Post by Admin on Jun 25, 2013 18:46:34 GMT 2
www.cnn.com/2013/06/24/world/europe/turkey-gokcek-hashtag/index.html?sr=sharebar_facebook
Then, the mayor of Ankara launched a campaign to make the hashtag one of Twitter's worldwide trends.
For the next several hours, he cheered on his followers as the accusation gained online traction with messages like "Keep going Turkiye. Our Hash Tag is ranked 2th. Must place to number 1. This will be our answer to BBC."
Within hours, the mayor's Twitter campaign appeared to have backfired.
Online opponents began mobilizing their own hashtag in response to the mayor of Ankara.
They began retweeting the hashtag #provokatormelihgokçek (Melih Gokcek is a provocateur).
By Sunday night in Turkey, #provokatormelihgokcek had replaced the mayor's hashtag attacking Girit on Twitter's list of world-wide trends.
Gokcek responded by threatening anyone in the world who retweeted the provocateur hashtag with legal action.
"My lawyer is going to sue everyone one by one who tweets #ProvokatorMelihGokcek No one can get away with anything because Turkey is a country of law," the mayor of Ankara announced on Twitter Sunday night.
As of 10am in Istanbul Monday, the #provokatormelihgokcek hashtag was ranked as the second most popular worldwide trend on Twitter.
The BBC issued a statement expressing concern about what it called "the continued campaign of the Turkish authorities to discredit the BBC and intimidate its journalists."
"A large number of threatening messages have been sent to one of our reporters, who was named and attacked on social media by the Mayor of Ankara," wrote Peter Horrocks, Global News Director of the BBC.
For the next several hours, he cheered on his followers as the accusation gained online traction with messages like "Keep going Turkiye. Our Hash Tag is ranked 2th. Must place to number 1. This will be our answer to BBC."
Within hours, the mayor's Twitter campaign appeared to have backfired.
Online opponents began mobilizing their own hashtag in response to the mayor of Ankara.
They began retweeting the hashtag #provokatormelihgokçek (Melih Gokcek is a provocateur).
By Sunday night in Turkey, #provokatormelihgokcek had replaced the mayor's hashtag attacking Girit on Twitter's list of world-wide trends.
Gokcek responded by threatening anyone in the world who retweeted the provocateur hashtag with legal action.
"My lawyer is going to sue everyone one by one who tweets #ProvokatorMelihGokcek No one can get away with anything because Turkey is a country of law," the mayor of Ankara announced on Twitter Sunday night.
As of 10am in Istanbul Monday, the #provokatormelihgokcek hashtag was ranked as the second most popular worldwide trend on Twitter.
The BBC issued a statement expressing concern about what it called "the continued campaign of the Turkish authorities to discredit the BBC and intimidate its journalists."
"A large number of threatening messages have been sent to one of our reporters, who was named and attacked on social media by the Mayor of Ankara," wrote Peter Horrocks, Global News Director of the BBC.