Erdoğan: Social media has turned into trash

ANKARA

Twitter and Facebook logos along with binary cyber codes are seen in this illustration photo taken Nov. 26, 2019. (REUTERS Photo)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Feb. 10 slammed the “irresponsible” use of social media, dubbing it as an “idle” platform.

“The responsible use of internet has been gaining more importance. Technology addiction is only one of these threats. Today, we face crowds who turned into modern slaves due to technology addiction,” Erdoğan said.

“We want to see individuals who use technology with freedom and awareness; we do not want to see modern slaves,” he added.

The president’s remarks came during a speech at the inauguration ceremony of “National Computer Emergency Response Center.”

“In this sense, social media has become garbage and an idle platform,” he said.

Erdoğan also vowed to protect Turkey against the complications of irresponsible social media use, where people “get harassed, defrauded and slandered.”

“Turkey will never surrender to a virtual world where [people’s] rights are being violated,” he underlined.

He added that offenses in the cyberworld should get penalties like they do in the real world.

“We need to strengthen our people’s bonds with the real life,” he said.

“We truly have productive, qualified and active youngsters. We expect our youth to use the potential the internet provides in the best way,” he said.

Erdoğan also urged the younger generation to produce “useful content.”

He said that the government will provide the necessary support to “turn the information the youth gathered from the internet, into a product.”

Turkey to become top actor in cyber security

Erdoğan also said that with the newly established cyber security center, Turkey aims to be one of the top players in the matter.

For that, qualified experts are needed and an academy to train officials has also been established, he said.

“We are doing the necessary works for [the academy] whose doors are open to all our youth, without ant prerequisites,” he said. “We are discovering qualified young people.”

Erdoğan also said that attempting to put up a fight against cyberattacks with conventional methods will not yield concrete results.

“It’s like trying to use paper as a shield against a bullet,” he said.

“That’s why we kicked off the national technology move. We are using every means available for indigenous and progressive technologies to embrace every institution and individual,” he added.

136,000 cyberattacks in 2019

Underlining the importance on the struggle against the complications of the virtual world, Erdoğan said that Turkey is one of the most targeted countries in cyberattacks.

According to the figures the president provided, the number of cyberattacks exceeded 136,000 in 2019. He conveyed that this figure was 9,000 in 2016.

These attacks are not on the individual level, but directed against the state, he stressed.

“We need to attach more importance to the security dimension of this issue. Otherwise we will hand in our critical systems to others and will not be able to prevent our country from becoming a technology garbage,” Erdoğan said.