Over the weekend, the entire world was shocked at the news of the
attempted coup in Turkey, which involved some military plotters trying
to seize power from President Tayyip Erdogan by rolling out tanks into the streets and helicopter fire from the skies above Turkey’s capital of Ankara.
Fortunately for Turkey’s collective national
stability, the coup failed, thanks to social media – the tool with which
President Erdogan reached out to his supporters to take to the streets
and stand against the military imposters.
Prior to the attempted coup, in which many innocent
people lost their lives as tanks rolled over civilians like an hydraulic
press compressing metal, Erdogan was not exactly the biggest fan of
social media.
In 2014, he reportedly said, “We will not leave
this nation at the mercy of YouTube and Facebook. We will take all the
necessary steps in the strongest way including barring social media.” Erdogan also allegedly added that both Facebook and YouTubewere only good for promoting all kinds of immorality and espionage.
It would come as a very strange twist of fate that
the same social media, which Erdogan believed to have no use outside of
immoral entertainment and spy tactics, was what he turned to when his
government was at the brink of a militarized exit.
When news of the attempted coup broke on Twitter, reports from CNN’s Turkish arm soon followed showing a video of Erdogan speaking to the Turkish citizenry via Apple’s iPhone FaceTime video call app imploring them to “take ownership of Turkey’s democracy.”
Erdogan also took to Twitter with a similar message saying, ‘I call our nation to the airports and the squares to take ownership of our democracy and our national will.’ He also retweeted posts from the Turkish prime minister and the official Twitter account of the Presidency condemning the coup.
For someone who had previously condemned social media on the past, it seemed very convenient for Erdogan to then utilize it in securing his government’s stay in power. It begs the same question stakeholders and tech enthusiasts in Africa have always asked African leaders – Why would you want to regulate social media when it has so many advantages?
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