Cropped Videos and Distorted Statements
Cutting a Sentence in the Middle: How Are Cropped Videos Produced?
Fact
This page is not a reply to a claim; it is the common ground of the other pages under this heading. What it describes is not a subject but a method: how a cropped recording is produced.
The strength of the method lies here — what was said is not changed, what is understood is. Because not a single word is added and not a single word is taken away, the recording cannot be dismissed as "fake" either. It is done in three steps.
One: an excerpt is taken. Three to five seconds are lifted out of a twenty-minute talk. The sentence stands exactly as it was; what disappears is the reason given before it and the conclusion drawn after it. The place where the cut is made is usually the place that carries the meaning of the sentence.
Two: the date is hidden or shifted. The same sentence tells an entirely different story once the date above it is moved two weeks further on. An assessment turns into a prophecy, a warning into a threat — and all without a single letter of it being touched.
Three: the addressee is changed. A word said about a small group behaving in a particular way is passed on as though it had been said to a whole section of society. Once the information about "whom it was said for" drops out of the sentence, all that is left is a harsh adjective.
Kuytul's advice on this matter is a single sentence, and it is that sentence which would close the debate: "When you hear something about us, watch the whole of it, do not watch the shortened versions."
The documented examples of the method are taken up one by one under this heading: was the phrase "his pen has been broken" an insult?, how the date of the same speech was changed and the "he called the people who took to the streets murderers" claim.
The first step: three to five seconds
Cropping is more effective than fabricating. A fabricated statement falls apart as soon as the recording is asked for; a cropped statement really was said, and there is a recording of it too. The one who objects is left holding only the sentence "there is more to it", which sounds weak to someone who has watched the short video.
The examples are always cut to the same measure. Three or four seconds were taken from an answer given to a question about the downing of the Russian aircraft, and what was left was a sentence defending Russia; the part that follows, "of course, God forbid, if there is a war, of course we will all fight against Russia together", is not in the excerpt. A single sentence was taken from the twelve-minute military assessment made before the Afrin operation, and the warning in the speech as a whole, "it is as though America were dragging Turkey into a quagmire there before everyone's eyes", became invisible.
The second step: moving the date
This step is less well known and does more work. The meaning of a speech depends on when it was made. The difference between saying the same words two weeks before an event and saying them one day before it is the difference between foresight and accusation.
That is why, in cropped recordings, the date is either not given at all or given wrongly. Both examples are documented. A few sentences taken from the recording of a talk dated 29 April 2011 were reported seven years later as though they were a newly made statement. A political assessment dated 1 July 2016 was moved to 14 July 2016 and placed on the eve of the night of the coup. It is not easy for the reader to check this, because the recording's own date is not visible in the excerpt.
The third step: changing the addressee
The third way is to leave the sentence as it is and change whom it was said to. While assessing a decree with the force of law concerning the night of 15 July 2016, Kuytul said plainly that those who took to the streets against the coup could not be held guilty; he used his harsh word only for those who beheaded soldiers who had surrendered and who had for the most part been brought there after being told there was a drill. The first part is not in the excerpt; what is left is a single adjective that looks as if it had been said about the people who took to the streets. This example is taken up on a separate page together with its documents: the "he called the people who took to the streets murderers" claim.
The evidence that the method works
The clearest example showing the effect of a cropped recording is the account of someone who believed the slander. A citizen who saw the short video circulating on social media was troubled by it, although they did not know Kuytul at all, and filed a complaint with BİMER. Afterwards they watched the full recording and the denials that followed it, saw that the video was an edit and that cutting out certain parts had turned what was meant into its opposite, and withdrew the complaint.
This single incident shows two things at once: the excerpt is effective enough to mislead even a person of good will; the recording in full is clear enough to undo that effect. The only difference between them is the length of time watched.
Why did no one ask for the original?
Throughout the period in which the cropped recordings were being made into news, no news organisation asked Kuytul or the foundation "what did you mean by this". Yet this is the cheapest way of verifying, and it is a rule of the journalistic profession itself.
Kuytul has directed the same criticism at the theologians who criticise him: a scholar of fiqh must examine the matter like a judge before passing judgement; watching a half-minute video and not watching the twenty-minute talk is not examining.
A comparison, with the documents, of two claims produced by this method: was the phrase "his pen has been broken" an insult to the President? — the "he knew about the coup in advance" claim and the changed date.