Our officials contacted Facebook and Twitter but Twitter turned down our cooperation offer, said Binali Yıldırım, Turkey’s Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications.
Addressing press inquiries during a trip in the eastern province of Erzincan, Yıldırım said the following regarding the response of Facebook and Twitter to government officials about disclosing the information of users who were allegedly involved in Gezi Park Resistance:
“Our official did the necessary contacts. Some of them were responded positively, but Twitter was inclined to cooperate with our officials.”
“Certainly, this is a critical situation. If you are active in a country, you have to cooperate with national law enforcement officials regarding illegal issues. This is the situation in every country. It doesn’t matter whether the crime has been committed in the real world or cyber world. We have observed a disturbance here. What needs to be done is neither turning down the volume of social media or restrict it. Such methods must never be considered. This is against the nature of things."
Yıldırım reminded that they have formed USOM - acronym for National Intervention Center on Cyber Events in Turkish - and established a program called Balküpü - Honeycomb in Turkish - in order to monitor and intervene such cyber attacks.
“We have formed teams that work 24/7 to patrol and monitor cyber attacks and ensure the security of our citizens and daily life flow.
"No problem with Facebook, but with Twitter..."
Yıldırım also urged every major social media site to open offices in Turkey:
"Come and be a part of Turkish jurisprudence. This won’t hurt anybody. When a tax officer or policeman or someone else submits an inquiry, we would like to have a representative ready in our country to provide this. It is not convenient to do this over email, phone or internet with a representative in the U.S. - a country that has 8 hour difference with Turkey. We would like to have someone in Turkey who we can tell our problem and request a prompt correction if there is anything wrong. We are working closely to resolve this issue.
“Our colleagues made the necessary warning regarding the issues. However, we haven’t received a positive response. For long time, Facebook cooperates with Turkish authorities smoothly. They have a unit here. We have no problem with them but Twitter can also do the same thing. Otherwise, we can’t continue like this.” (ÇT/BM)
* bianet compiled this article from Vatan newspaper.
