The year on Twitter in Turkey

‘If it happened in the world, it happened on Twitter.' That's how Twitter announced its annual moments, the most tweets, retweets and hashtags. For Turkey, sports ruled as the most talked about events on Twitter, and in March, one hashtag flaunted Turkey's ugly face to the world, #TwitterisBlockedinTurkey Among Time magazine's year-end lists is one that summarizes the global influence of Twitter in making and shaping conversations, Top 10 Hashtags That Started a Conversation. Number eight on the list is an all too familiar hashtag for Twitter's Turkish users, and one that is undoubtedly a milestone for Twitter's popular presence in Turkey.

"In March, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's plan to block Twitter, following allegations of corruption against him and his government, backfired," wrote the magazine under the hashtag #TwitterisBlockedinTurkey. While the block was lifted in April after a ruling by the Constitutional Court, the Twitter community had a good knowledge of what was going on in Turkey.

"It wasn't just the international community who was tweeting about Erdoğan's bold move," continued the article. "Many social media users within Turkey were also taking to Twitter, circumventing Erdoğan's block by logging in via proxy servers or sending tweets via text message, and using the hashtag to flaunt their defiance." Other accompanying hashtags were #ErdoğanBlocksTwitter, #TurkeyBlockedTwitter and #OccupyTwitter.

Football dominates the conversations

Twitter was a major source of political news in Turkey throughout 2014. The presidential elections, Erdoğan's subsequent election to the presidency, and the handover of the Prime Ministry to Ahmet Davutoğlu, Pope Francis' visit to Turkey were...