Turkey banned social media services from showing “graphic images of a deadly bombing”, which saw at least 32 people killed in Suruc. Then, for it not fully complying, it blocked Twitter.
The blockage of Twitter is temporary until all images are taken down, a Turkish official told AP.
All images of the actual explosion were outlawed, with a raft of sites ordered to take down any offending content.
Apparently just 107 pieces of content were ordered to be taken down from Twitter, with just half of those actually being removed, “which led to the censure”, according to Hürriyet Daily News.
Turkish Twitter ban, nothing new
This is nothing new in Turkey, with a similar situation happening as recently as March, when the social media giant was forced to comply with the country’s request to remove photographs of an Istanbul prosecutor held at gunpoint by far-left militants.
“Twitter has agreed to shut down accounts and remove images relating to last week’s hostage taking. The website will reopen to access very shortly,” a Turkish official said at the time, echoing reports this past hour that Twitter will be reinstated after similar acquiescence.
News site Hürriyet alleges that Turkish media faced more than 150 gag orders between 2010 and 2014, for topics ranging from deadly attacks to match-fixing claims.
Turkish Twitter ban, a global trend
A year previously, Twitter was again pressured into shutting down accounts that tweeted offending materials.
At the time, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a ban in reaction to tweets containing wiretapped recordings that allegedly exposed a corruption scandal.
The site was blocked for two weeks until the Ankara administrative court stepped in and put a stop to it.
Today, #TwitterBlockinTurkey started trending worldwide, with many people less than impressed.
Main image, via Shutterstock
