Turkey’s Internet Bans and the Vicious Circle of Techno-Optimism Author: Dağhan Irak, Author, PhD Candidate, University of Strasbourg, France [1] Date: May 07, 2015 Op-Eds and Commentaries [2] Turkey’s Internet Bans and the Vicious Circle of Techno- Optimism Turkish scholars’ addiction to techno-optimism stems from Turkish modernists’ habit of considering every innovation to be a magic solution to Turkey’s complicated problems, as well as intelligentsia’s need of ‘scholar lebensraum’ in order to endure the conversion from cultural to economic and social capital. Therefore, Turkish scholars studying new media were overwhelmingly blindsided by Twitter’s cooperation with the Turkish regime. Turkey, under the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party) (AKP) regime’s arbitrary laws restricting civil rights and liberties, needs carefully-crafted strategies based on public debate and critical thought, not on hypes and bandwagons. Turkish people has a well-known interest in social-networking. According to the latest