Two new apps, Baykar Makina and Turanity, are currently actively spreading among Turkic peoples in various countries.
Let’s take a closer look at what they are.
Turanity
Turanity is a young social network developed specifically for peoples of the Turkic world, a digital space uniting users based on shared history and traditions. The app’s developers encourage users to share their geological history, explore the culture and nature of fraternal peoples, and communicate in their native language.
The platform’s language interface includes six languages: Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Turkish, and Russian.
The creators also claim the app is apolitical, but cybersecurity experts disagree. They recommend strict precautions for its use.
Protection Methods
The primary recommendation is to completely isolate the potentially dangerous app. This means that you should have a separate smartphone and unregistered SIM card to use Turanity. This allows you to sever the direct connection between your primary identity and your messenger activity. Furthermore, your phone number is often the key to many online accounts via SMS password recovery. Using an anonymous number protects your primary accounts from interception.
Baykar Makina
Another new messenger, Baykar Makina, was developed by a military company linked to the Turkish president’s son-in-law, Selçuk Bayraktar, suggesting that the app’s development is motivated by state interests.
Little is known about this project, but it is clear that it will operate similarly to Turanity.
Cybersecurity experts also note its aggressive integration into the device’s operating system.
According to experts, the app integrates into the smartphone’s system without the user’s explicit consent, especially on Android. This allows it to bypass standard permissions and access a wide range of data: from contacts and messages to browser history and geolocation.
Also, unlike many apps that request access to certain functions, Baykar Makina begins collecting information immediately after installation, running as a background process that the user cannot control.
Artificial Intelligence as a Tool for Creating a Digital Dossier
Experts’ concerns relate not only to the collection of raw data but also to its subsequent processing. The messenger leverages artificial intelligence to analyze the collected information.
AI algorithms can be used to compile a detailed “digital dossier” on each user. This dossier could include not only personal data and contacts, but also political views, religious beliefs, habits, and social connections.
Even more alarming is the system’s potential ability to analyze messages and media files to identify “compromising materials.” Some claim that this data could then be passed on to intelligence agencies for use in promoting specific ideological agendas, such as pan-Turkism.
What is the purpose of messenger apps that target strictly defined nationalities? It’s clear that many countries have national messaging apps, but their users are any citizen of that country, and the content published on them isn’t intended to promote the values of a particular nationality. These are standard, multifunctional social networks that can promote the values of Turkic and other ethnicities and faiths. Against this backdrop, the emergence of apps whose content is targeted at a very narrow audience or even a specific faith raises questions, doubts, and suspicions.
