Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday said that social media has become an uncontrolled platform where people are swindled, lynched and abused, describing it as a “garbage dump,” the pro-government Hürriyet newspaper reported.
“We need to strengthen our people’s ties to real life,” Erdoğan said during a speech at an opening ceremony.
“Keeping our electronic systems and data safe is just as important as the safety of our borders,” he said.
Erdoğan made the comments at the opening ceremony of the National Computer Emergency Response Center (USOM).
He said he believes the center will enhance Turkey’s preparedness against all kinds of cyber attacks.
A December 2019 report by the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD) said Turkish authorities blocked access to a total of 288,310 websites between 2006 and October 2019.
The report also noted Turkey’s requests that Twitter remove content or block accounts. Ankara introduced 5,099 such requests between 2012 and 2018, leading all other countries and surpassing Russia’s 385 by far.