Partners with the mafia! Gangs moved from the streets to digital

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Lerato Khumalo

In the terrible incident that took two young girls from their lives in Fatih, all eyes turned to online gaming groups and some digital platforms. While examining the internet connections of Semih Çelik, who committed suicide after the murders; Harassing and blackmailing children on the messaging application Discord; Structures that encourage crime and self-harm have come to Turkey’s agenda. Communication scientist and sociologist Uğur Delen, who has academic studies on digital culture, digital identities and computer games, explained how these platforms work, how hate groups are organized and what needs to be done for security.

Semih Çelik’s connections are being investigated.

* Have Discord and similar platforms become the playground of shadowy structures?

Discord is a communication application just like WhatsApp and Skype. Discord servers also consist of voice and text communication channels. The fact that hate groups become active on these platforms is due to the structure of these platforms. Discord servers have begun to turn into digital neighborhoods. Today, different Discord servers built by content producers in Turkey direct the construction of digital culture in Turkey. Each server began to develop its own culture and sub-identities created under this culture.

* How are the structures that come to the fore with threats, harassment and self-harm instructions against children organized?

The main motivation of these communities is to make money. First of all, as soon as they learn someone’s name and surname, they can also learn all the private information of that person. This is how what my close circle experienced started. After learning his name and surname, they sent my friend the ID numbers, phone numbers and address information of all his relatives and told him that if he did not send them his naked photos, they would call his father and slander him. When my friend refused these requests, they opened fake social media accounts in his name, pretended to be him, sent messages to people, and opened fake websites and advertisements. In short, these criminals have become the street gangs of the internet, which has become a digital neighborhood.

* Do they work in coordination?

These communities that want children to harm themselves and the gangs I mentioned act together. They create a hierarchy among themselves and shape it with marginality. The “prestige” of being more well-known within this criminal network is very valuable, so threatening children with their families’ private information and encouraging them to harm themselves not only allows them to rise in the criminal network they are in, and thus earn more money as well as prestige. Virtual criminal structures have a direct relationship with criminal structures in the physical world.

Partners with the mafia! Gangs moved from the streets to digital - Picture: 2
The symbols in Semih Çelik’s room attracted attention.

* What has happened that has not been revealed to the public until now?

There are so many dark crimes. The most common thing is usually sexual harassment. There are gangs who get emotionally close to someone, take their nude photos, and then blackmail them by threatening to send them to their family’s phone numbers. Apart from these, there were communities that tried to gain recognition by focusing on harming animals and children. All the hate speech we encounter in the physical world has an equivalent on the internet.

* What can be done legally?

I think several different processes need to work together. In particular, the legal responsibilities of companies that own communication tools regarding these processes need to be increased. Although the things we can do today are limited, there are a few things that can be done. First of all, when we are plagued by such a network, we can file a complaint by writing a petition to the prosecutor of the region we live in. CİMER and the Department of Combating Cyber ​​Crimes are also actively involved.

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