Fourth International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

Through tracking the content moderation tactics of Facebook, I investigate how the complex conflict of the “Kurdish Question” in Turkey is negotiated through this platform and how it can polarize the public debate. Facebook’s leaked content moderation guidelines in 2011, shows most international entries target content on or authored by the Kurds and their insurgency. Turkish national identity has been cemented in opposition to the Kurdish insurgency, and the Turkish state continues to link violent acts by the PKK militia, with the general Kurdish culture. In 2011, the ongoing conflict escalated to a violent and divisive level, Facebook failed to distinguish between violent PKK attacks and the Kurds until 2015. I compare the foundational connections between Turkey’s public and anti-terrorism policy, its media and rhetoric in daily life to Facebook’s policies, mapping similarities in language and categorization among these, and differences in the censorship they enforce. I argue that when foreign policy debates manifest themselves on Facebook, their moderation policy has the power to frame and limit the conversation around public opinion and “terrorism”, a category of violence that is defined and created within these mediated debates. I denaturalize the misinformed symbiotic linkage between “terrorism” and the Kurdish insurgency by demonstrating the arbitrariness underlying Facebook’s moderation. As Tarleton Gillespie says, “content moderation is a lived experience” especially for specific oppressed groups. Thinking of Facebook as a user generated platform the speech maker and the state - trying to fix these inconsistencies is a way to fight the political violence and invisibilities.