Human Rights Watch and ARTICLE 19 Letter on Twitter's efforts in preparation for the upcoming election in Turkey

May 1, 2023

To: Nick Pickles, Vice President, Global Affairs, Twitter

Ronan Costello, Public Policy Director for the EMEA region, Twitter

Re: Twitter's efforts in preparation for the upcoming election in Turkey

Dear Mr. Pickles and Mr. Costello,

We hope you’re well. We are writing from Human Rights Watch and ARTICLE 19 to inquire about Twitter’s operations related to the 2023 Turkish elections.

We anticipate releasing our new publication about Turkey’s online environment in the run-up to the elections, including efforts by social media platforms and messaging apps, like Twitter, to prepare for the elections. 

In the interest of thorough and objective reporting, we want to give you the opportunity to respond to the following questions by 5pm EST on May 4, 2023 so that we can incorporate Twitter’s response and perspectives.

1. Has Twitter already made a statement on its efforts around Turkey’s election?
2. Please confirm whether the following policies, priorities, and rules are currently in effect, and what specific steps Twitter has taken to ensure that they are being enforced in the context of the Turkish election:

• Civic integrity priority (undated)
• Civic integrity misleading information policy
• About public interest exceptions on Twitter
• About government and state-affiliated media account labels on Twitter 
• Platform manipulation and spam policy

3. Why has Twitter not labeled the state-controlled Anadolu Ajansı twitter account as “state-affiliated media” (https://twitter.com/anadoluajansi)?
4. Did Twitter conduct a human rights impact assessment ahead of the elections? If so, we would like to request a copy of this assessment or, in the alternative, a summary of its substantive findings.
5. How many Twitter staff or contractors are allocated to civic integrity efforts around Turkey’s elections? How can people and organizations in Turkey get in touch with the civic integrity team to raise concerns on Twitter around the elections?
6. Generally, how many content moderators work on Turkey? How many are native in Turkish and other languages spoken widely by minorities in Turkey (please provide a break down based on individual languages)? How many human rights policy experts support Twitter users in Turkey? How does Twitter ensure the political independence of staff and contractors working on Turkey?
7. How will Twitter respond to threats of throttling and other sanctions introduced by the most recent legislative changes when responding to content takedown and user data access requests? Do you have a contingency plan in the event of throttling during the election period?
8. Does Twitter have in place plans to address the potential of multiple and conflicting announcements of the outcome of the vote and allegations of fraud?
9. Is Twitter in touch with independent election monitoring groups like Oy ve Otesi (Vote and Beyond)?
10. Is Twitter taking any specific steps to identify coordinated activity in violation of its platform manipulation and spam policy during this election period?
11. Has Twitter complied with the October 2022 requirement to establish a local subsidiary of your global company?
12. Does Twitter intend to continue publishing transparency reports? If so, when does it anticipate publishing its next report?
13. Can Twitter share its compliance rate for requests from the Turkish courts or authorities for user data and content removals for the past 6 months?

Thanks in advance for your attention to our questions and feel free to provide any other information you deem relevant.

Sincerely,

Barbora Bukovská, Senior Director for Law and Policy, ARTICLE 19 

Frederike Kaltheuner, Director for Technology and Human Rights, Human Rights Watch