Ötekilerin Postası [Others’ Post] platform emerged as a Facebook Page to disseminate news related to Hunger Strikes in Turkey to protest mainstream media. The latter systematically ignored hunger strikes. Eventually, Ötekilerin Postası became a platform of rights journalism which invited citizen journalists to contribute.
It had more than a hundred thousand fans before it was banned by Facebook. We believe it was a tactical spamming move by the pro-government users to label it as a “pornographic page”. Today, the admins finally received a letter from Facebook (in Turkish):
There is first apology: “We mistakenly explained that this ban was due to pornography”
Then comes the real reason, that is inciting violence.
And there are no cited cases. The Facebook official in charge, which seems to be someone Turkish, does not offer specific cases of inciting violence but claims that Ötekilerin Postası were repeatedly warned.
I first thought since there are many Turkey citizens working in the European HQ of Facebook, this problem would be solved easily. As they could understand that this page was about rights journalism. Now I believe that they are either politically conservative or under the pressure of Turkish authorities.
In the mean time, Ötekilerin Postası has another Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PostasiOtekilerin/
It has already more than 60 thousand fans. We will see if FB admins will be arbitrary again. And in the mean time, it is really time to find out a more independent platform. While Twitter seems to be more reliable for the moment, Facebook does not send out positive signals…
Ötekilerin Postası official site: http://otekilerinpostasi.org/
Twitter: @RadikalAktivist
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