The long arm of the Turkish state’s repressive apparatus has found its newest target: Clubhouse. The audio-chat app, which briefly emerged as a rare space for open political debate in Turkey, has been swiftly turned into a hunting ground by pro-government mobs who are systematically blacklisting, doxxing, and threatening citizens for the simple act of criticizing the government.

This is not random online trolling. It is a coordinated and chilling campaign of intimidation openly championed by figures within the ruling party itself. In a tactic reminiscent of totalitarian regimes, AKP deputy Mehmet Cihat Sezai publicly called on his followers to become informants, urging them to take screenshots of critics’ profiles and send them directly to the police, the Interior Ministry, and AKP headquarters. The message is clear: the state and the party are one, and the citizen’s duty is to report on their neighbors.

This digital dragnet is being amplified by pro-government media figures. Journalist Hadi Özışık declared that criticizing the president was “treason,” demanding that critics be blacklisted and threatening anyone who associates with them. He then put this threat into practice, sharing screenshots of targeted individuals on his own YouTube channel, effectively painting a target on their backs.

The tactics are insidious. Pro-government accounts create parody chat rooms to lure in critics, only to have their names and photos harvested and posted on websites dedicated to shaming them as “terrorists.” For individuals like Mustafa Karaca, a civil servant, the threat is immediate and devastating: he was warned he would lose his job for daring to speak his mind on the app. As one targeted user, Hüseyin Tunç, stated, “They know it’s a crime to share people’s personal details, but they do so by framing them as terrorists.”

This campaign of fear is the direct result of a state policy that views any uncontrolled public discourse as a national security threat. The government’s obsession with controlling social media began with the 2013 Gezi Park protests, when it lost control of the narrative to citizens organizing on Twitter. Ever since, Ankara has been building a legal and technical fortress to wall off its citizens from the free exchange of ideas.

The latest weapon in this arsenal is a new law forcing major social media platforms to appoint a local representative, making them legally subservient to the Turkish government’s demands. This comes on top of an already breathtaking level of censorship. By the end of 2019, Turkish authorities had already blocked access to over 408,000 websites, 130,000 individual URLs, and tens of thousands of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook posts.

The invasion of Clubhouse demonstrates that no new platform is safe. The message being sent from Ankara is unequivocal: there is no corner of the digital world where you can hide from the state’s gaze. Your thoughts will be monitored, your words will be criminalized, and your identity will be exposed. This is not just about silencing dissent; it is about creating a pervasive atmosphere of fear where citizens are too afraid to speak at all.

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The Turkish government’s sweeping campaign to criminalize criticism has claimed two more victims, as gendarmerie forces raided the homes of two men in Tekirdağ province and a court ordered their immediate arrest. Their alleged crime, now a routine charge used to silence dissent across the country, was “insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan” in posts made on social media.

This incident is a stark illustration of the systematic nature of the state’s assault on free expression. The pre-dawn raids and the swiftness of the court’s decision to imprison the men underscore a chilling reality: the judicial process is no longer about justice, but about the rapid punishment of perceived disloyalty. For one of the men, this is his second detention on the exact same charge, highlighting the relentless persecution faced by those who refuse to be silenced.

These arrests are not isolated events but the predictable outcome of a state policy that has weaponized Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code. This law, which criminalizes “insulting the president” with a sentence of one to four years in prison, has been transformed under Erdoğan into a dragnet for any form of opposition, satire, or critical commentary.

The scale of this legal crackdown is staggering. Official figures show that in 2016 alone, a shocking 3,658 people were charged under this statute. Thousands of citizens have been investigated, prosecuted, and jailed for tweets, Facebook posts, and even private messages, creating a pervasive atmosphere of fear.

The goal of this campaign is clear: to insulate the president from any and all public criticism and to send a message to millions of citizens that the cost of speaking freely is their own freedom. The raids in Tekirdağ are not about upholding the law; they are about enforcing silence and making an example of those who dare to step out of line. Each arrest serves as another brick in the wall of fear being built around Turkish society.

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