Twitter asked to set up a "representative office" inside Turkey

[Safriz]

The Turkish government is heading towards a showdown with Twitter after asking it to set up a "representative office" inside the country. The move could presage censorship of the microblogging service it has accused of helping stir weeks of anti-administration protests.

The government hinted that it might even ban communications using the service if it did not comply — as happened when it blocked Google's YouTube video site for two years until the search giant opened an office there last October.

While mainstream Turkish media largely ignored the protests during the early days of the unrest, social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook emerged as the main outlets for Turks opposed to the government.

But the Turkish transport and communications minister Binali Yildirim told reporters on Wednesday that without a corporate presence in the country, the Turkish government could not quickly reach Twitter officials with orders to take down content or with requests for user data.

"When information is requested, we want to see someone in Turkey who can provide this ... there needs to be an interlocutor we can put our grievance to and who can correct an error if there is one," Yildirim said. "We have told all social media that ... if you operate in Turkey you must comply with Turkish law."

Twitter declined to respond to the government request on Wednesday, but a person familiar with the company's thinking said it had no current plans to open an office in that country.

While Ankara had no problems with Facebook, which had been working with Turkish authorities for a while and had representatives inside Turkey, Yildirim said it had not seen a "positive approach" from Twitter after Turkey issued the "necessary warnings" to the site.

"Twitter will probably comply, too. Otherwise this is a situation that cannot be sustained," he said, without elaborating, although he stressed the aim was not to limit social media.

An official at the ministry, who asked not to be named, said the government had asked Twitter to reveal the identities of users who posted messages deemed insulting to the government or prime minister, or that flouted people's personal rights.

It was not immediately clear whether Twitter had responded. The company's general policy is to protect users' identities unless it receives binding decisions from a court; in the US it has fought against orders to reveal user details.

Facebook said in a statement that it had not provided user data to Turkish authorities in response to government requests over the protests and said it was concerned about proposals indicating that internet companies may have to provide data more frequently.

Turkey heads for Twitter showdown after anti-government protests | Technology | guardian.co.uk

 

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[Safriz]

Twitter 'does not have perspective' on Gezi protests: CEO
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - Twitter 'does not have perspective' on Gezi protests: CEO
Twitter "does not have any perspective" on the Gezi Park demonstrations, the micro-blogging website's CEO, Dick Costolo, said today with regard to the postings on its social network during the month of nationwide protests Turkey.

"You can use our open public platform to say what you believe. That's what users in Turkey are doing," Costolo said during a conference at the Brookings Institute in Washington.

Hashtags related to the Gezi Park protests have frequently featured at the top of the list of worldwide trends. However, Turkish police have arrested dozens of protesters for their posts on the network, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accusing Twitter of being a "troublemaker." "The finest lies are on it," he said during the first week of the protests.

Costolo said he was aware of Erdoğan's remarks about Twitter, and said he was "closely following" what was happening in Turkey.

"We don't editorialize what's on [Twitter]. The platform itself doesn't have perspective on this," he said.

Hours earlier, Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications Binali Yıldırım had said that Twitter had refused the government's offer to cooperate about the posts during the protests.

"Our friends have initiated contact [with social media executives] as is due. Some have approached [the issue] positively but unfortunately Twitter did not look positively on cooperation. This is an important development," he said, also calling on the social media network to open an office in Turkey as Facebook has done.

However, despite Yıldırım's claims to the contrary, Facebook later denied having agreed to share data with the Turkish authorities in a statement.