Turkey’s Information and Technology regulator has announced that access to Instagram has been blocked across the country.
The Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK) of Turkey announced the restriction on its website on August 2.
The BTK communications authority said in a post on its website that “instagram.com has been blocked by a decision on the date of 02/08/2024” without adding further details.
The sudden restriction has left millions of users unable to use the app, with authorities providing no official explanation or timeline for the ban.
According to Turkish media, there are more than 50 million users signed up to Instagram in Turkey, out of a population of 85 million.
The move follows criticism from Turkish communications official Fahrettin Altun, who accused Instagram of censoring condolence posts related to the death of Ismail Haniyeh, a prominent figure in the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of the armed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was killed in Tehran on Wednesday in an attack blamed on Israel.
Altun, who serves as the communications director for the Turkish presidency, denounced the action as “censorship” and criticized Instagram for not citing any policy violations.
“This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censure,” Altun said on X.
Meta Platforms Inc., Instagram’s parent company, has not yet responded to the ban or Altun’s comments.
This is not the first time that Turkish authorities have blocked access to social media sites.
Wikipedia was blocked between April 2017 and January 2020 over two articles that alleged a link between the presidency and extremism.
That caused shock in a country where Erdogan’s government is often accused of attacking civil freedoms due to the amount of online information that became inaccessible.
In April, Facebook owner, Meta, suspended its Threads social network in Turkey following a decision by authorities to prevent it from sharing information with Instagram.
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