Reading in Istanbul’s Maçka Democracy Park. Image – Getty iStockphoto: Aivita
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
At Wattpad: ‘We’re Trying To Find a Resolution’
Today (August 1) has been busy with many internationally welcomed reports of Türkiye’s participation in the largest Russian-American prisoner exchange since the Soviet era. The United States’ ambassador to Ankara, Jeff Flake, told CNN’s Pamela Brown, “The Turkish government played a very significant and useful role in this,” as one among seven nations involved, “just as they have throughout the Ukraine war, organizing prisoner swaps with Ukraine and Russia and then the grain deal.”
And yet Wattpad—the Toronto-based social writing and reading platform that says it has 90 million monthly users worldwide—appears to have been blocked from access in Türkiye since mid-July, according to reports.
Wattpad, since May 2021, has been owned by South Korea’s Naver, the home of Webtoon, a digital comics platform that launched its Nasdaq IPO in June. And while Turkish users have complained to Wattpad about losing access to the platform, Wattpad’s offices don’t seem to know why their service is being blocked, or how, or by whom. They have no confirmation that this is a government action, although some reports have spoken of an order from a court in Ankara. So far, a representative of the company says, Wattpad has been unsuccessful in finding an authority able to confirm, deny, and/or explain the situation.
“Constantly encountering restrictive situations prevents our youth in particular from thinking freely and confidently; eliminates their ability to express themselves comfortably; and creates a sense of anxiety in society in general.”Turkish Publishers Association
These points are made in a discussion today with a highly placed Wattpad source familiar with the situation who has spoken with Publishing Perspectives on condition of anonymity.
“We actually have no employees in Türkiye,” this source says, adding that the company didn’t know its service had been disrupted until Turkish customers’ complaints started to roll in last month. Since then, the company has been able to track a significant decline in interaction with the site in Türkiye.
But Wattpad, this representative says, has had no official notice of an action against its operation, let alone an explanation or a chance to remedy the situation.
In some regional accounts—the accuracy of which can’t be verified—there are mentions of unspecified content that may have been deemed inappropriate for young people. “But we remove anything that violates our terms of service,” the source says. “If there was such content reported to us, we would, of course, remove it. But we have no notice about what content may or may not have been seen” to fuel that aspect of so much “Internet speculation” around the apparent service outage.
“So we’re looking into options,” this source says. “We want to understand the process—and how to engage with the process—and that’s basically where we are. There’s not a lot we know at this stage, so it’s really difficult for us to help users understand what the time line could be [for service] to be restored, or to help them understand our efforts. We’re still working through what even needs to happen to engage in whatever process would help us respond.”
Türkiye’s Publishers: ‘A Sense of Anxiety’
International PEN on July 18 reported that a court in Ankara imposed an “arbitrary ban” on Wattpad on July 12. A similar account of the issue has been published by ArtDog Istanbul, a cultural magazine.
The Turkish Publishers Association issued a statement on the Wattpad disruption on July 17. Image: X
The Turkish Publishers Association has issued a strong condemnation of the disruption. The publishers agree with our source at Wattpad that there’s no understanding of what’s behind a break in service. They write, “No explanation has been made or stated regarding the reason for the access ban.”
Speaking in coordination with the Turkish Writers Union and PEN Türkiye, the publishers’ association writes, in part, “We have learned that Wattpad, an article-sharing platform—where young people in particular have the opportunity to share their own writings and read each other’s writings, and which provides new perspectives on reading habits through free production and sharing—has been closed to access by the decision of the Ankara 10th Criminal Court of Peace.
“Wattpad is particularly beneficial for young writers to be discovered and their books to be published, both in our country and around the world. Today we have many young writers in our country who were trained on Wattpad and whose books have been published by publishing houses, forming long lines of readers at book fairs and signings.
“After many experiences of access bans in our country, the fact that access to Wattpad has now been blocked by a court order creates an extremely negative situation. … We always say that such obstacles imposed on any stakeholder in the book world mean interference with the right to both write and read.
“Freedom of expression and the freedom to read and publish that comes with it are among the most decisive factors of being a democratic society. While these freedoms should be protected, constantly encountering restrictive situations prevents our youth in particular from thinking freely and confidently; eliminates their ability to express themselves comfortably; and creates a sense of anxiety in society in general, even when discussing daily issues.”
IPA’s Einarsson: ‘Restriction of the Freedom to Publish’
Kristenn Einarsson chairs the International Publishers Association‘s (IPA) and is the founding CEO of Norway’s World Expression Forum, WEXFO.
Kristenn Einarsson
He has issued a statement, saying, “This indiscriminate blocking of a whole literary platform is a clear restriction of the freedom to publish and continues the worrying trend in Türkiye to restrict the publication of books. We call on the authorities to unblock Wattpad immediately.”
And as many of our readers know, Einarsson and the Turkish publishers are not wrong to speak of a connection between the Web-based writings of Wattpad and the book business.
A decade ago, the Wattpad-born YA romance novel After by the American author Anna Todd went to Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books.
Five years after that, director Jenny Gage took her adaptation of the book to screens, with writers Susan McMartin and Tamara Chestna learning from a young woman from Texas as they worked on the filmscript.
Eventually, Todd would become an executive producer of her own work’s films.
Over the years, much of the content published on Wattpad has been the work of aspirational writers—some 92 percent of them classified by the company as either GenZ or Millennial, per Wattpad’s figures.
But even now, the site’s digitally delivered serial stories can propel a young writer into the traditional book market, picked up by an acquiring editor who not only sees talent in a work but a pathway to screen development that comes with a ready audience.
The cover of After notes that the online edition of Todd’s book has had more than 1 billion reads. Those are the “long lines of readers at book fairs and signings” the Turkish publishers refer to. And those long lines tend to turn up at box offices and streamers for their favorite stories, as well, hence filmmakers’ interest.
A recent example: We reported last month on Italy’s second-largest publisher, Gruppo editoriale Mauri Spagnol (GeMS) and its own Wattpad star author.
GeMS’ imprint Magazzini Salani is the publisher of the pseudonymous Erin Doom. Her new-adult hit Fabbricante di lacrime (The Tearsmith), has made her a Wattpad writer whose book became Italy’s No. 1 bestselling debut novel of 2022.
In director Allesadro Genovesi’s Netflix adaptation, The Tearsmith went on to become the first film from Italy to hit No. 1 in Netflix’s international rankings.
By April, Doom was a tremendous draw at the Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino, filling a theater with a rapt audience of fans, eager to know what Doom is doing next.
And at Wattpad, the representative we speak to says, “Other services have been subject to similar actions in Türkiye in the past. Facebook, Twitch, YouTube. We’re trying to find a resolution, an avenue that can help us connect with the right people in Türkiye, with the right officials, a way forward. Because we know we have a really passionate community of interest there.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on digital publishing is here, more on the Turkish market is here, more on Wattpad is here, and more on the “trinity of freedoms”—to publish, to read, and to free expression—is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.