
Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call - mrtksn
Turkey reached another milestone of propaganda thanks to the total control of the communications.<p>Right know when you make a phone call using your mobile phone, before ringing starts citizens are forced to listen to 10 seconds voice recording of the president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.<p>Here is a demonstration: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;sendika_org&#x2F;status&#x2F;886343590208835584<p>Here is a Twitter search that will provide you with many more videos showcasing the issue: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;search?f=videos&amp;vertical=default&amp;q=erdoğan%20telefon&amp;src=tyah<p>Here is a report by BBC(Turkish edition): https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;bbcturkce&#x2F;status&#x2F;886351634888085505<p>The message is about the anniversary of the unsuccessful coup attempt believed to be orchestrated by Gulenists(previous allies of the president, currently branded as Terrorists  ) that took place on 15.06.2016, claiming the lives of more than 200 civilians and led to uncontested power grab by the President.<p>Right now Turkey is one of the most hostile countries for the journalists. Wikipedia is banned since a while.
======
kbody
"As president, I send congratulations on the July 15 National Day of Democracy
and Unity and wish the martyrs mercy and the heroes (of the defeat of the
coup) health and wellbeing,"

Source: [https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/36394050/mr-president-
erdo...](https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/36394050/mr-president-erdogan-
voice-message-surprises-turkey-mobile-users/#page1)

~~~
diminish
Actually I m glad I don't make too many phone calls, (who's using their
smartphones for making calls) but this type of "call injection" may annoy
similar to Ads-gone-insane recently on the web. That happens because after the
Gulen Islamists' coup d'Etat faction killed around 250 civilians and wounded
2500 civilians( _mostly_ ) last year during the coup attempt - the voters for
the main party feel too emotional during the anniversary of the event.
Ironically AKP voters had sympathy for US based cleric Gulen who calls himself
the Imam of the Universe and embedded thousands of his sect members in police,
army etc in past 40 years especially accelerating in the past 15 years.

I guess and hope in a couple of years - things will be normalized.

~~~
alanh
Are you in fact Turkish?

(HN: If he is, maybe he shouldn't be downvoted so hard… aren't you at least
curious to hear from laypersons there without punishing them for not seeing
things the way we do? Hear, converse, leave with greater understanding)

------
throwaway76493
There is something equally insane happening on the Turkish internets right
now.

At least two major mobile operators / ISPs are injecting JS into web traffic
to display pop-up ads / Youtube videos on the lower right corner of every web
page. The videos "commemorate" last year's events on July 15 in a language
that is, to put it mildly, thorougly in line with Erdogan's ideology, and make
a point of offering free data and phone credits throughout the 3-day
commemorations being held.

~~~
batuhanicoz
Yeah, I've noticed the injected video my ISP, Turkcell Superonline. Only works
with sites with no HTTPS/HTTP->HTTPS redirection since they can't proxy sites
with SSL.

Interestingly, I don't get the Erdogan's message on my cell. My friends tried
calling me last night to hear the message, they don't hear it when they call
me either. Could be related to me using my networks -paid- call ring tone
customising app.

~~~
tgragnato
Back in 2013 the Turkish CA (TURKTRUST) enabled phishers to spoof Google.
Given the current situation, finding someone who tries to mess up the
certificates should not be a surprise.

> [https://security.googleblog.com/2013/01/enhancing-digital-
> ce...](https://security.googleblog.com/2013/01/enhancing-digital-
> certificate-security.html)

> [https://www.wired.com/2013/01/google-fraudulent-
> certificate/](https://www.wired.com/2013/01/google-fraudulent-certificate/)

~~~
mrighele
Some time ago Wikipedia has been banned in Turkey because the government
didn't like a couple of pages about its involvement in the Syria civil war. (I
don't have references handy but you can find easily with Google)

In the past couple of weeks I noticed the a number of ISPs (for sure Turkcell
for mobile and Türk Telekom for land lines) started injecting a wrong
certificate, I guess to MITM the communication.

The certificate is of course wrong (it is both untrusted and the domain name
is wrong) so the browser will notice this and block the access, but I'm
surprised that I haven't seen any discussion about this online

------
rdtsc
For a additional level of scary allow people to opt out but record who they
are and compile a list. Use the list to deny them services or imprison when
the next overthrow is attempted."You've been protesting and we noticed you
blocked messages from our glorious leader... clearly a candidate for the labor
camp"

~~~
qq66
Ouch. It's terrible when guys like this find guys like you to work for them :)

~~~
chillydawg
But someone else would have done it anyway.

~~~
justinjlynn
Ah, but you see, you were the one who actually did do it.

------
buremba
Even if you stop watching TV, reading newspapers and following the political
people on social media and avoid discussing political news with people, you
can't escape from him and his followers.

They will force you to believe what they believe and if you don't, they will
flag you and also make you listen their leader no matter what you do to avoid
their propaganda.

Even though I believe that the leaders of Gulenist group did the coup attempt
and are terrorist, Erdogan gave this power to them and yet acts like he's not
responsible from all these shit.

~~~
sesqu
> Gulenist group did the coup attempt

Has the government provided convincing evidence of this? I know Gülen was
immediately accused despite not being in the country, but I don't know of any
evidence of his audience being involved beyond Erdoğan not getting along with
the guy, which automatically makes any opposition sympathetic to him.

~~~
mrtksn
AFAIK the evidence is that well known civilian Gulen affiliates were caught in
military bases and armoured vehicles on the coup night but a concrete evidence
of Gulen himself giving the orders do not exist. A bit like the story of the
Russian military personnel in Ukraine(like everything points to Russia but
Kremlin denies any involvement and claims that the caught soldiers were on a
vacation in war zone).

If you want to read more about the subject, here is a nice write up by pro-
Erdogan, liberal, non-islamist(yep, they still exist) Turkish jurnos:
[https://medium.com/@15thJulyCoup/who-was-behind-the-15th-
jul...](https://medium.com/@15thJulyCoup/who-was-behind-the-15th-july-coup-in-
turkey-19f75a5771c5)

~~~
riffraff
As someone outside of Turkish politics: how is it even possible to be liberal
and pro-erdogan?

I can see why someone might like the guy or think he's somehow good for the
country, but it seems, to an outsider, that he's 100% incompatible with
liberal values.

~~~
mrtksn
Erdogan came to power thanks to the support of the liberals. He had their
support because before Erdogan Turkey wasn't a liberal democracy and Erdogan
actually had very progressive agenda compared to the hard core secularist
establishment. That's how he had the support of the EU and USA liberals too.

Turkey before Erdogan wasn't much different than today but with much less
islamic sauce in the politics.

------
xepbam57
Have anybody thought why you hear the sound(beeeep-beeeeep-....) when you make
a call and from where it comes? Yes, telco can put anything there. Even more,
I wounder why we do not hear some commercial Ad's every time we call. This
would be in a spirit of current times...

~~~
AlphaWeaver
Indeed! Verizon, a carrier in the US, actually made a product out of this by
allowing people to buy what they branded "Ringback Tones" which would play
some song or tune when someone called your number and you hadn't picked up
yet. Not sure if it's still a thing.

~~~
pmorici
They are. All those Emergency numbers you call to see if school is canceled
are really ringback tones. It's how many people can call at once to receive
the message w/o hearing a busy tone.

~~~
alanh
> how many people can call at once to receive the message w/o hearing a busy
> tone.

And yet, by calling the same (typically toll-free) number, a call center's
worth of support calls can be handled simultaneously.

Implementing this as ringbacks would not seem to be the only way.

~~~
pmorici
Well, of course if you are willing to pay the phone company for multiple lines
and install an expensive phone system you can waste a tone of money doing it
other ways.

------
mmerlin
So so sad when a country devolves into quasi-dictatorship

~~~
jacobush
Quasi?

~~~
colechristensen
At least it could be said that it could get worse.

~~~
nindalf
But that's always true, even in North Korea.

------
fouadmatin
The number in the video is 112, which is Turkish-equivalent of 911 in the U.S.

~~~
devdoomari
even for 112? what if some real emergency happens (fire/robber/terrorism)? The
caller has to listen to the recording?

That's lame.

~~~
dghughes
That's some IT Crowd TV show level bizareness.

~~~
cjsturgess
This.

------
toroslar
It's a lie like so much other stuff in the press. I'm currently in
Turkey/Antalya, I've a cell-phone with a turkish Vodafone SIM card - I had
several phone calls today - no president in my phone.

~~~
diminish
I haven't heard anything neither, although I tried hard to call everyone.
Maybe some portion of prepaid tariff sim cards could be having it as they had
some other types of ads in the past. Maybe you're right, could equally be
"fake news".

~~~
mrtksn
Definitely not "Fake News". TRT(Turkish equivalent of BBC) reported that the
stunt was organised by the BTK(Information Technologies Committee, govt.
body): [http://www.trthaber.com/haber/gundem/gsm-operatorlerinin-
abo...](http://www.trthaber.com/haber/gundem/gsm-operatorlerinin-aboneleri-
erdoganin-surprizi-ile-karsilasti-324605.html)

~~~
diminish
The reason I was suspicious is that your post read more like a basket case for
dramatization propaganda including "total control of the communications",
"wikipedia", "journalists". Between 2005-201x, When Gulenists were embedded in
every institution, and our fake "liberals" were cheering - people used to be
afraid to make phone calls as they were recording and posting mobile
conversations by everyone on their "liberal" media. Many businessmen used to
apply to them, for tweaking the judicial system.

But I guess, the BTK guy, went too far to put the 10sec celebration message of
the president to celebrate the official national public holiday. Just FYI - on
prepaid tariffs there's already some kind of ads by mobile operators.

~~~
mrtksn
I don't want to bring the classical Turkish political debates to HN. I will
briefly say that Turkey actually had really good progressive years under AKP
right until they teamed with the Gulenist and begin arresting people for the
Ergenekon&Balyoz. Turkey before Erdogan was also not short of imprisoned
journalists and intellectuals, that's why liberals were eager to give Erdogan
a chance.

------
exabrial
Why are they a NATO country again

~~~
aytekin
Here is why: Half of the population wants to be part of the Western world.
They believe in secularity and many other Western ideals. That's how Turkey
became a close ally to US, part of NATO and almost became part of EU. Because
this half had the control and the other half previously mostly lived in
villages and wasn't interested in power. Then, as they moved to cities and as
they became influential, the other half of the population took over the
country and started applying middle eastern and Islamic ideals instead. And,
they have so much ambition and hatred in them. They are ready to replace the
democratic republic with a new Ottoman Empire that will probably be similar to
Iran.

Expect West to kick out Turkey from NATO or Turkey to leave NATO soon since
the islamists see west as evil.

~~~
BjoernKW
> Expect West to kick out Turkey from NATO or Turkey to leave NATO soon since
> the islamists see west as evil.

I don't think so. Unfortunately, ethics often play a less than significant
role in international affairs like this. Just look at the dealings the Western
world and the US in particular have with a backwards, medieval state like
Saudi-Arabia that more or less openly supports Islamic extremism.

Turkey is a strategically important region, not least because with Bosphorus
it guards access to the Black Sea. From a geopolitical point of view the
"West" couldn't possibly want Turkey to align with another bloc or another
powerful country.

~~~
golergka
You do realize that without Western support current Saudi government will fall
victim to internal opposition, which is much more fundamentalist and is not
significantly different from ISIS, right?

~~~
BjoernKW
I'd say that'd remain to be seen. ISIS essentially is a doomsday cult. A
fundamentalist state like that isn't sustainable in the long run.

Make no mistake though, the Western world doesn't prop up the Saudi government
out of moral reasons. They do this because of Saudi-Arabia's significance to
the oil economy. The House of Saud in exchange complies with the economic -
and to some extent - political demands of the Western world.

------
Fnoord
What exactly is he saying? Can someone translate?

~~~
the_common_man
Would like to know as well. Not a single comment on Twitter or here has the
translation.

~~~
0xFFC
I am Persian/Azeri. I know a little bit of Turkish too. I provide you with a
little bit of translation until official translation will be available:

"... congratulation for our Democracy and our national day, we want compassion
for our mythers from God. I want health and prosperity for our ...[I couldn't
understand this part]"

This basically kind of congratulation/propaganda message.

p.s. My Turkish is not reliable.

~~~
jnbiche
> p.s. My Turkish is not reliable.

But worth mentioning that Azeri is a Turkic language, and probably the closest
major relative to Turkish.

------
noncoml
I wonder how would things have been if Turket had been accepted to EU 10 years
ago. Would it have helped?

~~~
matt4077
Yes, almost certainly. They wouldn't have had to become a member back then.
All that was needed was a realistic path to membership.

Instead, some influential EU leaders basically said "It's never going to
happen", sometimes under pressure from their countries' right wing. Not
because Turkey was economically too far behind, or because of concerns with
the rule of law, but simply because a sizeable portion of EU populations
objected to non-christians becoming part of the EU.

Nobody knows what could have been, and the current situation shows that
turkish democracy was rather weak all along. But it's important to remember
that Erdogan started out as a moderate, who sought nothing more than approval
from the EU, and only turned to the dark side after repeatedly being
humiliated. It's possibly one of largest mistakes made in recent history.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
The biggest mistake of the EU has been accepting too many countries in, not
too few.

For an Europeanist it's desperating to see how the UK (now to be gone) and
Eastern European countries have always blocked policies of further
integration.

If Turkey were in and with veto power, the EU would be able to do practically
nothing, as the cultural and political differences are huge. The EU would
probably be on the verge of breaking up now, or would have already broken up
at the Greek crisis.

And the story of the "moderate" Erdogan turning an authoritarian dictator
after being "humiliated" sounds extremely naive to me. The things he is doing
are not the work of a humiliated moderate. They are the work of an
authoritarian for whom the alleged humiliation was a very convenient excuse to
stop pretending to be a moderate.

~~~
eru
Depends on where you put your counterfactuals. It is true that once countries
are in the EU, the EU has almost no leverage. That happened with Bulgaria and
Rumania.

If you imagine a world where Turkey was in the EU, you might as well through
in some mechanisms for more leverage on existing members?

~~~
4ad
> Rumania

It's spelled Romania.

~~~
eru
Sorry, been playing too much Diplomacy.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_\(game\))).
They use the old spelling for historical flair.

------
Lagged2Death
Dexter Palmer's 2016 novel _Version Control_ had imagined something rather
like this in a near-future United States, where phone calls and video screens
would occasionally be interrupted by a message from the president.

I had thought it was inventive and evocative, but sort of unrealistic.

I was wrong. Yikes.

~~~
alanh
So easy to imagine Trump doing this, too. He's already made much ado of
needing Twitter to be heard properly instead of going through the "fake"
(mainstream) news media. Imagine Twitter no longer feels like enough of a
megaphone to the egomaniac. Is there any law against pressuring telcos to do
this? Would he care if there were? Would he even be challenged if it came in
response to a national emergency?

------
NicoJuicy
It's funny to see that Erdogan wants to battle every European country and at
the same time he asks us to visit Turkey.

His power comes from the wealth and investments of Western companies, so the
people had it good in the past. But this is currently changing. Its 'just' a
waiting game.

~~~
diminish
> His power comes from the wealth and investments of Western companies,

That's not true - though wished for.

------
homero
When people voted, they were tricked into thinking somehow they were voting
against the West instead of installing a dictator for themself

------
zagfai
Use a VPN to stop this happened again. Such as Yoga VPN, Bestline VPN, Super
VPN...

------
AdamJacobMuller
What does this say in English?

------
Talbotson
This is 100% normal for these types of situations.

~~~
alanh
Regardless of whether you are being sarcastic or not, you aren't really saying
anything informative or provocative; this is probably why you are being
downvoted

