Turkey
recently blocked access to Twitter following its Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s promise to “root out” the social
media platform. The ban is reported to be a response to recordings leaked
online that could dent the government’s reputation toward the country’s
upcoming elections. This has however not done much tothe usage of Twitter in the country as people have found ways and shared
instructions to access the service using text messages.
Apparently
a recording of Erdoğan having a
phone conversation with his son was leaked on YouTube. In the recording Erdoğan
speaks to his son, making plans to hidemoney, at least a $1 billion dollars in several houses. The Prime Ministry released a statement saying that the
recordings were “completely false” and will take action against those responsible
for the plot. Blocking Twitter therefore is a way of blocking people from
talking about the issue.
Turkish telecoms watchdog BTK said the
ban came because Twitter was breaching user’s privacy and was therefore made to
“avoid possible victimisation of citizens.”
However Erdoğan had previously made threats against sites such as Facebook and
YouTube. Erdoğan said “we would wipe out all of these,” as he addressed his
supporters at a rally.
Turkey has joined a
number of countries that have censored Twitter, which governments have a
tendency of blocking. China does not allow Twitter in the country and in Egypt
the site was inaccessible for a week during the uprisings in 2011. The social
media platform has become more of a tool for revolutions and to fight
government tyranny around the world.
News of the blocking
immediately spread across Twitter, even generating a trending hashtag, #TwitterisblockedinTurkey.
The site was blocked at a DNS level which is particularly easy to work around.
Ways to get past these restrictions started being shared across social networks.
The ban presents a
gloomy picture for Turkey as the country becomes more authoritarian and joins
countries such as Iran and South Korea that have put restrictions on Twitter.
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