Turkey's voters 'are more vulnerable to disinformation'

DW: Compared to previous elections in Turkey, how big is this year's disinformation campaign?

Gülin Cavus: Around other elections, of course, we experienced so much disinformation. But if we compare this year with other elections, politicians have held more campaign rallies and they have been on TV channels more because many different actors are involved in this election. 

People see this election as really critical. People are just really tense. And during these kinds of uncertain times, people sometimes have fears, sometimes excitement. It really affects how we consume information on social media. People are more vulnerable to disinformation in these times. This polarization deeply affects this Turkish election and the amount of misinformation.

We face similar types of misinformation compared to other elections. But, of course, in this election we have seen as well different kinds of disinformation, like deepfake videos.

Who is targeted by this disinformation?

Actually everyone. Politicians also share misinformation and disinformation in campaign rallies. All parties and all candidates actually have their own troll armies. They attack each other, especially on Twitter and other social media platforms.

It's really important to understand the dynamics and atmosphere in Turkey's media ecosystem. People actually don't trust the media that much. They consume and get news from social media channels. In this election, the leaders' troll armies actually did many things to change people's attitudes toward the parties, the leaders and the campaigns. Everyone shares disinformation about other candidates.

Is it mainly disinformation about the presidential election, or also about the parliamentary vote?

Mostly about the presidential election. It is kind of mixing now because people really care about the diversity of the parliamentary election. But people mostly spread disinformation about the candidates, about the leaders of the political parties.

Can you share a particular fake news story from the past weeks that really struck you? 

During a campaign rally in Istanbul, [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan showed a video which looked like the campaign videos of [Kemal] Kilicdaroglu, the main opposition leader and a candidate in the presidential election. Erdogan showed the video about Kilicdaroglu together with Murat Karayilan, who is the leader of the PKK [The Kurdistan Workers' Party, a militant Kurdish organization which is classified as a terrorist organization in the European Union and the United States]. It's actually a montage, it's a fake video, it's not really a campaign video. This example is really important because we can see that a manipulated video can affect rallies in an offline world. 

But there are many different types of misinformation in the elections. 

For example, how many people attended both opposition and government rallies. It really affects people's decisions during election day because the crowd shows people whether the candidate is powerful or not. Both the government and the opposition share false information about how many people attend their rallies and they try to look better. When we compare the numbers, we use map-checking tools to calculate how many people can fit in the areas. This is another pattern during the election, a very important disinformation type.

Another pattern is what we call asymmetric propaganda. People create some fake election brochures. For example, they look like Kilicdaroglu brochures, but they were actually made as anti-propaganda about the opposition candidate. They spread these brochures on the streets to manipulate citizens. 

Do you know who else is behind the spread of disinformation? You mentioned troll farms from the political parties, but what about possible international players?

It's really hard to say. We are planning to prepare a report after the elections to understand the actors behind this. But for now, I guess local political groups are mostly trying to shape the disinformation atmosphere in Turkish social media. Maybe we will see some other actors when we prepare the reports. But for now, I cannot say anything about other international actors.

Last October, the Turkish parliament adopted a law making the spread of fake news punishable by up to three years in prison. And now, we are talking about Erdogan showing a manipulated video during a campaign rally. Do you see authorities in Turkey applying this law at all?

During the election time, we haven't seen any attempt to use this law. But actually, the government can use different kinds of techniques to ban some websites. I think for now the government hasn't chosen to use this disinformation law against the opposition because I think they already have different tools to use.

Gülin Cavus is the co-founder and head of strategy at Teyit, a Turkish fact-checking platform. Teyit has published around 150 articles on the May 14 Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections — debunking disinformation on social media as well as fact checking statements from politicians.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. The interview was conducted by Uta Steinwehr, with a contribution by Thomas Sparrow.