Delayed Response to Turkey Earthquake Sparks Discontent
Controversy Over SNS Block to Calm Public Opinion
Musk Responds "Assessing the Situation"
[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Ji-eun] As suspicions spread that Turkish authorities restricted access to Twitter to quell public dissatisfaction over their slow response to the strong earthquake that occurred on the 6th, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, stated that he is currently assessing the situation.
According to CNN on the 8th (local time), NetBlocks, a London-based internet outage monitoring organization, reported that most of Turkey's telecommunications and internet providers restricted users' access to Twitter.
NetBlocks pointed out, "Real-time network data analysis within Turkey shows that Twitter was blocked," adding, "Turkey has a long history of restricting access to social networking services (SNS) during national emergencies or safety incidents."
Major foreign media explained that as public criticism of Turkey's delayed response to the disaster grew, the Turkish government deliberately blocked SNS at the government level. Public dissatisfaction erupted as rescue teams arrived late at the accident site, reducing the golden time for saving lives.
According to AFP, survivors testified that rescue teams did not arrive at the accident site for 12 hours after the earthquake, forcing them to lift building debris by hand to search for missing persons. Survivors also said that rescue operations lasted only a few hours after the teams arrived on the evening of the 6th.
Citizens also questioned the whereabouts of the earthquake tax that the government began collecting after the 1999 Izmit earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6. The Turkish authorities established a special tax item under the pretext of disaster recovery and collected a total of 88 billion lira (5.8872 trillion KRW) from 1999 to 2020. The government explained that this money was used to expand public services such as healthcare and to rebuild infrastructure, but AFP reported that citizens are angry that the tax was not used for earthquake preparedness.
As some citizens began posting criticism of the government’s response on SNS, Turkish authorities identified 202 account managers who posted government-critical content and detained 18 of them.
Upon hearing this news, Twitter users worldwide appealed to Musk, who acquired Twitter, using hashtags. They argued that deliberate access restrictions could negatively impact rescue operations. Musk replied to one user’s post, "We are trying to understand more (the facts)."
Media favorable to the Turkish authorities denied the government's SNS blocking suspicions aimed at controlling public opinion. Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu stated that "Twitter executives pledged to cooperate with the Turkish government to prevent the spread of misinformation on SNS," and "Twitter executives will take more measures against bots spreading fake news." However, Bloomberg pointed out that the agency did not clearly disclose the source of this information.
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