The Gezi spirit and the Twitter wars prevail

I have to thank Türk Telekom for reminding me yesterday morning that Turks, well at least 50 percent of them, are celebrating the first anniversary of the Gezi Park incident that I might otherwise have forgotten. Allah korusun! Let me tell you how I was reminded.

The Twitter button on the page of an online article I was reading yesterday appeared to be inactive. I asked myself: “Are we back to the good old days of Twitter wars?” At first I thought there was something wrong with the Internet connection, so I refreshed the page a few times. My efforts were in vain, the page did not open. I failed. I then tried to enter Twitter’s own website. I failed again. I tried Facebook. Alas, I failed again. As a faithful admirer of Samuel Beckett, I tried again and again and successfully failed again. Finally, a funny message popped on my homepage telling me that I had chosen the family protection web block option on my computer’s Internet application settings. So I simply could not access any social media platform!

“Weird” I thought to myself. After all, I have had the same application for the past 10 years. It also seemed a little bit off that I would have chosen to protect myself from “scary, scary” social media platforms that did not exist 10 years ago. I finally understood that Türk Telekom had invented default censorship. At that very moment I remembered that it was the anniversary of the Gezi Park protests! I extend my gratitude to Türk Telekom for reminding me. Still, it’s only getting better. I must confess that I view this “you have chosen the family protection mode” scam as an improvement from the boorish “I just don’t understand...