Turks woke up to a nasty surprise on Friday, August 2: access to the social network Instagram was blocked early this morning in the country, without official justification but after accusations of censorship from a senior Turkish official against the American platform. The decision was announced on its website by the Turkish Information and Communications Technology Authority (BTK), which did not provide any official explanation. One of its officials told a local media outlet that the blockage was linked to “criminal content” that the platform was asked “to remove within a certain time frame.”
Suspicion, however, immediately focused on accusations of “censorship” made by the Turkish presidency’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, who had sharply criticized Instagram on Wednesday, stating that it “prevents people from posting messages of condolence for the martyrdom of (Hamas leader Ismail) Haniyeh.” “This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censorship,” Fahrettin Altun denounced on the social network X.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared a day of national mourning for the former head of Hamas’ political wing, who was killed Wednesday in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel. Erdogan frequently resided in Turkey before October 7 and was due to be buried Friday in Qatar.
Turkish authorities deny
The Turkish Information and Communications Technology Authority has denied any action in connection with the Palestinian leader’s death: “We did not block access for this reason, there is no such thing,” one of its officials (on condition of anonymity) told the specialist website Medyascope. He claimed “insults to Atatürk,” the father of contemporary Turkey Mustafa Kemal, and “a series of crimes” ranging from “gambling to drugs” to sexual violence “on children.”
According to the official, the platform was asked to remove the offensive content “within a certain time frame” – which he did not specify. “If the problem is not resolved, we have the right to block it automatically,” he added. According to Turkish media, Instagram has more than 50 million subscribers in Turkey, among 85 million inhabitants.
“Arbitrary” censorship
“Access to Instagram has been blocked […] around 3am this morning following an administrative injunction. The decision was made either by the presidency or by a ministry. The BTK must have its decision approved by a judge. No judge should approve such a request,” wrote Yaman Akdeniz, a Turkish digital law expert, on the social network X. “The censorship imposed on Instagram is arbitrary and can never have an explanation or justification,” the expert added.
“Refugees” on X, Internet users compete in humor to mock the decision, with photos of congested subway trains and corridors: “X when the Turks will wake up and discover that Instagram is blocked” under the hashtag #Instagramdown. “Instagram is blocked in Turkey, life is over”, writes the user “CringeOfMaster”, under the portrait of a tearful man.
Above all, several of them who had a VPN to connect from an address outside Turkey revealed that a message from President Erdogan, wishing a “Happy Friday” with a photo of a minaret to his subscribers, had been quickly deleted after the cut. “The task of (BTK) is not to cut the Internet, but to make it work faster. Turkey ranks 111th in the world in terms of Internet speed,” noted Cem Say, a professor of computer engineering, on X.
Regular blockages
Turkish authorities have repeatedly resorted to temporarily blocking social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter (formerly known as X), in recent years, usually after attacks. The authorities also blocked the online participatory encyclopedia Wikipedia from April 2017 to January 2020, due to two articles linking Ankara to extremist organizations.
Even though Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is regularly accused of attacks on freedom of expression, this decision had caused a shock due to the unprecedented quantity of content made inaccessible. The American giant Meta, parent company of Facebook, had announced in mid-April that it was suspending its social network Threads in Turkey after a decision by the Turkish Competition Authority aimed at preventing the sharing of data with its other platform Instagram.