Can you imagine a place where there are no social networks? Well, such is life in Turkmenistan, a country in Central Asia where the state has almost complete control over the Internet.
“We know about the existence of Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, but we don’t have access. “Everything is blocked here,” said Byashim Ishanguliyev, a fruit seller in Turkmenistan. “Some people manage to connect to a VPN, but that’s only temporary (because) it gets blocked too.”
According to this seller, if someone manages to download a video (and struggles with slow internet), they will meet in a group to watch it.
“The internet is slow. So if someone manages to download an interesting video, clip or movie, we all watch it together with our friends,” he explained.
Although the country does not operate any of the popular social networks, these measures are insufficient for President Serdar Berdimuhamedow.
The president announced his intention to “strengthen the country’s cybersecurity” in mid-January, following in the footsteps of restrictions imposed by his predecessors: his father Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and the late Saparmurat Niazov.
Reference image. Photo: Pixabay
The Turkmen government has created its own digital platforms, replacing common social networks
Since the main messaging services are banned – WhatsApp, Viber, Signal or Telegram do not exist – the government has created an application under its control: Bizbarde.
For videos, the authorities have launched Belet Video, a kind of alternative to YouTube, which is stripped of any content that could reveal the world outside Turkmens, be it news or entertainment.
Photo: AFP
The media is also controlled
“There is no media panorama,” Ruslan Miatiev, editor of the news site Turkmennews, told AFP. The Turkmens only see “propaganda promoting the personality cult of the Berdimuhamedovs.”
The Turkmen media are all state-owned and disseminate only official information, with particular emphasis on litanies of thanks and praise to the country’s authorities.
There used to be access to foreign satellite channels, but now that is no longer possible: “Employees from the mayor’s office came to my house and told me to remove the antenna because it was ruining the city’s architecture,” he remembers.
Some Western broadcasters such as France 24, BBC and Euronews are authorized, but their audiences are small in a country where English is hardly spoken.
Every day, Turkmens watch programs in which Berdimuhamedov insults his ministers, plants trees in the desert or receives enthusiastic applause.
You might be interested in:
