Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has filed court papers against a Greek graphic designer who goes by the handle Jo Di for a 2015 meme that bears a blood-stained photo of Erdoğan with the words “Stop Killer Erdogan.”
Bowing to Turkish pressure, Facebook has already closed Jo Di’s page on the social media platform, according to a Tweet, which has received widespread disdain from Greek and foreign Twitter users.
“Is this free speech, Facebook?” One Twitter user asked.
Is this is "free speech" @facebook ?https://t.co/mCtvTfo6J5
— Κάποιος Ταδόπουλος (@_Wiesenthal_S_) February 22, 2018
And Jo Di’s popular Twitter account (11.1k followers) may be next, according to a letter (s)he received from Twitter’s legal department asking him to take down images that are offensive to the Turkish president.
Jo Di’s identity is not known and the designer always leaves his/her imprint on the memes (s)he creates, which often go viral.
Jo Di has defended the meme, stating on his/her website that the words were taken from chants of Turks themselves, at demonstrations in Ankara in 2015 against Erdogan.
Erdogan’s government filed lawsuits against dozens of accounts that portrayed him in a negative light.
Jo Di originally published the image back in October of 2015.
Stop killer Erdogan #Ankara #AnkaraBombing
"Δολοφόνε Ερντογαν" φωνάζουν οι διαδηλωτές στην Αγκυρα pic.twitter.com/dCLSaIGEqc— Jo Di ?️? (@jodigraphics15) October 10, 2015
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1 comment
Facebook and Twitter should respect legitimate political criticism as genuine and not fake (news) and be protective of our free speech or we simply won’t use them. There are other platforms.