Last weekend, Türkiye was shaken by the brutal murder of two young girls, Ikbal Uzuner (left) and Ayşenur Halil (middle). Due to the peculiarities of the killings—Ayşenur was killed in bed with her throat cut in a single motion, while Ikbal was mutilated in the middle of the city and her head was thrown onto the street where Ikbal's mother was standing—the murders caused widespread outrage. The murderer Semih Çelik (right) then killed himself in front of the crowd, taking his own life without even once being arrested.
The murder quickly became the topic of discussion and resulted in nationwide protests, as only a day ago a woman was tried to be raped by two men on Beyoğlu streets. She was ultimately able to get away but decided not to press charges, as that would mean that her identity would be revealed and the assaulters would have access to her home address. As a result of the simultaneous events, the public called on politicians, influencers, and celebrities to speak out against gender-based violence and went onto the streets to protest. However, almost no influential figures spoke up on the matter
before they started to receive backlash. Some, like Danla Biliç, posted stories of them partying with other influencers and marketing products, leading her to become a target on X. Some users of X began to post threads exposing celebrities and organizations that either failed to comment on the matter or did so too late. On the other hand, celebrities who did comment on the issue and tried to take it to bigger mediums by using their audience and connections, like Ece Seçkin, were praised. These exposes were well-received by some but condemned by others who felt that they diverted attention from femicides to celebrities and created conflict amongst women at a time when all women should act in unison and solely address the matter at hand.
As the focus shifted from the murders to the celebrities, more and more of them were found to be guilty not only because they had an apolitical stance on the issue, but also because they were involved in hate crimes and blackmails themselves, whereas they were not only against women.
In reaction to the controversy, a few football supporter accounts, such as Yescontextfb and Sami Yen Haber, began collaborating with hackers and carried out extensive research on the backgrounds of some celebrities who had previously been accused of sexism and bullying in order to expose them and their allies. This was found ironic by most, since the teams these accounts were supporting only addressed the matter after being granted permission by TFF (Turkish Football Federation), which had also recently suffered greatly from the invitation of Atakan Karazor, an alleged sexual assaulter, to the national team despite the unresolved status of his case. This meant that should Karazor be found guilty, the Turkish national football team would be harboring and shielding a sexual assaulter.
The exposé on X began with Dahi Şekerci, more widely known as Deha INC. or Deha Tuzcu, who is a rapper and streamer. X users found his old live streams and chats on Discord and Omegle, where he seemed to be insulting Atatürk, the founder of Türkiye, and religion with even a picture of him biting a Quran. His direct messages on Instagram were also exposed, displaying multiple voice messages where he seemed to be insulting and threatening a girl to have sexual intercourse with him. Şekerci was also found to be linked with several “dark humor” incel discord groups opened in 2016- 2020, like 15 July—where participants had to curse Atatürk, the Quran, God, and Turkish martyrs to get in—, C7K (7 levels of Hell), and ATAT. At the same time frame, the chatting application ICQ, informally known as the dark web of WhatsApp, was popular among credit card scammers because of its anonymity. Turkish scammers used it widely as the 3D Secure protection system, which typically sends a code to the phone associated with the credit card, stopped such scams from occurring in Türkiye, while its absence in other nations gave them an opportunity. In 2019, one of the most known scammers of the time, Total War Atilla, and his team opened a Discord account called "Atlantis" to launder the money they had collected from scamming. The group quickly became the number one illegal server in Türkiye, boosted by the “donations” from the stolen credit cards. With time, Atlantis started to be used as a front account not only for money laundering but also for drug dealing, blackmailing teenage girls, sexual assault threats, personal information theft, etc., without the owner even knowing. Several girls who wished to remain anonymous came forward to share their experiences of being blackmailed into sending inappropriate photos using stolen information. After complying, they were later blackmailed again by the same photos. This was the time when Şekerci and Atilla met in 2020. Şekerci followed the footsteps of Atilla, where, like Atlantis, he blackmailed people by using their personal information and BitScams. When MERNIS (Central Population Administration System) data were leaked online, 15-year-old kids in ATAT and Atlantis servers started to join the crime started by Atilla and carried on by Şekerci. We still see the effects of this shift today, as these 15-year-old kids, who most people would underestimate, can “kill” people in government records and decide their burial places, make anonymous complaints to the police under others’ names, or even send police to people’s home addresses by fake suicide bomber complaints. As ATAT got bigger, other kids like “BABAPRO” wanted to take over the server, which was when Şekerci left the server business. At the time, the term “babapro” became a commonly used joke by kids, leading most of them to the said server when searching about it. Şekerci later entered the rap scene, and his songs, which included the lyrics "Fold the money, CC it" (a reference to credit card scamming), were almost confessions of his previous life. In 2021, most ATAT members were exposed by other Discord streamers. However, this wasn’t the end. Smaller Discord servers were already formed, but now they were all enemies of each other as everyone was afraid of being exposed, leading us to today.
As the term incel —a member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually, typically associated with views that are hostile towards women and men who are sexually active— got more popular after the murders, people quickly realized that incels were grouped in Discord servers and started attacking or exposing them online. As server users saw other servers getting exposed, they started giving information to X users and YouTubers to try and save themselves, allowing us to gather the information above.
Şekerci wasn’t the only influencer to be exposed for illegal activity. Ecrin Su Çoban also caused a big fuss on X, as she was found to use “Panel” to bully and blackmail other users on Discord. Panel is an app that allows users to view every Turkish citizen's personal data. It can be used to find addresses, Turkish Republic identity numbers, phone numbers, etc. Following the uproar, Çoban's agency terminated her contract and Mavi, a well-known clothing brand in Turkey, ceased working with her.
Multiple controversies regarding the celebrities quickly spread around social media, making most aware of the topic, and leading to an online hate and cancellation campaign. Some users on X commented on the issue, saying that people are deviating from the fact that two girls were killed in the middle of the day in Istanbul, while others justified the campaign and exposes, stating that it is better to eliminate the issue from its core.
Some individuals who were found to be involved in online blackmailing and spreading hate were arrested, as their IPs were shared with the government by Discord. However, no charges were pressed against Şekerci, and it was decided to search Çoban’s house.
While all these were happening, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Türkiye, was promoting Teknofest, a national festival where new developments in Turkish technology are displayed, and Özgür Özel, the leader of the main opposition group CHP, was pictured and shared while he was carpet weaving. After both sides were bombarded with hate on all platforms, they made some statements condemning femicides. One of the first responses of the government was to ban Discord in all of Türkiye, as it seemed to be the cause of the problem. Nevertheless, a VPN can still be used to access Discord, so it is safe to assume that these criminals will use VPN without worrying about facing consequences. Discord's ban sparked yet another controversy, with some arguing that the government should not have banned the platform as these incel groups could meet on any platform. This made many wonder if the government was planning to ban all social media platforms altogether to prevent the population from grouping and vocally criticizing the government.
After the Discord ban, Erdoğan made a speech where he attributed violence against women to alcohol use and media influence. He stated, “At times, we see that the pain we experience is influenced by digital platforms spreading chaos, by perverse trends, drug addiction, the scourge of alcohol, the mafia culture glamorized in TV shows, and the gaps in our execution and rehabilitation systems.” He later went on to criticize Özgür Özel, "If you really want to contribute to the fight against violence towards women, the first thing you should do is to stop promoting raki."
He faced criticism when records surfaced showing that, despite being among the nations with the lowest rates of alcohol consumption in Europe, Türkiye led in the number of women who are physically or sexually abused.
The murder of Ikbal and Ayşenur catalyzed a complex and intense discourse around violence against women in Türkiye, highlighting the interplay between social media, celebrity culture, and systemic issues that contribute to femicide and gender-based violence. Amidst political maneuvering and exaggerated blaming of social platforms, the fundamental need for effective societal change and reform in protecting women's rights remains clear.