In the midst of an attempted military coup, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, appeared on a cable news show to deliver a speech using Apple’s FaceTime video chat app.
Turkey’s president delivered a speech via FaceTime amid military coup attempt
A virtual head of state.
Erdogan was reportedly broadcasting from an undisclosed location after national news media outlets were censored.
The interview is in Turkish, but here is the New York Times translating Erdogan’s message:
“There is no power higher than the power of the people,” he said in a night of wild confusion and contradictory accounts of who was in control. “Let them do what they will at public squares and airports.”
It appears Erdogan is trying to avoid the military, which is why he gave the interview virtually rather than sitting at his desk. Even with a language gap, it is a surreal interview to watch. At two points, the anchor ignores an incoming call intruding on the video conversation with the president.
There are also reports that major internet platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, have been shut down.
“We are aware of reports that YouTube is down in Turkey,” said a YouTube representative. “However, our systems seem to be functioning normally.”
In a tweet, Twitter said the company does not believe the service was fully blocked.
We have no reason to think we’ve been fully blocked in #Turkey, but we suspect there is an intentional slowing of our traffic in country.
— Policy (@policy) July 15, 2016
Erdogan also took to Facebook to deliver messages on Friday. In the past, the president has moved to censor both social and news media in the country.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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