#Secim2023: First Public Dataset for Studying Turkish General Election

TL;DR

This paper introduces Secim2023, the first public dataset focused on Turkish social media during the 2023 elections, enabling research on political discourse, manipulation, and election integrity.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive, regularly updated social media dataset for studying Turkish elections, supporting analysis of political networks and misinformation.

Findings

Dataset facilitates analysis of social and communication networks.

Supports detection of election-related manipulation.

Aids in understanding social media's role in election dynamics.

Abstract

In the context of Turkey's upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections ("se\c{c}im" in Turkish), social media is playing an important role in shaping public debate. The increasing engagement of citizens on social media platforms has led to the growing use of social media by political actors. It is of utmost importance to capture the upcoming Turkish elections, as social media is becoming an essential component of election propaganda, political debates, smear campaigns, and election manipulation by domestic and international actors. We provide a comprehensive dataset for social media researchers to study the upcoming election, develop tools to prevent online manipulation, and gather novel information to inform the public. We are committed to continually improving the data collection and updating it regularly leading up to the election. Using the Secim2023 dataset, researchers can examine the social and communication networks between political actors, track current trends, and investigate emerging threats to election integrity. Our dataset is available at: https://github.com/ViralLab/Secim2023_Dataset