YouTubers held for discussing Turkey’s financial hardships

Agencies | London

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Turkey has arrested several YouTube personalities who publish interviews with members of the public in which they discuss their strained finances.

The Turkish economy and currency are in decline, with the lira losing 46 per cent of its value against the US dollar this year, and YouTube personalities have been accruing significant followings online by discussing these issues with Turks.

But, in a series of pre-dawn raids covered by Turkish media, three of those journalists-turned-YouTubers were arrested on Sunday.

All of those arrested have now been released, The Independent reported, but they remain under house arrest and so are effectively prevented from continuing their work.

The arrests came the day after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared social media to be “the main threat to democracy.”

 According to media reports, he said in a speech on Sunday: “With the proliferation of social media channels, the lies, manufactured news, we see that disinformation spreads rapidly.

Millions of people’s lives are darkened due to such news spread from these channels where there is no effective control mechanism.”