Ashoka Mini Gala @ Salt Galata

On the 10th of April 2018 , as the Social Entrepreneurship Club, we had the chance to attend the “Mini” Ashoka Gala at Salt Istanbul, in which the speakers talked about “truth” in 21st century. The event has started with a speech from Itır Erhart, founder of Açık Açık and Adım Adım, who emphasized that our “reality” is not defined by the TV shows we watch and the news we read. Following her, Alexios Mantzarlis, director of International Fact Checking Network, focused on the increasing need to check the information obtained from media.

After being inspired by all of these speeches, we were introduced to the new Ashoka fellow Mehmet Atakan Foça, founder of Teyit.org. Teyit.org is an organization that fact-check the news and the information provided in the internet junk to prevent people from being controlled by fake news. Even though it has only been 1.5 years since the organization had started to work, it had a remarkable effect in Turkish social media users and they had lots of positive feedback about their service.

Being inspired after this gala, we now plan to continue being in contact with Mehmet Atakan Foça about his works and we aim to propagate the importance of fact-checking, in a way using our muscles for suspicion more against social media, in our school.