14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter has officially been blocked off in Turkey, much to the disdain of free speech activists from all over the world.
The event comes just a few hours after the country’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to wipe out the social network.
While the official story is that Twitter has gone dark because it ignored requests made by Turkish courts to remove some links, the reality is quite likely much different. After all, this isn’t Turkey’s first effort to shut down Twitter in the country, especially since it’s been such an essential tool for protesters over the years.
The move taken by Turkish authorities is that much more important since the country is preparing for local elections on March 30. It was during an election rally that he addressed supporters promising to wipe out Twitter. “I don’t care what the international community says,” Erdogan bragged.
A last statement from the prime minister said that as long as Twitter failed to change its attitude of ignoring court rulings and not doing what was necessary according to the law, technically, there might not be a remedy but to block access.
The Turkish telecommunications authority (TIB) has four court rulings referencing Twitter.com suggesting that official action has been taken against the site.
There is no mention about what type of links Twitter has ignored orders to take down, but chances are that it wouldn’t really make a difference even if it complied. Twitter has fought for its users’ privacy and right to freedom of speech ever since its inception eight years ago, choosing to go to court rather than hand over its users’ identities or to remove comments that some people were offended by. Basically, Twitter is opposed to all types of censorship.
Neelie Kroes, EU commissioner for digital agenda, said that the Turkish Twitter block was groundless, pointless and cowardly. “Turkish people and international community will see this as censorship. It is,” she added.
Twitter is already looking into the reports about the blockage and has already issued a message on the topic, urging people in Turkey to send Tweets using mobile phone text messaging. This will enable them to continue using their voice to speak out about what’s happening inside the country via Twitter.
Twitter has some 12 million users in Turkey and has already noticed a significant decrease in traffic from Turkey.
Ever since the widespread disruption of Twitter in the country, users are protesting by using hashtags such as #TwitterisblockedinTurkey, #DictatorErdogan or #ErdoganBlocksTwitter.
Recently, Twitter faced some similar issues in Venezuela where its service went down for several hours during the civil confrontations in the country.