Last year Turkey entered the headlines for briefly blocking Twitter and YouTube. Now, with both unblocked, activists are using them to highlight a new set of concerns about internet freedom. Scan the world's most popular Twitter hashtags, and the chances are some of them will be in Turkish. Many of them will also have a political bent: social media is heavily used by all sides of the spectrum in Turkey to push their side of the argument. Many of those who participated in the Gezi Park protests in 2013 largely organised on social media are not happy. They don't buy the government's defence of the law, which is that courts need to approve any actions within 72 hours, and say Turkey's track record makes them weary. Twitter's recent Transparency Report disclosed that 90% of all the tweets taken down were in response to requests from the Turkish government (the US made the most requests for account information, mainly in relation to criminal investigations).
Twitter has massively become a trend in recent years, especially in the media. I believe that people should use the social networking site to their full advantage as it allows opinions and voices to be heard. Especially through the power of hashtags and the impact it can have. Many protesters have done this recently.
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