Twitter Blocks Erdoğan Foes in Turkey
And this isn't the first shady thing Elon and Erdoğan have done together.
On May 13, 2023—the day before the Turkish people went to the polls in the most important presidential election in 20 years—Elon Musk honored a request by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, incumbent president of Turkey, to censor select accounts. There was, of course, not enough time for the silenced even to begin to respond before the voting began.
Postdoctoral media-manipulation researcher Dr. Tuğrulcan Elmas, of Indiana University Bloomington, told Insider he tracked roughly a half dozen accounts posting content related to the Turkish election that had been suspended. All of the frozen accounts belonged to Erdoğan opponents.
California Representative Adam Schiff was swift to respond:
The day before a critical election in Turkey, Twitter appears to be acquiescing to the demands of the country’s autocratic ruler, Erdogan, and is censoring speech on the platform. Given Twitter’s total lack of transparency, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Musk’s promises of free speech have again fallen away.
Meanwhile, Erdoğan was busy at home rounding up, detaining, and deporting a Spanish election-observation team before votes were cast. The team was assigned to Kurdish areas where the support for pro-democracy advocate Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, now in a run-off with Erdoğan for the presidency, is especially strong.
Why would Musk do this? Money.
Last month, after years of delays, Musk’s Space X launched Turkey’s first “national observation” satellite, a deal that may have been in the works since 2017. Details of the pact are secret, but any launch involving a Falcon 9 rocket carries a minimum price tag of $62 million—not exactly chump change.
This implies graft so deep that it rises the level of international election-tampering. But there’s more. And it’s worse.
When a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, which killed more than 50,000 people, struck the Turkish-Syrian border area on February 6, 2023, Erdoğan instantly blamed contractors—and arrested some—for the collapsed buildings in which these people died. But the truth was that contractors could legally skirt construction codes by making “contributions.” Worse, the country’s earthquake emergency fund had less than $5.00 in it on the day the fault broke. When pressed on these issues, Erdoğan punted. The earthquake was Allah’s will, he piously opined.
While offering Starlink to Turkey during the crisis—an offer Erdoğan predictably refused—Musk shut down Twitter, at Erdoğan’s request, for 12 crucial hours just after the temblor. Erdoğan said it was to prevent the dissemination of “disinformation,” but its true intent was to prevent real information from reaching the public.
The Twitter shutdown prevented images of the disaster from going viral in Turkey in the hours before victims’ cell phones ran out of power—so Erdoğan was pleased. But Twitter’s suspension of service also froze many emergency personnel and digging crews in place by removing a critical conduit of information about which roadways were blocked by debris or so badly damaged they were impassible. The trapped and wounded waited in agony for help that wouldn’t arrive in time—or would never arrive at all.
There is no way to calculate how many died as a result of the collusion between Elon and Erdoğan, but that number will not be zero. This is a quintessential example of the mindset that says that collateral damage, in the form of human death and suffering, is acceptable in the quest for power and profit.
In the days since Musk bought Twitter, he has complied with more than 80% of government requests for censorship or surveillance of users, according to a report by the technology publication Rest of World.
One Twitter user remarked sarcastically: “I'm sure this is just a coincidence.” Another’s response was that Elon “may not be cheap, but he is for sale.”
The Logan Act prevents—at least to some degree—manipulation of U.S. elections by foreigners, but there is no American law that protects citizens of other countries—voters or earthquake victims at risk of life itself—from being disenfranchised by the interference of American profiteers. It’s time to remedy that.