Turkish president announces ‘digital mobilization’
ANKARA
Turkey’s potential is at a level to create its own Silicon Valley when it comes to digital platforms, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, announcing that the government is launching “digital mobilization.”
“I am declaring the next period as a digital mobilization period,” Erdoğan said on March 21, speaking at a meeting focused on the virtual world of the metaverse.
“We are together to talk and discuss the metaverse. This is a first in politics. We would like to thank the Information and Technology Presidency for achieving this first,” Erdoğan stated.
The metaverse and similar platforms would perhaps become an integral part of the upcoming generations, and Turkey needs entrepreneurs and young people who would put forward the country in this field, Erdoğan said.
The world is heading towards a new era built on digital technologies and the government has a duty to prepare its own people for this inevitable future in the “most correct, safe, strong and well-equipped way,” Erdoğan said, noting that this meeting aims to discuss these issues.
In addition to producing the infrastructure of technology, the government wants to ensure creating content that can be used by Turkey and ultimately the world, he emphasized.
“The insiders know best how bad the digital world is today. Even the legal and moral borderless situations of social media platforms that have only become cartels are the simplest proof that we need to draw our own path,” Erdoğan said and stressed the need for a legal ground for digital platforms.
“Since there is now a growing digital economy reality, it is not possible to solve this problem without establishing a digital legal order that all countries will accept with consensus and stand behind,” the president stated.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has not only built hospitals, school compounds, roads, bridges and dams but has also ensured the spread of information and communication technologies with the investments it has made, he said.
Erdoğan said during his government’s period, the number of mobile phone subscribers in Turkey increased from 23 million to 83 million, adding: “We follow this process in all its aspects with the action plan we prepared with the Digital Media Commission we established in the parliament.”
The metaverse is a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection, which a user will be able to enter via VR glasses.
