Erdoğan: Social Media Has Become a Garbage Dump

*Parliamentary Speaker Mustafa Şentop and President Erdoğan (Photo and source: AA)

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Social media has completely become a "garbage dump" where people are defrauded and lynched, according to President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

"We need to strengthen our people's bonds with real life," Erdoğan said in the capital Ankara at the opening ceremony of the Computer Emergency Response Center (USOM). He added that they will "never surrender to such a virtual world."

"Trying to provide data security with foreign solutions means leaving border security to foreign soldiers," he noted.

Saying that information and technology is the world's fastest-growing sector, he stressed that over the last 17 years, the sector's value in Turkey rose from 20 billion lira (~3.3 billion US dollars) to 132 billion Turkish lira (~22 billion US dollars).

"In 2019 we saw over 136,000 cyber-attacks against Turkey, up from less than 9,000 in 2016," he said, adding that recently Turkey has been among the countries most targeted by cyber-attacks.

The way to fight the attacks, done with smart systems, is developing and using smarter systems, he said, comparing using conventional methods against cyber-attacks with trying to block bullets with paper.

Our aim is a Turkey that invents, designs, develops, and produces technology, rather than only consuming it, he said.

Turkey is stepping up work for a national solution for data security, and officials are being told to take needed steps immediately, he added.

Noting that Turkey will send Turksat 5A into space at the end of the year and Turksat 5B in 2021, Erdogan said Turksat 6A, Turkey's first indigenously produced communications satellite, will be operational by 2022.

"This will make Turkey one of the 10 countries in the world that are able to produce communication satellites," he added. (AS/VK)