Ankara’s Disinformation Machine: Domestic Control, Exported Narratives, and a 2025 Pivot

By Shay Gal-Member of the Greek Think Tank, International Institue of Strategy

Executive Summary
Turkey’s government has fused law, regulators, a centralized “anti-disinformation” hub, and a disciplined media ecosystem into a message-control system at home – and an export model abroad. In 2025 that model displayed two decisive evolutions.

First, its regional scope widened: Ankara’s Arabic-language outlets projected selective soft-power narratives toward Egypt, creating subtle friction in Cairo’s mediation and deterrence messaging across Gaza and Libya, while Turkish, Pakistani, and Chinese actors formed a triangular information axis that targeted India during Operation Sindoor, revealing an emerging pattern of “narrative load-sharing.”

Second, Ankara’s discipline of message replication reached maturity – seen in “friendly-fire” disinformation aimed even at Azerbaijan, its closest ally, alongside persistent influence operations against Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Armenia, the EU, and the U.S.

This paper maps that architecture, decodes how Turkey’s “anti-disinformation” apparatus functions as both domestic control and export technology, and proposes calibrated responses for Athens, Nicosia and Jerusalem, as well as New Delhi and Cairo – all facing variants of the same evolving playbook.

Method Note and Scope

This analysis integrates open-source investigations (OSINT), legal and policy documents, regulator decisions, Turkish- and Azeri-language media, and major fact-checks. It treats the Presidency’s Center for Combating Disinformation (Dezenformasyonla Mücadele Merkezi, DMM) both as an actor and as a narrative brand.

I. Inside the Machine: How Ankara Manufactures “Truth” at Home (Concise Recap)

Legal architecture. The 2022 “disinformation” law (Penal Code Art. 217/A) criminalizes “spreading false information” and has been used alongside existing speech statutes. Independent monitors document continued online prosecutions and troll-network amplification of pro-government lines.¹

Institutional architecture. The DMM, under the Presidency’s Communications Directorate, publishes multilingual bulletins, styles itself as a fact-checker, and pushes rebuttals in five languages. Official and pro-government outlets celebrate its reach; independent observers note the DMM often “fact-checks” opposition or critical media. ^{2 3 4}

Media capture & penalties. RTÜK fines, suspensions, and criminal probes impose chilling constraints; the overall press-freedom environment places Turkey at 159/180 in RSF’s 2025 Index..⁵

Economic levers. Traffic distribution shocks (e.g. search/discover changes) imperil independent outlets that rely on digital advertising, tightening control over pluralism.⁶

Budgetary evidence further confirms that Turkey’s information operations are not incidental but institutionally embedded. According to Turkish and regional reporting, the Presidency’s Directorate of Communications spent nearly 283 million lira (€13.8 million) in the first quarter of 2023 alone – roughly 40 percent of its annual 1.63 billion-lira (€80 million) budget – a record allocation devoted largely to media operations ahead of national elections. As noted by Greek analyst Christos Konstantinidis in the International Institute of Strategy journal, these expenditures illustrate that Ankara’s “information governance” has become a fully fledged arm of statecraft, comparable in scale to ministerial portfolios. Parallel digital campaigns, including the 7,340 state-linked Twitter accounts later exposed and removed in 2020, demonstrate the operational depth of this system; when the network’s removal was reported, Turkish officials framed it as “censorship of patriotic Turks”. Such narrative inversion, coupled with the absence of meaningful external sanction, shows how disinformation functions in Turkey as a cost-free instrument of governance – a mechanism funded, defended, and normalized as a permanent feature of political control.   ^{7 8 9 10 11}

Turkey and the Mechanism of “Projection”

II. Export Model: How Ankara Frames Greece, Cyprus, Israel, the EU, and the U.S.

A. Greece & Cyprus (and the EU border)

Crisis comms by the map and minute. During the Evros (2020) standoff, Ankara and Athens fought a real-time narrative war: Turkey-aligned messaging accused Greek forces of lethal fire; Athens called it “fake news”. Independent OSINT work by Lighthouse Reports / Forensic Architecture and Bellingcat reconstructed gunfire incidents and maritime push-backs – showing how evidence, counter-evidence, and spin collided. Their work also illustrates how Ankara’s English-language megaphone (TRT World / Anadolu) can internationalize frames. ^{12 13 14}

Doctrinal laundering of revisionist maps. Mavi Vatan (“Blue Homeland”) migrated from a navy slogan into a doctrine normalized through think-pieces, televised panels, and state-aligned press – gradually making maximalist EEZ claims seem common sense domestically and “debatable” abroad. Analysts trace the doctrine’s political uptake, and Greek reporting has chronicled repeated Mavi Vatan exercises that project resolve and gradually banalize presence in contested waters. ^{15 16}

Replication as forensic marker. In September 2025, an instructive incident tied to my own public reporting exposed the mechanics of Ankara’s narrative pipeline. After I published “Northern Cyprus Is Also an Israeli Problem” (Israel Hayom, July 29, 2025), ¹⁷,dozens of Turkish media outlets – including Hürriyet, Sabah, CNN Türk, Yeni Akit, Haber7, OdaTV, Diriliş Postası, Kıbrıs Postası, Kıbrıs Türk, and others – replicated the article word for word, not merely in spirit but verbatim, carrying an identical error: they all claimed that my analysis had appeared in The Times of Israel, when in fact it was published in Israel Hayom.

I regularly publish in both Israel Hayom and The Times of Israel, and in most contexts this dual affiliation is immaterial; however, in this case the very confusion between the two outlets became the smoking-gun indicator of orchestrated replication – demonstrating that none of the Turkish editors involved had independently reviewed or sourced the piece. ^{18 19}

I immediately flagged this anomaly on X/Twitter, writing:

“How Ankara mass-produces ‘news’: when even tiny errors are copy-pasted, untouched.
Yesterday, dozens of Turkish outlets … all ran the same story … identical, word for word. They claimed my strategic analysis appeared in Times of Israel, when in fact it ran in Israel Hayom … but the identical error across outlets is the giveaway”, 24 September 2025.

Shortly afterward, Geopolitico.gr published an analysis referencing the tweet and demonstrating that the unchanged replication of a visible factual error across multiple mainstream Turkish outlets constitutes a forensic marker of centrally distributed content rather than independent journalism..²⁰

For direct verification, see contemporaneous coverage duplicating the same misattribution (“Times of Israel”) on 23 September 2025 in Haber7, Yeni Akit, OdaTV, Kıbrıs Türk, and Kıbrıs Gazetesi – each reproducing the same paragraph verbatim, unchanged even in punctuation.    

This uniformity mirrors patterns long observed in Turkey’s information ecosystem: centralized “content packages” drafted within or near the Presidency’s Directorate of Communications, distributed through state wire agencies (AA, DHA, İHA) and the so-called “pool media”, and enforced through RTÜK sanctions, BİK advertising bans, and Article 217/A of the Disinformation Law.   ^{26 27 28}The replication of an identical trivial error across independent-seeming outlets is not accidental – it is structural evidence of state-imposed message discipline.

Implication for Athens/Nicosia/Jerusalem: When the same error replicates through flagship Turkish outlets, this is not independent press – it is narrative discipline by design. That is the export artifact.

B. Israel (Gaza war narratives)

Speed, certainty, and the DMM stamp. On 18 October 2023, Turkey’s DMM declared the claim that Palestinian Islamic Jihad (not Israel) caused the al-Ahli hospital explosion false – even as the evidentiary picture remained contested. The Anadolu coverage cites the DMM’s categorical rejection posted on X.²⁹

Simultaneously, independent assessments (HRW, intelligence leaks, media forensics) documented conflicting evidence, miscaptioned visual media, and open uncertainty. ^{30 31 32}

Emotion meets certainty. State-aligned media sustained emotive frames echoing presidential rhetoric – “terror state”, “massacre” –  saturating Turkish audiences with moral conviction while the evidence remained fluid. ^{33 34}

Personal note.
In the immediate aftermath of the al-Ahli blast (17–18 October 2023), as Vice President for External Relations at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), I engaged in continuous media coordination through the night – working with international outlets to flag contradictions, highlight open-source (OSINT) evidence, and counter the Turkish “official version”. The Jerusalem Report / Jerusalem Post later profiled this effort, describing how that crisis moment exposed me personally to the operational mechanics of Turkish disinformation surrounding Gaza and ultimately spurred my subsequent research trajectory.³⁵

That night was not an isolated episode. It represented a turning point—when information warfare ceased to be an abstraction and became a lived professional battlefield. In parallel with the kinetic campaign on Israel’s borders, a war over truth erupted in the global information sphere. As I later reflected in my Times of Israel article post, “Defending Reality Against the Age of Deception,” the assault of October 7 revealed not only the brutality of terrorism but also the fragility of facts in the digital age.³⁶

In those days, our team at IAI confronted two simultaneous responsibilities: defending a corporation’s reputation and helping to defend a nation’s credibility. The distinction between public relations and national resilience blurred. We built a 24-hour communication grid linking our representatives worldwide – supplying verified, sourced message kits and real-time updates to ensure that journalists, governments, and partners received evidence-based information rather than algorithmic rumor.

The experience crystallized a broader insight that underpins this paper: disinformation is not only a moral or political hazard – it is a national-security variable. From Russian operations in Ukraine to Chinese and Turkish influence campaigns in the Eastern Mediterranean, the distortion of fact now functions as a strategic instrument. What began as a night of crisis communication at IAI evolved into a sustained line of scholarly inquiry into the architecture of state-driven information control.

Design implications for Israel. When the DMM stamps certainty early, Turkish public consciousness tends to lock in that frame. Misinformation theory warns that first strong frames stick; thus Israel must pre-bunk Turkish-language claims rather than engage only in delayed rebuttal.

C. The United States (and NATO politics)

Grievance narratives as strategic ballast. Turkish senior officials repeatedly allege Washington backed the 2016 coup – an assertion U.S. sources and fact-checks reject. Yet it recurs whenever Ankara seeks a default explanation for internal suppression or foreign policy pivots. ^{37 38}

Economic crisis as narrative war. In the 2018 lira collapse, Turkish prosecutors and regulators launched probes into “fake news” narratives, reframing real financial stresses as information warfare. That playbook recurs under new terms. ^{39 40 41}

Alliance friction and media claims. During Sweden’s NATO accession battles and U.S.–Turkey tensions, Ankara-aligned narratives accused Western states of enabling the PKK or undermining Turkish sovereignty – claims that Stockholm, Washington, and Brussels publicly rebutted as misinformation.⁴²

D. Armenia (genocide denial as policy) 

Ministry messaging as meta-narrative. The Turkish MFA’s “1915” portal frames the events as wartime relocations and mutual suffering – not genocide – supported by annual presidential statements and educational campaigns. ^{43 44}

Enforcement and export. Denialism is maintained through domestic media control (RTÜK interventions, lawsuits) and is projected internationally via English content, the DMM, and diplomatic channels – revealing that “anti-disinformation” is itself an instrument of state policy. ^{45 46}

Closures and sanctions for uttering the term “Armenian genocide”.
In 2024–2025, Turkey’s broadcast regulator RTÜK repeatedly penalized and ultimately revoked the terrestrial license of the independent station Açık Radyo (Open Radio) after a guest referenced the Armenian genocide during an April 24 broadcast. The process – suspension, fines, and eventual closure – was documented by international press-freedom organizations. The regulator justified the move under Article 8 of the Broadcasting Law (No. 6112), citing “incitement to hatred”, while local and international observers described it as part of a broader campaign to enforce state-approved historical denialism. The case has become a reference point in studies of Turkey’s “anti-disinformation” policy, demonstrating how legal and administrative tools are used to punish historical truth and frame commemoration itself as “fake news”. ^{47 48}

E. Egypt (Arabic-language amplification and the Libya–Gaza hinge)

Since 2019, Ankara has utilized its Arabic-language media portfolio (notably TRT Arabi and Anadolu Arabic) to influence Egyptian and pan-Arab audiences on two critical dossiers: Gaza narratives and Libya institutionality. In 2019, Cairo blocked TRT Arabi and Anadolu Arabic sites following coverage of former President Morsi’s death – an early signal of information contestation. Although Ankara and Cairo re-established relations in 2024–2025, including joint naval exercises in September 2025, narrative competition has not ceased; it has become more tactical and issue-driven  –  especially around Gaza ceasefire portrayal, East Mediterranean maritime claims, and legitimization of Libya’s central institutions.  

Turkish Arabic outlets alternately frame Cairo as a key mediator or as being too aligned with Israel or Western positions, depending on issue context. The same narrative pipelines used for Gaza are repurposed to amplify narratives in Libya (Central Bank control, oil export authority, Sirte-Jufra demarcation lines) in ways that undercut Cairo’s influence, especially when Turkish coverage highlights Tripoli-favorable institutions over eastern Libyan partners. Studies on regional disinformation ecosystems document that state media + diplomatic channels act as cross-border amplifiers in the Arab world.⁵⁶

What’s new. The paradox of diplomatic thaw is that mixed messaging travels faster: rapprochement lowers the cost of soft inserts. Based on observed blocking episodes and continuous editorial shifts in Ankara’s Arabic signals, we infer that Turkish narrative operations do not require overt hostility to inflict harm. When TRT/Anadolu-Arabic oscillate between endorsement (Egypt as regional mediator) and subtle critique (Egypt “timid”, “boundary keeper”), they sap Cairo’s narrative agility in regional crises – raising the “narrative tax” on Egyptian deterrence, mediation, and maritime posture.

Strategic inference. Egypt’s challenge post-rapprochement is not a classical propaganda war but a zone of latent narrative frictions. Ankara’s Arabic amplifications transform time, attention, and issue framing into tools of influence – forcing Cairo to overcommit defensive bandwidth in discursive domains that are already tactical battlefields.

F. India (Operation Sindoor: triangulated disinformation)

During Operation Sindoor (May2025), India confronted a triangulated disinformation vector in which Pakistani core production of false narratives was amplified by Turkey-linked media and Chinese state/diplomatic channels. New Delhi’s Press Information Bureau reported “massive fake news, misinformation and propaganda campaigns … mostly from outside India,” triggering active counter-measures during the operation. In parallel, India blocked on X both Turkey’s TRT World and Chinese state media accounts after they pushed misattributed claims and doctored frames in the wake of precision strikes – an action India paired with forensic disclosures about cross-border enablers. Independent observers recorded the operational cost of this information fight: the Chief of Defence Staff acknowledged that roughly 15% of operational time during Sindoor was diverted to debunking hostile claims in real time. Think-tank analysis similarly traced coordinated Pakistan-based networks on X engaged in sustained anti-India propaganda during the crisis. A distinct China line of effort targeted India’s arms-ecosystem legitimacy: according to French and AP-sourced reporting, Chinese embassies ran a campaign to undermine Rafale fighters’ reputation after their combat use in Sindoor. Indian fact-checkers and newsrooms documented and neutralised dozens of high-reach fabrications, underscoring that information integrity capacity – not only strike capacity – shaped tactical freedom of action. State media also chronicled systematic twisting of events by Pakistani outlets, which India countered with artefact-level rebuttals and source disclosure. The strategic inference is that Ankara–Beijing amplification makes Islamabad’s narrative production stickier and costlier for India to clear – turning time and attention into a battlefield asset that future Indian doctrine should price explicitly.

III. The 2025 Novelty: “Friendly-Fire Disinformation” Against Azerbaijan

A setback to the coordinated narrative alliance. From September–October 2025, key Azeri outlets charged Turkish media with a deliberate “fake news campaign” targeting Azerbaijan, naming major Turkish titles and alleging motive and orchestration. Many of the contested items recycled Israel-adjacent tropes – e.g. fake UN imagery, false claims about Baku’s relationships, invented Eurovision-Israel ties – clearly aimed to placate Turkish audiences while leaving official Ankara above the fray. ^{9 50 51}

Azerbaijan’s formal complaint. In an English-language APA piece, Azerbaijani editors asked why Turkey’s disinformation bodies remain silent when Azerbaijan is attacked – “despite constant refutations, the fake news continues”.

Why this is more corrosive than attacks on “adversaries”.

1. Audience overlap. Turkish and Azerbaijani publics consume much of the same media (language, platforms), so manipulative content travels faster and lodges deeper.
2. Triangular leverage. Stories casting doubt on Baku–Jerusalem or Baku–EU ties pressure Azerbaijan and simultaneously virtue-signal to Turkish audiences without requiring overt Ankara policy.
3. Deniable outsourcing. When “friendly” outlets carry the lie, Ankara avoids direct culpability. OC Media independently documented the same pattern and Israel-angle flourishes in certain hostile pieces.³³

Significance for Greece, Cyprus, Jerusalem. A tool once aimed at rivals now adapts for alliance management. Expect the same infrastructure – maps, regulatory influence, rapid rebuttal, cross-platform spread – to roll out on East Med dossiers, maritime claims, Cyprus gas governance, and Israel security operations.

IV. The Playbook (Summary)

Rapid “DMM debunk” to confer official certainty.

1. International translation via AA, TRT, multilingual bulletins.

Emotive saturation internally to pre-empt dissent.

1. Regulatory consequences for contrarian media (RTÜK, fines, license threats).

Doctrinal narrative (e.g. Mavi Vatan) normalized over time.

1. Opportunistic narrative hardening during crises.
2. Delegated amplification via “friendly” media to retain plausible deniability.
3. Versioning by audience – tailoring stories to EU, U.S., Arab, Turkic publics.

V. Recommendations for Greece, Cyprus & Israel (Highlights)

Where governments are already ahead (and should double-down)

Greece. Athens has put a clear, EU-aligned enforcement spine in place: under Law 5099/2024, the Hellenic Telecommunications & Post Commission (EETT) was designated Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) for the DSA and has already issued its first annual DSA report-a concrete, non-partisan step that many EU states have struggled to operationalise. In parallel, the government launched a national strategy to protect minors online (age-verification, parental controls, cooperation with platforms), signalling a preventive, welfare-oriented approach rather than punitive theatrics..^{52 53}

Cyprus. Nicosia formally designated ^{54 55} the Cyprus Radio-Television Authority (CRTA) as the national DSC (Council of Ministers decision; Official Gazette) and, in July 2025, enacted the national DSA law – moving from designation to full transposition with clear competences and penalties.  (The Commission’s 2025 pressure on late implementers only underscores how early compliance now matters for credibility and enforcement).⁵⁶

Israel. While not an EU member, Israel has developed government-run incident intake and hostile-content handling through the Israel National Cyber Directorate (INCD) – which in 2024 began tracking and reporting “hostile content” alongside cyber incidents – illustrating a practical state capacity to surface coordinated malign online activity during wartime. ⁵⁷Israel’s State Comptroller also audited the government’s preparedness for AI/deepfake-enabled propaganda, pushing for governance upgrades – a healthy sign of institutional self-correction. ^{58 59}

So what next? Build on these baselines with a GR–CY–IL joint cell: use the DSC levers (EETT/CRTA) for DSA systemic-risk flags; fuse Israel’s operational intake with Greek/Cypriot enforcement lanes; and publish rapid, multi-language, OSINT-anchored rebuttals under a shared attribution protocol.

• Pre-bunking: publish forward guides in Turkish, Azerbaijani, Greek, English to inoculate against common claims.
• OSINT rapid-response cell: timestamped attribution, image geolocation, narrative diagnostics.
• Narrative net-assessment: treat Blue Homeland maps as information weapons, not just cartography.
• Regulatory/diplomatic pressure: demand transparency from platforms when Turkish outlets impose “discover/shock” traffic changes.
• Azerbaijan channel: coordinate monitoring of triangular manipulations and help Baku with defensive trace pieces.

VI. What Is New Here

This paper also builds upon the broader European framework I outlined earlier in The Brussels Times (February 2025), where I argued that disinformation must be treated as a structural governance risk rather than a transient communication problem. That article – “The EU Must Tackle Disinformation to Prevent a European Crisis” – examined how misinformation undermines institutional trust in Brussels and erodes Europe’s decision-making resilience. The present study applies that systemic logic to a specific national case, showing how Turkey’s “anti-disinformation” machinery exemplifies the same pattern within a single-state ecosystem and its cross-border spillovers.

• The misattribution replication case (Israel Hayom → Turkish outlets → the identical error exposed Ankara’s playbook) as a forensic signal of narrative discipline.
• The Egypt vector shows how, even after rapprochement, Ankara’s Arabic-language messaging creates latent friction that raises the “narrative tax” on Cairo’s regional deterrence and mediation roles — proof that the machine no longer relies on antagonism but on selective soft-signal insertion.
• The India vector reveals a new triangular geometry of cooperation between Turkish, Pakistani and Chinese actors in information warfare  –  demonstrating how “narrative load-sharing” turns attention and tempo into costly operational variables for democracies such as New Delhi.
• Early detection of Azerbaijan “friendly-fire” disinformation as structural, not anomalous.
• Together these findings reposition Turkey’s disinformation complex as a trans-regional, adaptive ecosystem – capable of switching dialects, targets and alliances with the same underlying code of control.

A design lens for DMM as a policy implementer, not just fact checker.

• About the Author
  Shay Gal is a senior strategic advisor and analyst specializing in international security, defense policy, geopolitical crisis management, and strategic communications.
  He served as Vice President for External Relations at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and previously held senior advisory roles to Israeli government ministers, focusing on crisis management, policy formulation, and strategic influence.
  His work bridges geopolitics, information strategy, and leadership, offering actionable insights on how nations navigate power, perception, and diplomacy in times of uncertainty.
  Shay consults governments, senior military leaders, and international institutions on building resilience against disinformation and shaping coherent defense and communication strategies in complex environments.