactics (Saka, 2018). ...
This article attempts to explain the current situation of the Turkish media system through the media systems approach as a case study with special attention to the concept of media capture. We propose that the Turkish media system’s shift is heavily influenced by media capture. We associate four of Hallin and Mancini’s media systems concepts related to the effects of media capture in the Turkish media system shift: rise of political parallelism, erosion of journalistic professionalism (ethics), controlling role of the state, and government-friendly ownership concentration. In explaining the shift from a pluralist polarised to captured media in Turkey, we acknowledge the potential for new, independent, and alternative media to emerge. The article also comments that the potential reason for this shift from a captured liberal to a captured media in Turkey is the climate of fear that has allowed successive governments in Turkey to attempt media capture. In general, this article attempts to provide insight into the current relationship between media and politics in Turkey.
... Trolling is commonly defined as anti-social behavior aimed at inciting emotional reactions and derailing discussions in online communities (Sun and Shen, 2021). This form of online misbehavior, marked by crude language and inflammatory tone, could manifest in any organization, be it commercial (Golf-Papez and Veer, 2017), political (Forestal, 2017) or social movement (Saka, 2018). Like monsters (Bloomfield and Vurdubakis, 2006), trolls clearly infringe the acceptable social norms of online communities. ...
The proliferation of trolls may be one of the main reasons why democratic organizations fail to use social media to renew. The literature predominantly assimilates these trolls to psychologically deviant individuals. This article questions this individual-centric approach by suggesting that trolls may well be socially constructed organizational monsters. To investigate this phenomenon, for 2 years, we studied the interactions on a Facebook group between the leaders and members of a trade union. We identified three bi-directional effects at the heart of what we call the monstrification process: discording, disordering, and disgusting effects. The paper contributes to the troll and organizational monster literature by evidencing the four-stage process through which trolls are organizationally constructed as deviant online participants. Our work also adds to the democratic organization literature by metaphorically underlining actors' emotional and moral distress caused by the dysfunctional encounter of offline and online democracy.
... Through the involvement of organized groups, online platforms have become an increasingly important component of public diplomacy. Disinformation comes into play when misinformation, polarization, fake news or conspiracy theories are deliberately transformed through intentional interventions by governments, political parties, automated bots, coordinated actions by citizens, and internet trolls [24,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Indeed, particularly bots or concerted disinformation operations are very useful to disseminate low-credible inauthentic content [42][43][44][45][46]. Social and political turmoils [47] -including electoral periods-are permissive processes for shaping public discourse via disinformation [48][49][50]. ...
Why do Social Media Corporations (SMCs) engage in state-linked information operations? Social media can significantly influence the global political landscape, allowing governments and other political entities to engage in concerted information operations, shaping or manipulating domestic and foreign political agendas. In response to state-linked political manipulation tactics on social media, Twitter and Meta carried out take-down operations against propaganda networks, accusing them of interfering foreign elections, organizing disinformation campaigns, manipulating political debates and many other issues. This research investigates the two SMCs' policy orientation to explain which factors can affect these two companies' reaction against state-linked information operations. We find that good governance indicators such as democracy are significant elements of SMCs' country-focus. This article also examines whether Meta and Twitter's attention to political regime characteristics is influenced by international political alignments. This research illuminates recent trends in SMCs' take-down operations and illuminating interplay between geopolitics and domestic regime characteristics.
... Through the involvement of organized groups, online platforms have become an increasingly important component of public diplomacy. Disinformation comes into play when misinformation, polarization, fake news or conspiracy theories are deliberately transformed through intentional interventions by governments, political parties, automated bots, coordinated actions by citizens, and internet trolls (24,(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41). Indeed, particularly bots or concerted disinformation operations are very useful to disseminate low-credible inauthentic content (42)(43)(44)(45)(46). Social and political turmoils (47) -including electoral periods-are permissive processes for shaping public discourse via disinformation (48)(49)(50). ...
... They monitor you, attack you, and report suspicious activities to the authorities." Similarly, others mentioned the government's online troll armies (Saka, 2018). At times, trolls could be relatives of activists. ...
This study aimed to explore the perceptions, concerns, and strategies of LGBTQ social media activists in Turkey. Through semi-structured interviews with 20 LGBTQ social media activists, we investigated how they navigate cultural and political challenges and utilize social media for activism purposes. Our findings revealed that LGBTQ activists in Turkey strive to balance the risks and benefits of being online activists. They aim to avoid punishment from society and the government while simultaneously asserting their existence and amplifying their voices through social media. In addition, the study highlights the concerns of activists regarding both state and lateral surveillance.
... A study in the Turkish context has indicated that individual activities in the form of trolling are relatively spontaneous and unorganized (Saka 2018). An analysis of the behavior of Twitter users identified as state-sponsored and the content they disseminated has shown that these users were active over a long period and reached a significant number of other users; however, their overall influence seemed relatively modest (Zannettou et al. 2019). ...
This study seeks to enhance the understandings about the challenges of risk communication about information-related means employed in the cyber space for exerting inappropriate influence, frequently focused on paralyzing people and undermining stability. These means can be part of a hybrid warfare strategy located in the grey zone between the poles of peace and war, which indicates a rather long-term and subtle character. Maneuvers that conceal violating interventions to mask activities, confuse responses and disguise actual intentions constitute particular challenges due to a lack of clarity and the variety of interpretations that may be available. The paper presents the results of a literature review that applied a snowball sampling approach and concentrated on unfolding the considered threat landscape and the recognition of the grey zone. The results highlight the emergence of information and cyber conflicts, including state operations and discreditation, and specific techniques, such as trolling and bots, in the Swedish context and beyond. The findings exemplify some challenges for risk communication on information and cyber warfare and their implications for research and practice.
... Another category of Twitter users who have appeared in the post-Gezi period are political trolls (Bulut and Yörük, 2017;Saka, 2018). Either voluntary or employed, trolls use Twitter as a space to feverishly conduct propaganda on behalf of the political or religious movements they belong to (Sözeri E.F 2015;Ural 2021). ...
Amidst rumors that deism-a form of agnosticism that rejects organized religion-was becoming popular amongst students attending religious schools in Turkey, Ali Erbaş, the head of the Religious Affairs Directorate, made a public statement wherein deists were described as adhering to "a perverse and heretic philosophy". Soon afterwards, social media was abuzz with responses to Er-baş's controversial statement. Using computational data collection strategies to amass a dataset of 21,674 tweets sent out by 15,226 distinct Twitter users within 48 hours of the event, this study examines the positions and themes through which the controversy was discussed on Twitter. It relies on both qualitative analysis as well as social network analysis to present evidence on how the controversy turned the Turkish Twittersphere into a temporary dialogical space for the a) enunciation of "deconversion narratives" from Is-lam, b) expression of grassroots civil activism attempting to hold government actors accountable for Erbaş's comments, c) voicing of rationalized collective critique towards the policies of Ali Erbaş and the Diyanet. keywords: religion in turkey, deism, Twitter, computational methods, social network analysis, content analysis.
... Despite President Erdogan's own active presence on social media, he has expressed frustration and discontent with its impact, particularly when used by government critics and dissidents. This tension arises from the fact that social media provides a platform for individuals to voice dissenting The literature on the AKP's digital authoritarianism and cyber security usually focus on critical infrastructures (Karabacak et al. 2016), data protection (Gürkaynak et al. 2014), internet policy , online surveillance (Yesil and Sozeri 2017), hacktivism (Polat et al. 2013), and social media and trolling (Bulut and Yörük 2017;Saka 2018). However, the use of religion by this Islamist authoritarian ruling party for digital authoritarianism has been understudied. ...
This paper delves into the intricate relationship between religious populism and the legitimization of digital authoritarianism in Turkey. Specifically, it investigates how the ruling party, AKP, has strategically linked Islamist values to state policies as a means of justifying its repressive control over digital technology. Through an examination of internet governance at multiple levels—full network-level governance, sub-network or website-level governance, proxy or corporation-level governance, and network–node or individual-level governance—the study reveals the instrumentalization of religious populism to consolidate support and validate the government’s autocratic agenda. Furthermore, it sheds light on the role of state-controlled religious institutions, traditional media, social media outlets, as well as religious leaders and organizations in shaping public opinion, enabling the government to exert greater control over the dissemination of information. By dissecting the religious populist justification of digital authoritarianism in Turkey, this research provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics at play in the realm of online governance.
... Turkey has been undergoing a hostile political transformation into an authoritarian regime for the past decade, which became even more severe following a failed coup attempt in 2016 (Yılmaz and Turner 2019). AKP has a well-known history of utilizing social media to spread progovernment content, and utilizing an army of troll accounts commonly known as the AK Trolls to attack those critical of the government (Saka 2018;Bulut and Yörük 2017;Albayrak and Parkinson 2023). In 2020, Twitter removed 7,340 accounts linked to the AKP from the platform and subsequently shared these accounts and their activity with researchers. ...
... In 2013, the Gezi park protests mobilized Turkish citizens to Twitter as a primary news source and mechanism for political discourse and organization due to severe censorship in mainstream media (Yılmaz and Turner 2019; Karatas and Saka 2017). In response, the AKP funded, recruited, and trained an army of 6000 young AKP members to create and disseminate pro-government/AKP content on social media (Albayrak and Parkinson 2023;Saka 2018). ...
... These "AK Trolls" use social media to spread AKP ideals through large volumes of messages and images (Saka 2018;Albayrak and Parkinson 2023). They promote unwavering support and praise of President Erdogan, continuously criticize and demonize opposing political parties, specifically the People's Republican Party (CHP) and the People's Democratic Party (HDP), and attack journalists who criticize the government (Grossman et al. 2020;Bulut and Yörük 2017;Saka 2018;Karatas and Saka 2017;Başaran 2020). ...
Following the 2016 US elections Twitter launched their Information Operations (IO) hub where they archive account activity connected to state linked information operations. In June 2020, Twitter took down and released a set of accounts linked to Turkey's ruling political party (AKP). We investigate these accounts in the aftermath of the takedown to explore whether AKP-linked operations are ongoing and to understand the strategies they use to remain resilient to disruption. We collect live accounts that appear to be part of the same network, ~30% of which have been suspended by Twitter since our collection. We create a BERT-based classifier that shows similarity between these two networks, develop a taxonomy to categorize these accounts, find direct sequel accounts between the Turkish takedown and the live accounts, and find evidence that Turkish IO actors deliberately construct their network to withstand large-scale shutdown by utilizing explicit and implicit signals of coordination. We compare our findings from the Turkish operation to Russian and Chinese IO on Twitter and find that Turkey's IO utilizes a unique group structure to remain resilient. Our work highlights the fundamental imbalance between IO actors quickly and easily creating free accounts and the social media platforms spending significant resources on detection and removal, and contributes novel findings about Turkish IO on Twitter.
... Previous research on the ruling Justice and Development Party's (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) Twitter governance has similarly shown the emergence of a cult of personality around President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (see Yesil 2020), as well as political trolling (see Bulut and Yörük 2017;Saka 2018;Uysal and Schroeder 2019). These studies looked at the general authoritarian tendencies in the online communication of the AKP regime, such as their use of paid political trolls.Şahin (2021) shows how the AKP as a populist party used the Kurdish question to trigger perceptions of ontological insecurity, enabling it to securitize the elections in November 2015. ...
This article contributes to the existing literature on the populist online communication of governments. We look at the role of the micro-blogging social media platform Twitter under the authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the wider Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi; AKP) during the peace process. We carried out a rhetorical analysis of the Twitter posts of four key AKP actors-Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Ahmet Davutoglu, Yalçın Akdogan, and Efkan Ala-between July 1, 2012 and November 1, 2015. First, we show that the AKP actors persistently label the Kurdish political movement in Turkey and in Syria as a threat to the national security of Turkey, reflected in their rhetoric toward the remilitarization and resecuritization of Turkey's Kurdish question within and across its borders. Second, we argue that the AKP used the peace process and various persuasive communicative techniques not only to consolidate Kurdish electoral support, but also to reach its aim to remove the Kemalist military-bureaucratic tutelage in Turkey that was replaced with hyper-presidentialism under the strong personality cult of Erdogan. Third, we argue that Erdogan's increased one-man power has been reflected in the AKP's branding itself as the only viable choice for the Kurdish region's stability, which has blocked more constructive dialogue toward a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish question.
