Turkey Blasts Twitter As “Propaganda Machine” For Removing Pro-Erdogan ‘Fake’ Accounts

It appears Presidents Trump and Erdogan finally have something to agree on. Erdogan’s office slammed Twitter on Friday, calling the US-based social media platform a “propaganda machine” after the company announced it suspended over 7,000 “fake” accounts known for churning out pro-Erdogan and AKP friendly tweets.

The accounts were suspected of being a bot network utilized by Erdogan’s AK party insiders to advance its political agenda inside the country, along with others displaying “inauthentic” activity.

The Turkish presidency’s office lashed out, saying Twitter has declared war on freedom of expression in the country while unfairly targeting the country’s ruling party.

An official Twitter statement described:

Detected in early 2020, this network of accounts was employing coordinated inauthentic activity, which was primarily targeted at domestic audiences within Turkey. Based on our analysis of the network’s technical indicators and account behaviors, the collection of fake and compromised accounts was being used to amplify political narratives favorable to the AK Parti, and demonstrated strong support for President Erdogan. We’re disclosing 7,340 accounts to the archive today.

Twitter had targeted alleged fake activity out of China and Russia as well.

An Erdoan spokesman, communications director Fahrettin Altun, responded with: “(This) has demonstrated yet again that Twitter is no mere social media company, but a propaganda machine with certain political and ideological inclinations,” according to Reuters.

The statement further claimed Twitter’s crackdown on the accounts were due to enemies “peddling their ideological views” and influencing the US company’s decision-making and censorship. 

The Erdogan spokesman went so far as to issue a veiled threat suggesting Ankara could in turn move to block Twitter within the country. This after Twitter had in the past been temporarily blocked amid political turmoil related to Syria as well as the Kurds. 

“We would like to remind the company (Twitter) of the eventual fate of a number of organizations which attempted to take similar steps in the past,” Altun added as part of the Turkish presidency’s statement.

Interestingly in its statement Twitter charged that the youth organizations within AKP had actually managed to hack and take over accounts previously critical of Erdogan.

“As a result, the network we’re disclosing today includes several compromised accounts associated with organizations critical of President Erdogan and the Turkish Government,” the Twitter statement said.