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Turkey is advocating the services of local messaging apps in the wake of Facebook plans to integrate the social network’s messaging services, a step critics say will weaken users’ protection against digital snooping and further tighten the police state grip on freedoms.
Last week WhatsApp, which was bought by Facebook in 2014, set out new terms asking users to agree for location and other personal data to be passed to its parent company, prompting many Turkish users to delete their WhatsApp accounts.
Spurring the exodus from WhatsApp, the head of the government’s digital office, Ali Taha Koc, called on Turks to “stand against fascism together”, a reference to a November speech by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which he called for a stance against “digital fascism”.