Access to various internet platforms in Turkey restricted

In Turkey, access to various internet platforms has apparently been severely restricted. This affects not only social networks and messengers, but also popular services such as YouTube and X, formerly Twitter, according to the internet watchdog NetBlocks. This is likely to be related to the current civil protests against the arrest of a rival of the ruling President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and numerous other people.

Istanbul's mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is considered a promising challenger to Erdogan, but was arrested yesterday – a few days before his planned election as the presidential candidate of the largest opposition party in Turkey. The Turkish judiciary accuses him of membership of a criminal organization and corruption, among other things, according to the state news agency Anadolu, citing the public prosecutor's office. His party speaks of a “civil coup” with which Erdogan's government wants to eliminate a political opponent.

The German government criticized the arrests, and numerous people in Turkey took to the streets to protest against Imamoglu's arrest. Despite a ban, thousands of people gathered in front of the city administration in Istanbul alone amid a large police presence, as reported by a dpa reporter on the ground. In Ankara, there were clashes between students and the police at the local ODTÜ University. Demonstrators are also said to have been taken into custody.

YouTube, Instagram, and Messenger blocked

At the same time, Turkey has apparently also restricted and filtered some internet services, presumably to disrupt the protesters' communication and make access to independent reporting more difficult. NetBlocks lists Telegram, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter/X and TikTok on X and Mastodon as services that were in some cases barely accessible or not accessible at all within Turkey. However, there has been no official confirmation of any internet blocks by the Turkish government to date.

This is not the first case of this kind in the country. In August 2024, Instagram was blocked in Turkey so that users in Turkey could not access Instagram without a VPN. The block could be related to the killing of a Hamas leader. At the time, Turkey, which maintains good relations with the Islamist Hamas, accused Instagram of blocking messages of condolence for the killed foreign head of Hamas. The platform was accused of censorship.

Just a few months later, in October 2024, Discord was blocked in Turkey, but not for political reasons. Turkey suspected some Discord users of child sexual abuse, but the platform operator refused to hand over IP addresses and other data of the suspects. As a result, access to Discord was blocked in the country.

(fds)