VZCZCXRO9157
RR RUEHDA
DE RUEHAK #6612 3411503
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 071503Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0229
INFO RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 1760
RUEHDA/AMCONSUL ADANA 1408

UNCLAS ANKARA 006612 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/PPD: JRICKERT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OIIP KISL KPAO PTER
SUBJECT: TURKEY: CONTESTING TERRORIST USE OF THE INTERNET 
 
REF: STATE 193515 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary.  There are very few websites in Turkey that fit 
the criteria outlined in reftel for use by the Digital Outreach 
Team.  Overall, Internet usage in Turkey is relatively small. 
Arabic websites are not used in Turkey at all, as the lingua franca 
of Turkey is Turkish.  English websites are also few and far 
between, as few Turks have the necessary level of English to 
function in an open forum on the Internet.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) According to the Turkish State Statistics Institute, only 
twenty-one percent of Turks use the Internet regularly.  As a 
consequence of this, the idea of blogging and/or posting comments on 
public websites has not caught on in the same way that it has in the 
rest of the Middle East or Europe.  The closest Turkey comes to open 
forums on the internet are the websites of the major newspapers, 
which often allow for comments on stories. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) There are only two Turkish blog portals of note.  One is 
http://www.blogcu.com/, which features a variety of blogs on 
everything from politics to love to philosophy.  Milliyet, one of 
Turkey's leading newspapers, recently set up a blog portal of its 
own, http://blog.milliyet.com/.  Both of these sites are in their 
infancy and, judging by the number of bloggers and comments, they 
are not visited very frequently by the general public.  Conspiracy 
theories are a favorite topic of the few blogs that exist in Turkey. 
 Two of the more extensive blogs dedicated to conspiracy theories 
are http://komploteorilerimiz.blogcu.com/ and 
http://teori.blogspot.com/ (both in Turkish). 
 
¶4.  (SBU) English language blogs and political websites on Turkey 
are few and far between.  The ones that do exist are mainly located 
on US-based blog portals, and are maintained largely by 
Turkish-Americans.  Most of the English language sites devoted to 
politics are merely compilations of Turkey-related stories from the 
western press. 
 
WILSON