Just turn it off

Just turn it off

This is a call to the government: Please do not hesitate to take Turkey off the Internet grid. It is the ultimate solution to all of your problems. I do not understand why our government is still trying to reason with small companies like Facebook and Twitter. Our government should not waste their precious time with these companies and their executives. If these pitiful companies want to do business in the world’s best country, then they should agree to our government’s terms one hundred percent or else... 

Naturally what I have written above is not my own thoughts. The regular readers of this column know that. However, I am sure that some of the advisers of the government think like this and probably tell our prime minister and the president not to be afraid of taking the necessary steps to show the world their strength. 
I am tired of writing how bad it is, both socially and economically, to ban social media outlets but the government is not bored at all of imposing all kinds of  pressure on any outlets allowing people to talk freely. 
I do not know if the government sees any beneficial results when they ban Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. I would be thrilled if anyone from the government would be so kind as to tell me what they achieve by regularly making Turkey one of the least free countries in the world. 

If no one can give a reasonable explanation of the benefits of our government’s actions, then I think that the government might one day be willing to take the whole country off the Internet grid. It would be easier for all of us. I could then write columns similar to state press releases like they do in North Korea. 

Note for last week’s column: People wrote to me after last week’s column when I wrote there were no major abruptions to daily life due to the electricity failure. Apparently there were many who felt just the opposite. They told me that they had 3G and network failures throughout the day and that many factories stopped production. They also informed me the Istanbul metro halted for hours and that many public transportation failures occurred in other cities too.  So after all, a day without electricity cost Turkey dearly but not on a Zombie catastrophe scale.