The Anti-Disinformation Law

News:

The Anti-Disinformation Law, also called the Social Media Law, is adopted by the Turkish Grand National Assembly and entered into force. According to the law, anyone who publicly disseminates untrue information about the internal and external security, public order and general health of the country in a way that creates anxiety, fear or panic among the public on social media in a way that is conducive to disturbing the public peace will be punished with imprisonment from 1 year to 3 years. If the perpetrator commits the crime by concealing his true identity or within the framework of the activities of an organization, the punishment will be increased by half.

Comment:

It is possible to consider this law, the Anti-Disinformation Law/ Social Media Law, in several aspects:

1- With this law, the government aims to control and limit the sharing of news and information on social media that may create public opinion against the government and lead to a decrease in public support for the government before the presidential elections to be held in June 2023.

If the government really wanted to protect its people from the harmful effects of social media with this law, it would forbid the sharings done on social media with obscene content, with sexual content and which propagate lgbt and cause social and moral corruption.

Or it would forbid newspapers, magazines, news, series, cinema in visual and written media that praise/encourage sexuality, lgbt, obscenity, cheating, betrayal, violence, mafia, alcohol and drugs, injustice, foreign culture, life-style and values which cause social and moral corruption.

So, when enacting this law, the government took the protection of its own power as a base, instead of its people.

2- The key concept of this law is the concept of misleading information/disinformation. It is not specified in the law what to take as a base on misleading information. An open-ended or open to comment law has been made.

How will the issue of disinformation, which may vary according to the point of view, be determined.
Or how will it be determined whether a piece of information/news concerns the security of the state, whether it disrupts public order/peace, whether it causes panic, anxiety and fear among the public.

These uncertainties are left to the discretion of the judiciary. If a true news or information is against the government, it is possible for the judge to consider it as a misleading information. The government has turned this law into a sharp sword on social media users that cuts on both sides.

There is no doubt that Allah Ta'ala forbids lying and spreading false news and information. In the meantime, even in front of a tyrannical ruler, He commanded, praised and glorified to speak the truth.

3- What really matters is to accurately identify the source that produces the crime and to prevent crime by destroying this source. Going to the punishment of only the criminals without destroying the source of crime will not prevent crime, but on the contrary, it will lead to an increase in crime rates.

When the social media posts are examined, it is seen how our people are in a great collapse, wear, degeneration, corruption, decay, putrefaction and worthlessness.

This situation has been caused by the Republic of Turkey, which has been in power and ruling the people for 99 years and which is based on the capitalist order and its core values such as freedom, secularism, democracy and free market economy.

Today's understanding of politics, which ignores the real criminal disruptive order by blaming/punishing people in all the problems and evils produced by the corruptive/disruptive capitalist order, is also an accomplice in the disruptive order.

For these reasons, the right solution is to correct by law that which is broken by law. Only the System of Islam, which is based on Allah Ta'ala’s Laws, can correct our people, which have been corrupted and destroyed by the Capitalist system – the implementation of Kufr laws – and develop them and raise them again to the status of the most distinguished and benevolent Ummah.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Remzi Özer