In the aftermath of Turkey’s devastating earthquake, 78 people have been arrested — not necessarily as scapegoats of the tragedy but because they are accused of “sharing provocative posts” on social media.
Twenty have been placed in pretrial detention, and hundreds of others face legal proceedings.
These arrests, in combination with the Turkish government’s outrageous blocking and throttling of social media access right at the peak of the response effort, have drawn renewed attention to the country’s draconian and restrictive social media law, which lawmakers passed last fall.
