Twitter “recommended” the owner of @madigudisi account to delete his tweet on Transportation Minister Elvan, reminding the court order for its suspension.
Responding to Transportation Minister Lütfi Elvan’s tweet “If your phones don’t work after an earthquake, call the ministry”, @madigudisi wrote the following response on Twitter: “This is not Zaytung [a mock news portal in Turkey]. Goodbye to the brain…”
Following the tweet, Twitter sent the following to @madigudisi:
“The aforementioned document claims that you have violated the Turkish Law. We might have to do something about this. If you would like to remove the content voluntarily, please inform us as soon as possible by responding this message.”
First court: “Humorous criticism"
The same email also cited all the court orders related to the case with names erased.
On June 5, a complaint was submitted to Ankara 5th Peace Court for the removal of content due to defamation claims. The court, on the other hand, rejected the request, saying that the content remain within the limits of “humorous criticism”.
Higher court: Violation of personal rights
The complaint was later on appealed to Ankara 3rd Assize Court which found a violation and ruled the removal of content URL.
Koç: Defense right violated
Informatics Lawyer Serhat Koç told bianet the following:
“This is one of the right losses here. This kind of cases don’t include trials or statements. The verdict is issued upon documents. Most of the times, content owner doesn’t even know about the process, they can’t defend themselves. And other times, users learn about the case but their objections are rejected as there is no way to verify a user’s identity on the net.”
"Twitter doesn’t want to be a part in this"
Koç also added that Twitter usually informed users on similar cases with “recommendations”.
“Twitter doesn’t delete any content as a principle. It makes money out of that. There is the requisite that all rules comply with the U.S. regulations wherever in the world.
“In cases where Turkish courts issue a ruling and it complies to the U.S. regulations, Twitter warns users to delete their content. If not, the user may face suspension until deletion of content. It is possible that Twitter employs this strategy so that the user will exhaust all means possible. However, the real reason is that Twitter doesn’t want to be a part of any prosecution process and more likely to let user do the deletion.”
Informatics workers: Twitter will comply to the ruling despite wrong
In addition to that, Informatics Workers Solidarity Network told bianet the following: “Despite wrong, the ruling will be complied by Twitter as it already announced so. The tweet will be deleted.
“In this case, the user must prove the justness of the tweet and show why it shouldn’t be deleted. The user must appeal to the ruling. In an era where suspension orders are taken so rapidly by our judicial system, how long will it possible to approve an appeal?”
@madigudisi’s tweet is still reachable. (EA/BM)
* Click here to read the article in Turkish.
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