Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan orders Twitter to be banned across the country. Twitter was blocked just after midnight in Turkey on Thursday, according to reports.
Twitter has been an essential means of communication and organization in Turkey. Those who tried to access Twitter from Turkey got a notice from Turkey’s telecommunications regulator that states court orders allowing the government to ban Twitter.
During the Occupy Gezi protests in 2013, Erdoğan criticized all the social media calling it “the worst menace to society.” This ban is imposed just before the local elections in Istanbul on March 30 and shortly after the February protests in Taksim Square in Istanbul against a controversial Internet law. The new law makes bans such as this illegal.
European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes criticized the ban on her Twitter account as “groundless, pointless, cowardly.”
Erdoğan threatened two weeks ago to ban Facebook and YouTube along with Twitter, according to Reports.
After incriminating audio recordings revealing corruption inside his government popped up on these social media platform, Erdoğan said his enemies were abusing the platforms.
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