Last month, Turkey’s ban on access to the social network Instagram sparked serious debate in both Turkey and Azerbaijan.
The Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure said that during negotiations with representatives of the social network, they noted the importance of respecting Turkish legislation. The minister stressed that the ban will be lifted after Instagram officials promise to comply with the demands of the Turkish government. As a result, companies “Instagram” and “Meta” accepted Ankara’s conditions and this social network was allowed to operate in the country.
In general, in many countries, including Turkey, there is cooperation with social platforms and agreements are reached. In Azerbaijan, no steps have been taken in this direction. It is true that global social platforms have now captured a large part of the country’s advertising market. For this reason, local media are facing a difficult situation. In addition, risks related to information security are increasing day by day.
I wonder if measures should be taken to improve work with social platforms in our country. Is it possible to benefit from Turkey’s experience?
About the topic “Caspian” We present the newspaper article.
If the number of users in the boycotting country is high…
Elvin Abbasov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Azerbaijan Information and Communications Technology Industry Association (AICTSA), says that the country is boycotting the social network after social media-related incidents in many countries: “For example, in Turkey, YouTube, Wikipedia, X.” The agreement process started after the boycotts. The main issue here is the scope of the boycotted social network, taking into account the involvement of the social network in that platform, the boycott is also important. For example, if there have been cases like violence or exploitation, it lowers the image of that platform, but the most important thing is how much money the boycotting country earns from this network, if the number of users is large and it earns more, then they can come to an agreement.”
Where the crowd is, businesses advertise there
The expert confirms that today social media is a big competitor in the business environment and social platforms are hitting local companies: “It is a natural process. Today, international platforms around the world are killing many local companies. This is felt more in the field of Information Technology. Today, social media is a big competitor against domestic media companies. This is the demand of the times.
“We don’t make much money from those social networks”
“Can we boycott?” As for the question, the AIKTSA president notes that the Internet segment in Azerbaijan is very small: “With this small segment of the Internet, we do not earn much money from such social networks. Therefore, it is difficult for our country to gain an advantage in any protests. But at the level of international law, we put forward demands that we can push and win. Since we are not a country of 100 million people, we can only express our objection to these representations at the legal level. “Whoever earns more on these platforms has more rights.”
Income should be taxed in Azerbaijan
Social media expert Farid Kazimov stresses that there is a great need to regulate the advertising market in the virtual space in our country: “Today, in our country, social networks do not pay for placing ads. This is a reality. The responsibility here lies with advertisers, i.e. Azerbaijani companies do not pay for the advertising they post, but pay certain taxes and other fees. In fact, these taxes should be paid by the companies where the ads are placed. Azerbaijan should pay taxes. These issues should be regulated in the country.”
Rules must be defined
The expert believes that serious measures should be taken in relation to social media activity in the country: “Some social networks use authoritarian rules to treat sharing according to their interests. For example, any topical issue is on the agenda, the management of the social network blocks ideas that do not correspond to their interests, even accounts are deleted. Recently, negative posts related to the participation of female athletes in the Olympic Games were blocked on some social networks. Accusations that do not conform to any norms. None of these accounts are blocked. In my opinion, this should be reacted to. The rules on social media activity in Azerbaijan should be determined.
