Twitter back in Turkey: ISTANBUL, After a rush of online criticism of the government’s response to this week’s tragic earthquake, Twitter was blocked on major Turkish mobile providers for at least 12 hours in an outage that ended early Thursday.
The social media platform was once more accessible at around five in the morning (0200 GMT).
On Wednesday, Twitter was first throttled across all significant cell phone providers in the nation before being entirely prohibited, according to online watchdog netblocks.org. By employing VPN services to mask a user’s location, the website continued to function.
After Monday’s 7.8-magnitude earthquake, which also killed at least 15,000 people in neighbouring Syria, the nation is still reeling.
Turkish social media is flooded with remarks from users who are dissatisfied with the state of search and rescue operations in their areas.
In the run-up to a pivotal election on May 14 in which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attempt to extend his two-decade rule, officials have repeatedly warned against circulating false information.
Following a videoconference discussion between Turkish officials and Twitter executives on Thursday, Netblocks.org announced access has been restored.
Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, tweeted: “Twitter has been told by the Turkish government that access will be reenabled shortly.” This prompted the restoration.
Omer Fatih Sayan, the deputy minister of infrastructure for Turkey, said in a tweet on Thursday that he had spoken with Twitter executives and “reminded them of their responsibilities to our country after this disaster,” and that Turkiye anticipated greater cooperation in the “fight against disinformation.”
During national emergencies and safety incidents, Turkiye has already imposed restrictions on social media.
Since the earthquake, 18 people have been imprisoned by the police for making “provocative” online comments that criticised the government’s reaction.
What will we do, you ask?
Celebrities and opposition figures in Turkiye worried that the lack of Twitter could scuttle rescue operations and aid to the less fortunate.
Leader of the secular main opposition CHP party Kemal Kilicdaroglu said, “Let’s stop this shame immediately.”
We are aware of everything they are trying to conceal.
Meral Aksener, the leader of the nationalist opposition Iyi Party, stated on Wednesday that Twitter was necessary “to transmit the needs of earthquake victims.”
However, the apparent decision by the government to ban Twitter in the midst of a serious national crisis had effects that went far beyond politics.
Haluk Levent, a Turkish rock artist with 7.2 million followers on Twitter and a non-profit organisation dedicated to assisting those in need, tweeted: “Err, what are we going to do now?”
The Twitter outage occurred as Erdogan visited two of the most severely affected areas in Turkey.
He said that the government’s response to the accident had “shortcomings,” but he also promised to step up his efforts to assist the victims.
“Erdogan, during his visit to the badly affected Hatay province, proclaimed that preparing for a tragedy like this is impossible.”