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credence to those who say Turkey has become little more than a banana republic.
Turkish authorities “regularly arrest social-media users”.
Turkish competition board and personal data protection board KVKK have launched probes against Facebook over the way it informed its subscribers as regards a change in its data privacy policy in relation to its messaging service WhatsApp. The Turkish government appears to be using the situation to instrumentalise some of its social media demands.
Russia’s Telegram Messenger, which Erdogan has begun to use instead of WhatsApp in his chat groups with journalists, is the most popular replacement for WhatsApp among Turks followed by the US’ Signal.
Local messenger apps are also attempting to promote themselves amid the WhatsApp hullabaloo but they have little chance given the data privacy and freedom of speech conditions in Turkey.
In 2020, Turkey easily kept its unrivalled leading position in Twitter censorship demands, with the closest challengers Japan and Russia.
On January 13, Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) again fined pro-main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) TV channels Halk TV and TELE 1.
Also, Turkcell said on January 11 that its BiP was downloaded 4.6mn times in three days while government-run defence company Havelsan promoted its Havelsan Ileti and BtiDer (an information technologies and data privacy association) promoted its Dedi.
Twitter is relatively comfortable as its Turkish users are accustomed to using VPN services when it is banned in Turkey but Facebook is looking like the weak link in the chain.
Apart from government officials and those who communicate with them for business purposes, Turks might want to think twice before using local apps if they have deserted WhatsApp because they think its new privacy settings will allow the company to share chat information with the Turkish government.
Even government officials may refrain from using local apps for private conversation.
WhatsApp chat groups emerged as a leading news source in Turkey due to press freedom conditions in the country.
The US Trade Representative’s office complained on January 7 about digital taxes imposed by Turkey along with France, India and Italy on US tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon.
As of March, a 7.5% tax on the “sales revenues” of technology companies, including Google, Facebook and Amazon, came into force in Turkey.
Uber Taxi is returning to Turkey after a court ruling unblocked the application.
Turkish property management software developer Apsiyon placed 85th in the TOBB (the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey) Fastest Growing Turkish Companies ranking. Apsiyon’s turnover in 2018 was in the range of Turkish lira (TRY) 5-20mn.
Istanbul-listed Aselsan’s (ASELS) 50%-held optical devices development unit Aselsan Hassas Optik was ranked 26th in the TOBB list with revenues in the range of TRY50-100mn in 2018.
50 TURKEY Country Report February 2021 www.intellinews.com