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Turkey's Twitter "spies"

The political war between the Erdogan government and the Gülen Movement has a propaganda aspect, with each side seeing the other as the proxy of a detested enemy.
A Twitter logo on an iPad display is pictured next to a Turkish flag in this photo illustration taken in Istanbul March 21, 2014. Turkey's courts have blocked access to Twitter a little over a week before elections as Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan battles a corruption scandal that has seen social media awash with alleged evidence of government wrongdoing. The ban came hours after a defiant Erdogan, on the campaign trail ahead of key March 30 local elections, vowed to "wipe out" Twitter and said he did not c

If you spend some time in Turkey’s prolific Twitter universe these days, you will likely read lots of messages about the “spies” in the country.

You will also notice that this narrative has two diametrically opposed versions. Some Turks seriously believe that their state has been deeply infiltrated by spies who work on behalf of Israel. Others believe that the same treason has been carried out by spies who instead work on behalf of Iran. If you pay attention, you will also see that the subscribers to the first conspiracy theory are supporters of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the subscribers to the second are supporters of the US-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

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