The empty chair banned on YouTube

With digitalization, the internet, social media networks, and digital platforms are witnessing interaction-based transformations in political communication and political participation processes. While digital technologies enable politicians and political parties to disseminate their messages more easily, citizens with similar views can form communities around demands for social change. On the other hand, journalists possessing cultural and social capital are moving away from traditional mainstream media, continuing their pursuit of economic and editorial independence in digital media. 

YouTube, the world's largest platform for online broadcasting, offers independent journalists direct access to users, a digital archive of content, and various options for generating income. Journalists who are ignored, silenced, or pushed away by traditional media can reach the public directly via YouTube. Recently seen as a "breathing space" for journalists, YouTube has long been one of the broadest and loudest channels in this sense. Data also shows that in some countries, independent news content is most watched on YouTube. The reason for this is low barriers to entry and the fact that the algorithm provides a certain degree of visibility to content that falls outside the official discourse. On the other hand, a phenomenon that should never be forgotten is the inadequate response of platforms—which implement algorithmic bias, arbitrary demonetization, and content removal practices—to content removal and access blocking requests from national governments. For example, YouTube also blocked a protest anthem in Hong Kong on May 15, 2024, following court orders or local regulatory requests in China.  

SYMBOL HUNTING OF AUTHORITARIAN CENSORSHIP 

Setting aside the contradictions in the political economy of platforms, symbols in communication science are essentially like the "raw material" of communication. They are important because they carry meaning, have an impact on emotions, and reflect cultural codes. They can also be tools for propaganda, manipulation, and stereotyping. In this context, a table, chair, stool, and microphone in a studio during broadcasts on digital platforms are communication symbols. 

In banning and censorship, it is not only who is speaking or the content itself that matters. Due to the images of that content and the contextual clues in the footage, even symbols can be subjected to censorship and bans. Sometimes the true meaning of the scene is hidden in the empty chair in the background rather than the words of the person speaking to the camera. This empty chair is sometimes a guest who was invited but could not attend, and other times a journalist or opposition figure who was forbidden from even being invited.

Following the detention of journalist Fatih Altaylı, the empty chair on YouTube was watched by one million people, and the broadcast continued with the chair being filled by others. Upon this, a decision was made last week by the Istanbul 6th Criminal Court of Peace to block access to Altaylı's YouTube channel and remove the content. So much so that an access block was sought for the videos and the account on the grounds that even the empty chair appearing in a corner of the screen, or even in cases where the original owner of the chair was absent, carried a "political message." Although the platform is not currently implementing the court order, the walls are closing in on journalists' empty chairs under authoritarian regimes. It can be said that YouTube's role in independent journalism has, as of now, been to create a space where not only content but also the context and symbols of that content can be transmitted. This shows that censorship is no longer directed only at texts and images, but also at symbols. It seems that for some, the empty chair reminded them of a silenced voice, and the fact that others sat in the chair later reminded them of lost freedom of expression and resistance, which caused discomfort.

Authoritarian regimes, because they cannot actually govern, target not only the speaker but also the symbols they represent, and an empty chair can sometimes say more than a thousand words. And authoritarian regimes fear having empty chairs in front of the public's eyes just as much as they fear words and thoughts. The problem is that you can delete a chair from a digital screen; but it is not that easy to erase the void it creates from the collective memory of society. Because the "empty chair" whose access is banned represents the suppressed voice, the blocked truth, and the resisting memory.