Fahrettin Altun: We cannot surrender our youth to the dark corridors of social media

Here are the highlights from Fahrettin Altun's remarks:

"The Future Communicators Competition is 10 years old. Over these 10 years, our youth, our young communicators, have shown great interest in this competition and have applied with thousands of projects. To date, more than 400 projects have been awarded through this competition. This year, 36 projects in 12 categories have earned the right to receive awards. I wholeheartedly congratulate our young communicators who have earned these awards, and may their success be lasting. We, just like our youth, attach great importance to this competition and feel great excitement because of it. We consider these efforts of our young communicators, which will contribute to both their own future and that of our country, to be very, very valuable. Because we know that young people with the equipment to master and direct the world of communication will shape the communication world of tomorrow.

We believe that our young communicators, with their pure minds, will bring new breaths to the communication ecosystem with the original projects they produce instead of repeating clichés in communication and media, and will contribute to the renewal and development we need in communication and media.

The world of communication and media has been witnessing deep-rooted changes and transformations in recent years.

The fundamental question before us in this process is this: Where do we stand in this transformation? What kind of attitude will we adopt against the rain of information, the bombardment of data, and the flow of disinformation we face? Will we be a mere extra caught in the wind, or will we choose to be an actor struggling to direct the processes? As Turkey, we must be a decisive actor, in other words, a subject, in these transformation processes.

"VIRTUAL DISASTER CONDITIONS"

If we are the subject, we can defend the truth against the politics of lies and disinformation policies. If we are the subject, we can tell the whole world what is happening in our region, our geography, the Islamic world, the Turkic world, in Baghdad, Tehran, Beirut, Jerusalem, or Gaza, not by filtering it through Western media monopolies, but by obtaining our own information from the field. If we are the subject, we can speak on our own behalf and for our own account.

Look, to define is to rule. Whoever tells the story determines the hero, the good, and the bad. Today, many thinkers are producing works that reveal how colonizers in the global communication regime have taken away the right of colonized people to tell their own stories, how Western media representations suppress the true voice of oppressed peoples, and through what ways and methods Western knowledge production processes hide the stories of the oppressed all over the world through epistemic violence.

By representing the non-Western world with exotic content or images containing violence, Western media both distorts the truth about societies outside the West and institutionalizes Western ethnocentrism. If we do not object to this distorted order and remain deprived of the opportunity to tell our own story, we will both endanger our own existence and betray the truth. Yet, as Aldous Huxley said, 'the concealment of truth enslaves people; the revelation of truth sets people free.'

I would like to emphasize in particular that while we are fighting against injustice and colonial policies in the global world order under the leadership of our President, we are also fighting against the media imperialism that sustains this injustice and its monopoly on definition.

Virtual disaster conditions! Undoubtedly, virtual disaster conditions describe a human situation where truth, and even the very idea of truth, is distorted. Unfortunately, digitalization and the spread of artificial intelligence are paving the way for an anti-truth information ecosystem.

We are all witnessing the reign of lies. While there is an inflation of content on one hand, it is becoming increasingly difficult to reach authentic content on the other. Public oversight is becoming more difficult by the day. Is what is circulating the truth, or is it lies, manipulation, or disinformation that distorts the truth and makes even the idea of truth meaningless?

This is very clear and obvious! Given the structure, operation, and speed of the medium, verifying the accuracy of the content that falls before us in the bombardment of disinformation we are exposed to is a very arduous task, especially for users. For this reason, we need public oversight and regulation processes. In order to overcome these and similar difficulties, we established the Center for Combating Disinformation under the Presidency's Directorate of Communications.

In doing so, our goal is the detection of lies, manipulation, and disinformation and the sharing of accurate information with national and international public opinion. However, for the sake of public interest, we cannot be content with only verification and confirmation mechanisms. We need effective legal regulations and deterrent measures regarding digital channels, especially social media. Because, as our President expressed in his speech today, we cannot surrender our youth to the dark corridors of social media and digital channels.

It is clear that these platforms have turned into channels that encourage and spread violence and brutality.

I would also like to specifically state that we expect conventional media organizations to act in accordance with the principle of responsible broadcasting in this process. Our television channels and newspapers cannot and should not keep violence and evil on the public agenda by dramatizing them in all their details for the sake of ratings.

Our traditional media organizations must act much more sensitively in not spreading the images that fall before them from social media to wider audiences in an unfiltered manner.

We cannot allow our youth to be poisoned by popular culture and digital channels for the sake of small and material calculations, or to be seen as a commodity for these structures. Law is a living culture, and it is clear that we need new laws according to new needs. Because social media platforms are just as responsible as users for posts containing lies, manipulation, and disinformation.

However, these platforms turn a blind eye to, and it even seems to us that they encourage, content that plays with social nerves, causes polarization, and triggers violence, brutality, racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. Although they portray themselves as referees, they often try to act like a player, an actor in world politics.

We witness that digital platforms avoid establishing an effective control mechanism even against terrorism and violence propaganda, that they do not remove such posts despite being requested, and that they increase the visibility of posts that target the fundamental values that hold society together through algorithms. It is our primary duty to protect our cyber homeland against the cyber threats and hybrid threats created by these structures.

"CONTINUES ITS DOUBLE-STANDARD APPROACH"

Like some digital channels, many Western conventional media organizations continue their double-standard approach. A full year has passed. Unfortunately, during the genocide process that has been going on in Gaza for a year, the support of Western governments and Western media companies for Israel's war crimes has increased exponentially. Israel, which deliberately targets journalists, healthcare workers, infants in cradles, and women, targeted Turkish journalists again just a few days ago.

An occupying terrorist protected by Israeli forces intervened in a TRT Haber broadcast and threatened our journalist colleagues. A day later, this time Israeli forces directly attempted to prevent the same colleagues from broadcasting. Israel, an invasive and occupying structure, knows the crimes it is the perpetrator of. It has been targeting journalists and their families since October 7 so that the genocide is not known, heard, or seen. Israel has murdered nearly 200 journalists in Gaza so far.

Most recently, Anadolu Agency reporter Hasan Hamad was targeted and martyred while trying to photograph the Israeli bombardment.

Palestine TV's Gaza reporter Salman Al-Bashir had rebelled by taking off his vest and cap against the reckless murder of journalists trying to announce the truth to the world by Israel. Upon learning that the journalist colleague he worked with was killed along with his family, he took off his press vest on live broadcast and said, 'all the things said about journalists being under international protection go no further than being a slogan.'

"WE WILL SHOW EVERY EFFORT REQUIRED OF US"

The truth will not leave Israel alone in all its burning intensity. Both Israel and its collaborators need to understand this now: We will continue to fight against the genocidal perpetrators in the region with courage and a consciousness of truth and justice. Against the global network that remains silent while nearly 200 journalists are killed in Gaza, we will continue to expose the evil here, the double standard here.

We will keep communication channels open in Lebanon, just as we do in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, and we will continue to announce Israel's attacks to the world. We will show every effort required of us in the field of communication and media for the establishment of lasting peace, justice, and stability in our region and for the construction of a fairer world, as our President Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has expressed.

Today, there is much work to be done and many goals to be reached in many fields, from politics to economy, from culture and arts to communication and media, for our country, our region, and the whole world. As the Republic of Turkey, we know very well that building the future in a better and fairer way depends on investing in today's youth. We will continue to support our youth in every field, as we do here today, for the construction of a more humane, more prosperous, and more just system. We will continue to stand behind our youth who produce with passion, zeal, and excitement."