#RemindGezi

Social media has very quickly become one the most important fronts in the political wars over the last two years.

I would like to use the word “debate” instead of “war,” but the reality is that we are not debating; rather, we are trying to destroy the opposition on social media.

As with everything on social media, this situation is a direct reflection of what we call the real world.
As the political leaders heat up their speeches and fiercely target “others,” their followers take harder stances.

Technology is at the heart of the recent chaos. There are countless tapes of the prime minister and his family talking with business people about various projects and tenders.

It might have been perceived as normal if the conversations didn’t involve bribes and tactics to make things go faster.

Furthermore, the first tape - said to be between the prime minister and his son - was about how to get rid of the hundreds of millions of euros in their house.

We have understood that the recent Internet law was in fact a precaution against these tapes.
So now we know that the government has undermined our human rights in order to protect itself.
However, it was too slow, and the tapes flooded social media in a matter of hours.

Now there is no turning back and the tension is rising.

The prime minister is now saying that he did indeed have some of the conversations and can see nothing wrong with them.

Technology and telecommunication firms operating in Turkey can do nothing but sit and watch what is happening and obey the government.

Their current task is to build a system to track down and archive everything that we do on the Internet.
This is a very expensive and cumbersome task but they have to do it.

Otherwise, the government has the power to change board members or punish them with tax agents.
I have an idea for the government. To do what they dream about is very hard to do.

No one, not even China or Iran, could build a wall strong enough to hold people back from reaching the truth.

So I advise the government to just cut our Internet connection altogether and be done with it.

As a journalist, I am hungry for informative and peaceful content because it is very rare to find. All sides are attacking each other without any respect.

For this reason, I am very happy to see a new hashtag on the rise - one of the most popular recent Turkish hashtags.

It refers to the things that happened during the Gezi protests. People are sharing pictures, videos and words that capture the spirit of those times.

If you would like to get an idea about what actually happened and what the youngsters really wanted, I advise you to follow the hashtag #GeziyiHatırlat (#RemindGezi): It will take you to the truth.