Corruption+ social media= a disaster waiting to happen. This past week millions of Twitter and YouTube users in Turkey were blocked from these social media sites. This egregious action took place after tapes and audio of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkeys prime minister and his party were accused of corruption this past week. Shortly after this blockade, Twitter and internet ally Google took to the web, and released, in very non-techie terms, roundabout ways for Turkish people to access the web. This rash attack on the Turkish people and Social Media drew criticism from the European Unions Digital Chief, Neelie Kroes, who tweeted, “The Twitter Ban in Turkey is groundless, pointless, and cowardly. Turkish people and intl community will see this as censorship. It is.”
This is not the first time that social media has been blocked in politically charged environments. Facebook as well has been blocked in the move to stifile public voice in many countries that are under oppressive rule.
I believe in the coming months and years as social media becomes increasingly apart of our lives that we will see more and more moves to block social media as more people gain access to technology and the voice that it allows them to use.