Protests In Turkey Broadcast Through Twitter

Protests In Turkey Broadcast Through Twitter

As protests in Turkey start to escalate, Twitter became the venue for people to broadcast excessive force used by Police against demonstrators. The number of people using Twitter was so huge that the prime minister of Turkey held the social network responsible for a majority of the protests.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated that Twitter is now a menace to the lies posted on the social network. He considered social media as a menace to society even as he has 2.75 million followers on his account. But he is not following anyone.

The protests in Turkey resulted from the announcement of alcohol restrictions by the government or Erdogan. Reproductive rights debates were also raised during the protests. Due to limited coverage by local media, the people themselves have started to tweet the events happening during the protests, including clashes between the demonstrators and the authorities.

The presence of Twitter in Turkey is strong, which has the second biggest number of users in the Middle East. It comes second only to Saudi Arabia. Thirty-nine percent of internet users in Turkey consider themselves active Twitter users.

Ninety percent of tweets about the latest outbreak of protests in Turkey came from within the country itself. This was revealed by the Social Media and Political Participation lab of New York University. Social media, including Twitter, was considered as the main source of information about protests and human right violations at the height of the Arab Spring in Egypt. However, only thirty percent of the tweets came from within Egypt itself.

Although the Twitter account of the Turkish prime minister remains active, it has reportedly gone silent recently. It remains uncertain if the prime minister will continue to use the social network that he considers a menace and has spread the news about the protests in Turkey.

Posted by James Fried on Tuesday June 04 2013, 4:59 AM EST. Ref: CNET. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0