Meet the “AK Trolls”
- Guest Editor
- Apr 11
- 5 min read
How internet trolls manipulate public perception
How much do the things we see, like, repost, retweet, or block on the internet affect our perception of the real world? Can unreal perceptions of politicians be created through online manipulation? In Turkey, these questions have been tested for some time. The answer is yet to be determined. In a country where people lose trust in the system as a whole and redirect themselves to social media and the internet for the truth, manipulation of perception through the spread of disinformation is easier than ever. Our story, however, is missing a perpetrator. Well, meet the AK trolls. Who are these “AK trolls”? AK trolls are pro-government individuals often funded and organized by members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to manipulate public perception in favor of President Erdoğan or any entity affiliated with the AKP.
AK trolls’ existence can be traced back to the Gezi Movement in 2013. Protests were held against Erdoğan’s decision to demolish parts of Gezi Park and turn it into Taksim Military Barracks. Protesters organized themselves and publicized the movement through social media. In response the AKP recruited large groups of people, mostly aged between 20-25, to counter the influence the protestors had on the people through social media. Of course, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP have denied the allegations that AK trolls are connected to the AKP or President Erdoğan. Erdoğan allegedly said “Who are these people, I don’t know them”. However, in 2014 a voice recording was leaked on the internet from a phone call between President Erdoğan’s daughter Sümeyye Erdoğan, and then Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank. In the voice recording, Sümeyye Erdoğan blurts out the words “our trolls” making the denials from the AKP and President Erdoğan hard to believe.
In the realm of Turkish politics, people may support politicians’ decisions even though they themselves find those decisions to be wrong. It is often observed that when people are asked about a certain political move undertaken by a political figure who they don’t support, the political decision is condemned; however, when the exact same political move is undertaken by a political figure they are in favor of, a stream of fervent support gushes out of the same person. For example, in a street interview a pro-AKP voter gets asked the question “What do you think about the fact that the People’s Republic Party (CHP – main opposition party) is now engaging in political conversation with People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party — a pro Kurdish party that is highly considered as “terrorists” by the pro-regime voters)? His answer is a condemning speech about how the opposition always tries to collaborate with terrorists. Then the interviewer tells the interviewee that he had made a mistake with the content of the question and the party that was engaging with the DEM Party was not the CHP but the AKP. Immediately, the interviewee, like he was not condemning the political action seconds ago, starts defending the collaboration with the words “If the AKP and Erdoğan has undertaken such an action they must know something.”. Hence, in a political culture where the public image of a politician or a political party can influence how a decision is viewed, AK trolls play a significant role in the battle for perception in the public mind.
The way these internet trolls operate has many layers. They mainly utilize social media platforms such as Facebook, X, Instagram, and Ekşi Sözlük (A Turkish hypertext collaborative dictionary) to create chaos and disruption by posting content laden with disinformation to provoke public rage online. Then they take advantage of the chaos they created to promote AKP, discredit any type of opposition, and engage in a method called “character assassination”. Character assassinations are the most notorious of how these trolls attack individuals. Once a person such as a journalist, politician, or even an ordinary citizen attracts attention to some incident that the AKP does not want attention drawn to, insults, threats, and disinformation starts flowing towards the “target”. For example, a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne reported that in 2019 there were 6500 fake trends on X in Turkey, including a character assassination campaign against Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu with the hashtag “#ÇünküÇaldılar(#BecauseTheyStole)” suggesting that he and his party knowingly stole votes in the 2019 Istanbul Mayoral elections.
AK trolls’ work can also be seen through their public perception manipulation attempt regarding the number of subway lines constructed during Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu’s term. The AKP lost control of Istanbul to the People’s Republic Party (CHP) with Ekrem İmamoğlu’s mayoral win in 2019. The AKP knew how important Istanbul is in terms of resources for the upcoming national elections in 2023. Therefore, they wanted to remove Ekrem İmamoğlu from his public post in hopes of regaining lost territory. That’s where the AK trolls came into the scene. Istanbul Mayoralty shared a post stating that more subway construction was finished “on an annual average” during İmamoğlu’s term. Following the post a tsunami of tweets containing disinformation and personal insults directed at İmamoğlu and his work flooded X. These tweets were met with counter-tweets supporting İmamoğlu and his work, stating that the proclamation of the Istanbul Mayoralty was indeed true. The online argument quickly got bombarded with disinformation from the AK trolls. The supporters of İmamoğlu were now not only tasked with defending the truthfulness of İmamoğlu’s work but were also made to defend him as a person. The two camps battled it out on social media until the topic was no longer about subway construction but about İmamooğlu’s values and character. By achieving their goal of diverting the discussion from facts and metro lines to İmamoğlu himself the AK trolls got what they wanted. Chaos and disruption through the use of misinformation and then a personal attack on the Mayor aiming to damage his public image.
To this day, AK trolls and regular social media users who do not harbour the intention to manipulate public image have been battling it out on the frontlines of various social media platforms. This battle for perception has a subtle yet effective impact on Turkey’s political culture. With the help of the AK trolls, the accomplishments of politicians can be discredited and even used as weapons to sabotage their political success all thanks to the power of the internet and social media.
In a political climate where online discussions reeking with disinformation can shape opinions that decide a country's future, AK trolls with the effect they have on the country’s politics pose a threat to Turkey’s prosperity. Will they be successful in their manipulation attempts and establish their presence in Turkish political culture or will the general public grow immune to AK trolls’ techniques and render them obsolete? Only time will tell.
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