Turkey’s ban on Twitter and Youtube

Last week, the Turkish government had imposed a ban on Twitter, on the grounds that Twitter had failed to comply with a legal order, which requested the suspension of an account accusing a former senior official of corruption.

Several complaints were filed to courts, alleging that the ban was illegal and unconstitutional.

Despite that the court had ordered a suspension of this controversial ban, Twitter site still remained inaccessible. Locals had found ways to circumvent the ban by tweeting through virtual private networks (VPN), which had seen a rise in downloads of over 33,000% in the 24 hours after the ban. Twitter had also given out instructions of how to tweet through texting, which requires no Internet access.

Meanwhile, Turkey had blocked access to YouTube following a leakage of an audio recording of government officials’ discussion of possible military operations in Syria. These two moves had been widely criticised for eroding the Turkish citizens’ freedom of speech and expression.