It is now glaring that the social media has become very popular and influential that countries such as Turkey are beginning to consider it a potential threat to their political agendas due to the huge amount of insurrection that has become common with the leading social networks like Facebook and the likes. Recently, the Turkish government blocked the entire country’s access to YouTube. Earlier in the same month, another social media was banned as a result of the number of persons who made comment concerning the manner with which the government is ruling the country.
Turkey is not the first country to take action against the social media. There have been lots of protests on the internet that have given lots of concerns to governments of other nations. The social media provides people the opportunity to say whatever they want to say without directly exposing themselves to any harm. For this reason, there are a much higher number of persons who make their opinions known on the platform of the social media as a means of communication.
Binali Yildirm, the Minister of Transportation, communication and maritime in Turkey said that the Social media is capable of provoking great masses. He made this statement when he made the announcement of the country’s plan to block access to Facebook so as to prevent threat to public safety.
In May 2012, the government of Turkey announced that the new measure would take effect from August in the same year. Reports from the ministry purportedly claimed that the social media plays the role of a catalyst that generates religious and ethnic confrontations in times of crises. The attacks made by the illegal Kurdistan Workers Party was specifically mentioned and also the case of 2 Turkish soldiers who were killed and 10 others wounded in a attack by terrorists in the south eastern province in Hakkari.
In 2011, Turkey was the 4th country with the largest users of Facebook in the world. It had a population of nearly 30 million active facebook users. With a population of close to 80 million persons in Turkey, this means that over 35% of people in turkey make use of Facebook. Something more compelling is the amount of online population which is above 85% and that makes Turkey one of the biggest markets for the social media. The Demography of Turkey reveals that almost half of the population of the country is below 30 years, which is the most dominant age for Facebook users.
