President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan instructed the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to conduct work on new developments, including metaverse, cryptocurrencies and social media.

In a meeting held Tuesday, the president told fellow party staff that they should analyze the phenomena with considerable implications for the future, Hürriyet daily reported.

He especially instructed the AK Party to carry out meticulous work to learn more about the metaverse and organize a forum which he would also attend. The forum would focus on details about metaverse, cryptocurrencies and how purchases are made on social media.

Investors have already spent millions of dollars purchasing virtual land on metaverse, a shared digital platform that involves using virtual reality or augmented reality.

Problems regarding the purchase of real estate, including land and assets, such as Turkey’s historical heritage like the House of Virgin Mary and museums, will also be addressed as part of the work, as party staff agreed such purchases made by foreigners could create issues in the future.

In December, Turkey hosted Stratcom 2021, an international gathering to address effective policies, issues, challenges and trends of the strategic communication ecosystem​​​. The two-day summit brought together 112 speakers from over 30 countries and a distinguished audience of over 3,000.

Topics discussed at the summit included strategic communication, public diplomacy, digital diplomacy, the metaverse, nation branding, disinformation, new media, open intelligence, new communication technologies and trends, strategic marketing and political communication.

The president had previously warned that the spread of disinformation has become a global problem and it also poses a threat at the national level.