Published on: August 3, 2024
Turkey has banned access to Instagram on Friday, saying the Meta-owned social media app failed to comply with its laws and rules.
Turkey’s national regulatory agency for communications, the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), abruptly restricted access to Instagram from within the country earlier in the day.
At the time, the agency didn’t offer any explanation for the move or indicated how long the platform would remain inaccessible.
“Instagram has been blocked by a decision dated 02.08.2024,” the BTK wrote on its website.
Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu later issued a statement saying Turkey had “warned Instagram about certain offences. We want some rules to be followed … We intervene when they disregard legal rules and public sensitivities.”
“We are in contact with them. Our sensitivities are clear, as soon as they correct those shortcomings, we will remove the ban. This is a country with laws and rules,” Uraloglu added.
The statement didn’t point to any specific shortcomings.
The ban follows comments made by Fahrettin Altun, Turkey’s presidential communications director, who on Wednesday accused Instagram of censorship. Altun criticized the platform, owned by Meta, for allegedly suppressing “messages of condolence for Haniyeh’s martyrdom without any justification,” referring to Ismail Haniyeh, a senior leader of Hamas who was at the forefront of the group’s cease-fire negotiations, who was assassinated in Tehran.
“This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censure,” Altun said on social media platform X, vowing to “continue to defend freedom of expression against these platforms, which have repeatedly demonstrated that they serve the global system of exploitation and injustice.”
While the incident did prompt Turkish President Erdogan to declare a day of mourning on Friday, there is no official confirmation that this was the reason for the Instagram ban in Turkey.
Meanwhile, the independent media outlet Medyascope reported that Instagram’s ban was linked to its failure to remove illegal content, including material related to “the sexual abuse of a child,” “insulting Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of Turkey,” and content promoting “gambling and drugs.” The site quoted a BTK official, speaking anonymously, as the source.