LONDON: Turkey has arrested several YouTube personalities who publish interviews with members of the public in which they discuss their strained finances.
The Turkish economy and currency are in decline, with the lira losing 46 percent of its value against the US dollar this year, and YouTube personalities have been accruing significant followings online by discussing these issues with Turks.
But, in a series of pre-dawn raids covered by Turkish media, three of those journalists-turned-YouTubers were arrested on Sunday.
Mehmet Oyuncu, one of the three journalists, tweeted: “We are journalists trying to make the voices of the people on the street heard in the palaces. Every day, they try to intimidate us with violent provocateurs, detentions and arrests, but we have not taken a step back.”
All of those arrested have now been released, The Independent reported, but they remain under house arrest and so are effectively prevented from continuing their work.
The arrests came the day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared social media to be “the main threat to democracy.”
According to media reports, he said in a speech on Sunday: “With the proliferation of social media channels, the lies, manufactured news, we see that disinformation spreads rapidly. Millions of people’s lives are darkened due to such news spread from these channels where there is no effective control mechanism.”
There are reports that Turkey’s Parliament is drafting new laws that would see the government further criminalize what the state describes as fake news and online misinformation, prompting concerns by free speech advocates that they could be used against journalists.
The country’s economic downward spiral, and the hardships it has brought, was highlighted by the YouTube videos, despite them sometimes lacking a professional polish.
In one video, several school-aged boys complained about no longer being able to afford books for school.
Erol Onderoglu, Turkey representative for Reporters Sans Frontieres, told The Independent: “They could use some editorial filters and knowledge of how the interviews should be released without generating criminal complaints, but there is a clear public benefit to hear about people’s concerns from the street.”
The videos represent pro-government opinions too, featuring people who profess, much like Erdogan, that the lira’s collapse was the result of a foreign conspiracy.
But their arguments were less than convincing, and often undermined by others.
“The people are suffering; drop this talk about foreign powers,” says one man in a video. “One piece of gold has become twice the minimum wage.”
Onderoglu said: “Even when the pro-government people are interviewed in the street the argument in favor of the government is not convincing. All agree that there is a deep financial crisis and political corruption issue and all kinds of wrongdoings. In favor of the government or against, all of these street activities are seen as a threat.”
Fethi Açıkel, an opposition parliamentarian, tweeted: “It is helplessness to detain YouTube youth, who listen to the troubles of our nation with street interviews and hand a microphone to the troubled citizen.”
