ISTANBUL: Turkey blocked entry to the Instagram social media community on Friday (Aug 2), with out giving any official clarification, following censorship accusations towards the US firm from a high-ranking Turkish official.
Many customers residing in Turkey complained on the X platform that they may not refresh their Instagram feed, a problem verified by AFP journalists.
The BTK communications authority introduced on its web site on Friday that the Meta-owned platform had been blocked.
It didn’t give a cause however a BTK official advised Turkish media it was due to “felony content material” on Instagram that the latter had been requested to withdraw.
The president’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, had on Wednesday accused Instagram of censure, saying it was “stopping individuals from publishing messages of condolence for the martyr Haniyeh“.
Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of the Palestinian group Hamas and an in depth ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an assault blamed on Israel.
Erdogan decreed a nationwide day of mourning in reminiscence of Haniyeh, who performed a key function in talks geared toward ending practically 10 months of conflict in Gaza.
“This can be a very clear and apparent try at censure,” Altun mentioned on X.
An nameless BTK supply denied the transfer was as a result of Instagram blocking posts about Haniyeh, telling web site Medyascope that it was over “insults to Ataturk”, the founding father of contemporary Turkey, and “crimes” together with “drug video games (and) paedophilia”.
He mentioned the platform could be blocked completely if it did not resolve the issue.
