Unpacking Russian Info Ops in Türkiye: Distrust, Disinformation and Disorientation (Part II. Vulnerabilities of Türkiye’s Information Space to External Malign Influences)

Türkiye also remains one of the most vulnerable countries to bot usage and cyber-attacks. Combined with all factors this environment creates a fertile ground for Russian robust operations of influence

Polarization of the society and securitization of domestic and foreign policy agenda increase the level of manipulation, misinformation and disinformation in the Turkish information space. According to the “Polarization, misinformation and fear: insights into Turkish media” report of the Reuters Institute, Turkish respondents showed the highest level of exposure to “stories that are completely made up for political or commercial reasons” among all countries surveyed (49% with an average of 26%). 

Indeed, Türkiye ranks among the leading countries in terms of using social media for political communication purposes. Successive crises, such as failed coup attempt in July 2016, assassination of the Russian ambassador, S-400 deal, terrorist attacks, elections, and Gezi protests have been heavily “digitally mediated”. Türkiye also remains one of the most vulnerable countries to bot usage and cyber-attacks. Combined with all factors mentioned above, this environment creates a fertile ground for Russian robust operations of influence. 

In the 2021 Media Literacy Index research, which assesses the resilience potential to fake news and misinformation in 35 European countries based on indicators from media freedom to education to trust in people, Türkiye ranked 31^st, mainly due to underperformance in media freedom and education.

The overall low ratio of high education when compared to the average in the OECD countries (only 22% of Turkish citizens in the 25-64 age group have a university degree) makes media literacy a significant problem. As one of the Turkish disinformation experts put it, “For many years Turkish educational system served to indoctrinate certain values, not to teach independent critical thinking. During the military rule civilians were expected to obey, not to question. With the rise of Islamic agenda and religious education, people were supposed to believe and follow, not to fact-check. Thus, there is often a blind trust to authorities and no habit to process and critically assess the information”. 

This also explains the “conspiracy mindset” of many Turks seen across the age groups, geographical regions and political preferences.

This makes Turkish society highly vulnerable to any info ops. Turkish media experts argue that “because populist politicians across the political spectrum have mastered manipulating voters’ emotions by providing false information and creating a world of alternative facts, the whole information ecosystem creates multiple avenues for malign foreign influences” and disruptions. In its turn, this polluted media environment reproduces a “polarizing pattern”, which “was observed in Türkiye during the pandemic, the forest fires, the refugee influx, and the floods – and will probably be observed during future crises as well”. 

In fact, this means that, any sensitive issue of domestic or foreign policy agenda can be potentially instrumentalized as part of Russian operations of influence – to disseminate distrust and suspicions, question the seemingly undeniable facts, provoke debates, evoke uncontrolled emotions of fear, hatred, frustration or exhaustion, and then channel them in political or social demands in line with Moscow’s interests. Kurdish terrorism (PKK, PYD/YPG), Syrian refugees, “deep state”, FETO (Fethullah Gulen terror organization) structures, anti-Turkish plots and conspiracies of the West, Islamophobia, Nazism, use of the nuclear weapons – any sensitive topic can be easily exploited as a trigger for reflexive control.

In the case of Ukraine, many of these arguments are used to create a dangerous mixture of truth and lies, which makes it difficult to distinct one from another. Anyone following Turkish media coverage of the Russia’s war in Ukraine would remember occasional media campaigns discrediting Ukrainian, European and US leadership; accusing official Kyiv of racism and misconduct with African and Muslim students during evacuation from a war-torn Ukraine; blaming the EU for applying double standards in treating Orthodox Ukrainian refugees and migrants from the Middle East; highlighting inequality between the “rich North” and “poor Global South”; promoting Russian “peaceful” narratives and calls for negotiations as opposed to the Ukrainian (US-backed) desire to carry on fighting; and sharing stories of “Nazi battalions” and “fascists” in Ukraine. 

Once any of these sensitive topics come to the agenda, they find wide media coverage both on the right and left wings of the spectrum. For example, the Ukrainian fact-checker StopFake illustrated such “unanimity” in disseminating Russian propaganda on the “Azovstal” defenders’ case. Though the whole swap deal and release of the “Azov” leaders were brokered through personal participation of the president Erdogan, Turkish media featured tens of fake and manipulative op-eds describing the “Azov regiment” as a “neo-Nazi” and “fascist” group.

Countering Russian propaganda and fake news in Türkiye is also problematic because of the lack of independent and well-established fact-checking institutions. Though there are several fact-checking organizations, like Teyit, Doğruluk Payı or Malumatfuruş, they remain largely unknown to wider public. 

In August 2022, the Directorate of Communications under the Presidency of Türkiye launched a Centre for combating disinformation, announcing that its main task will be “to combat a systematic disinformation campaign against Türkiye”. However, it is not clear what exactly the Center will do to counter external threats, and Turkish fact-checkers note that “what the government refers to as disinformation is not necessarily regarded as disinformation elsewhere”. The state approach is foremost security-focused, and countering information disorder is important, experts point out that more government intervention may cause crack down on the freedom of speech.

Finally, it is not always a bad intention but a lack of Ukrainian speaking journalists and editorial staff that creates problems for fact-checking and balanced reporting. For instance, the exchange of information, photo and video materials between the Russia’s TASS and Türkiye’s Anadolu Agency (AA) is facilitated under the cooperation deal signed in 2017. After the invasion of Ukraine, reporting on developments in and around Ukraine has continued from the AA’s Moscow office, which (intentionally or unintentionally) resulted in a biased media coverage, with Russian position being voiced unilaterally and no alternative views cited (like here). The situation has improved with another AA team now working on the ground in Ukraine but the one-sided media coverage with dominant Russian narratives remains a problem.

All of these demand greater awareness, consistent strategy and increased efforts from the Ukrainian side to combat Russian disinformation and promote alternative, Ukrainian narratives in Türkiye. While overreacting to each manipulation or false piece of information discrediting Ukraine in Turkish media would mean playing into Russia’s hands and disrupting the generally positive atmosphere in Ukrainian-Turkish cooperation, it is important to make sure that Ukrainian voices are clearly heard in Türkiye – both in the negotiations room, in expert discussions and in the media.